This is one of the most challenging topics for commons governance. Information on pollution and its sources is costly to identify. Polluters have few reasons for engaging in collective action to address the public bads they are producing. Yet, what roles can and does self-governance play in addressing such problems? Is self-governance better matched with state regulation or markets to satisfactorily address water pollution? 

• Heavy polluters – water protection management in industrial regions and in the mining sector: approaches, solutions, future scenarios.
• Invisible intruders – contaminants of emerging concerns, i.e. micro-pollutants, in our water bodies: how to manage the small and how to raise awareness of it?
• Supersaturation of phosphorus and nitrate – how to tackle one of the nine planetary boundaries?
• Agriculture’s footprint on water – governing pesticide use.
• Acute accidents – Mauritius, the Gulf of Mexico, Siberia, the Rio Doce, and many others – how to learn from the past to avoid future damages to aquatic and marine ecosystems?
• Disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged communities.

Access to water is a basic human right but water for human uses is increasingly scarce because of increases in population, industrial pollution, and climate change impacts, and the global south is especially vulnerable. This has put stress on water commons in lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and aquifer recharge and governance challenges are pronounced because water flows across jurisdictional boundaries, from local to international. Less flow of water in rivers, unabated extraction of water, excessive agriculture, industrial and municipal consumption has led to a drop in the water table. Considerable mindfulness is needed for sustainable use of water commons.

• Water scarcity, and single-source control, disputes, and collective action for inter and intrastate conflict resolution
• Threats to the world’s largest river basin systems: Infrastructure, dams, climate change, navigation, and over-extraction
• Challenges to freshwater and ecosystem commons
• Agriculture, industrial and municipal water consumption, sustainable strategies and conservation technologies, and water treatment
• Challenges to access to potable water to communities, including commercialization of potable water, greywater usage, and water conservation.

We are already facing the impact of the global rise in temperature with severe forest fires in California, Australia or Siberia, coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, and a drastic decline of the Arctic ice, to name just a few. Responses to climate change have traditionally relied on the development of new and more grey infrastructure — such as dams and reservoirs to regulate flooding and seawalls to combat sea level rise; but what about different forms of soft infrastructure and green infrastructure for providing for protection? How do current governance systems manage interdependent infrastructures? How can governance structures and learning processes help to anticipate climate change impacts on water resources and human livelihoods depending on them?

• Protection against water as a commons – How to govern the absence or excess of water?
• Collective action in the face of sudden events (i.e. flooding or storm surge).
• Collective action in the face of slow-occurring crises (i.e. sea-level rise or drought) – how to anticipate their impact and handle the change of landscapes caused by these events?
• Preparing for climate change – managing the reduction of water use and water collection and organizing water filtration from the small to the big scale
• Governance of wastewater.

Governing transboundary water resources poses significant collective action challenges for governments.  As an example, the River Nile basin is shared by more than 10 countries that are dependent on the Nile system for water, this dependence can be a source of conflict between upper riparian and lower riparian users. Many approaches have emerged in response, from polycentricity to Integrated Water Resources Management, yet limitations exist in their definition, implementation, and assessment. These limitations have recently heightened, as national-level governments (like the U.S. federal government) have attempted to modify legislation aimed to protect water resources, leaving local governments with the responsibility of developing alternative mechanisms to protect water quality and quantity.

• Water governance across scales (i.e. across jurisdictions, communities, uses).
• Bringing the (local) government back – Local and regional governance in the face of national-scale deregulation.
• Governance across the water cycle (i.e. surface, groundwater, clouds)
• Governance across sectors (food, energy, water)

From its inception, the commons literature has paid close attention to indigenous knowledge for identifying instances of commons self-governance. As our climate rapidly changes due to human action, governments renege on environmental protections, and markets crowd out resources, how are indigenous communities defending traditional ways of life and responding to calls for environmental justice? How are indigenous communities adapting and mobilizing to defend traditional knowledge?

• How can different perceptions of water (as a relatively ubiquitous resource of economic value vs. as a way of life) be incorporated into an effective water governance framework?
• Indigenous activism and environmental justice – current frictions between native communities and government & market pressures that jeopardize traditional ways of life. How are these struggles manifested in different regions of the world?
• Traditional knowledge and climate change – how are native communities responding to changing water landscapes?
• Sustainable water use practices – learning from indigenous knowledge and experience.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals include access to clean water and sanitation. Although, by its nature, water flows across uses and users, its management has often been segmented, particularly between so-called “economically productive” uses (such as irrigation or industrial use) and “domestic” uses.  The former often involve mostly men, while Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programs target women, who are often most responsible for and affected by insufficient domestic supplies and sanitation.  How can taking a gendered approach to water as a commons help overcome these divides?  Possible topics on this theme include:

• Gendered roles, responsibilities, and rights to water: How are men’s and women’s rights and responsibilities with regard to water compatible with their differential roles and preferences? How does gender intersect with other aspects of marginality, such as caste or ethnicity in rights to clean water?
• Gendered analysis of participation in water governance–across water use sectors and types of governance arrangements: What roles do women and men play in managing and governing diverse water sources and uses, how can women’s participation be enhanced, and how do women as decision makers make a difference for achieving sustainability of water uses
• WASH as a gendered commons: The public health aspects of WASH are a public good.  Although numerous studies note the inequities and challenges facing women and girls in manually providing water for household uses, in unsafe sanitation, and in caring for sick family members, achieving desired WASH outcomes requires participation by both men and women. How can insights from commons research contribute to these outcomes.