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. 2025 Sep 15;12(5):e70035. doi: 10.1002/wat2.70035

(De)centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions of Infrastructure, Governance, and Operations

Alicia Dailey Cooperman 1, Jenny Linder Rempel 2, Ellis Adjei Adams 3, Alida Cantor 4, Manuela Muñoz Fuerte 5, Jeremiah Osborne‐Gowey 6, Nicole J Wilson 7, Cassandra L Workman 8, Melissa Beresford 9, Leila M Harris 10,11, Linda E Méndez‐Barrientos 12, Sameer H Shah 13, Amber Wutich 14, Justin Stoler 15,✉
PMCID: PMC12452054  PMID: 40988935

ABSTRACT

Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic contexts. Emphasizing the importance of delineating the scale of analysis, we highlight distinct system configurations and the prevalence of hybridity. Increased specificity about dimensions and scale can clarify how the character of, or changes to, a given system impact users, which is critical to assessing their implications for water security, sustainability, and equity. We conclude with recommendations for future research to analyze the opportunities and challenges associated with different water system configurations.

This article is categorized under:

  • Human Water > Water Governance

Keywords: centralization, decentralization, governance, infrastructure, operations & maintenance

Schematic of key dimensions visualized as a cube with governance, infrastructure, and operations & maintenance as the three axes with “Decentralized” and “Centralized” on each end. The cube is surrounded by a circle reflecting the broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic context. We note that some water provision systems exhibit hybridity within and across dimensions; that is, a given water provision system may not fit into a specific “point” in the schematic.

graphic file with name WAT2-12-e70035-g001.jpg

1. Introduction

In pursuit of water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 (safe drinking water for all), the centralization and decentralization of water systems are variously presented both as solutions and as obstacles to advancing equity and sustainability (e.g., Stoler et al. 2022; Dobbin et al. 2023; Mullin 2020). In practice, however, water systems involve linked dimensions, such as infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance (O&M), and (de)centralization processes can operate differently within and across dimensions. For example, a scholar might refer to a “decentralized water system,” but decentralized infrastructure does not inherently involve decentralized governance or O&M, and many systems include hybridity within and across dimensions. To understand how systems work in practice, scholars should continue moving beyond the binary of water system centralization and decentralization.

In this primer, we further outline differences in centralization or decentralization processes across three key dimensions. Infrastructure is typically understood as the physical and/or digital system that “abstracts, treats, transports, and stores water” (Schwartz et al. 2015, 33). Governance is often understood as the processes, institutions, and mechanisms by which society (or elements thereof) makes decisions about how to use or allocate water, which can include formal rules and informal norms, as well as actors and arenas beyond formally sanctioned governance spaces (Ostrom 1990; Bakker 2003). Operations and maintenance (O&M) typically refers to who or what monitors, operates, and fixes the infrastructure on an ongoing basis (WHO 2018). These definitions are nonetheless contested (e.g., Carse 2016).

We examine variation in (de)centralization across dimensions and encourage scholars analyzing water systems to clarify dimension(s) of analysis, specify the scale(s) of observation, and consider the broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic contexts within which water systems operate. Processes to centralize or decentralize elements of water systems may affect users' immediate access to safely managed drinking water services (SDG Indicator 6.1.1), depending on the dimension and scale under consideration. For example, decentralized features can coexist within centralized ones depending on the scale of observation (e.g., household filters within community water systems, domestic wells within regional and federal governance systems). In two sidebars, we outline water system configurations in urban Malawi and rural United States. This primer highlights the complex ways that decentralization or centralization processes interact to inform needed advances in household water security: safe, affordable, reliable, acceptable water for a thriving life (Jepson et al. 2017).

1.1. Different Approaches to the Same Key Terms

Scholars and practitioners conceive of (de)centralization for water provision in diverse ways that often vary by field, leading to conflicting understandings of the benefits and challenges of varied system configurations. Engineers and sustainability experts often advocate for decentralized infrastructure to fill existing gaps in access (Leigh and Lee 2019; Stoler et al. 2022). Policy and planning sectors at times promote decentralized water governance to engage local users in decision‐making (Cohen 2012), while in other contexts, centralized and regionalized governance are promoted to reduce inequalities in safe drinking water access (Dobbin et al. 2023; Hansen et al. 2020). The public health community has long advocated for centralized O&M and water quality monitoring (Rahman et al. 2011), and development practitioners commonly promote decentralized household‐level O&M to improve water security where centralized provision has failed (Bradley and Bartram 2013). Recent studies examine a range of “Modular, Adaptive, and Decentralized” (MAD) technologies, institutions, and social practices that store, produce, supply, or treat water, ranging from point‐of‐use water treatment to rainwater harvesting (Stoler et al. 2022; Thomson, Stoler, et al. 2024; Wutich et al. 2023). Scholars across fields thus often focus on distinct dimensions (i.e., infrastructure, governance, O&M), yet generally do not specify how they relate.

Scholars in geography and planning urge attentiveness to the scale at which water and environmental services are provided (Cohen and McCarthy 2015; Newig and Moss 2017; Mullin 2020). Scale and perspective shape analysis and interpretation (Macpherson et al. 2024). For example, a small water system's infrastructure could be considered decentralized (relative to large urban networks) or centralized (relative to domestic wells). In addition, state efforts to purportedly decentralize resource governance may actually recentralize it from the users' perspective (Birkenholtz 2009, 2015). Relevant spatial scales could range from households and neighborhoods to larger watershed‐based scales (e.g., river basins, groundwater basins) or political management units (e.g., groundwater management agencies).

The dimension and scale under consideration can shape a policy's effectiveness and impacts on equity and sustainability. They shape how policymakers might pursue new regulatory policies for (de)centralized water systems (Dobbin et al. 2023; Hacker and Binz 2021). Centralized, decentralized, or hybrid elements put different responsibilities and pressures on end users, managers, and operators (Arora et al. 2015; McFarlane and Harris 2018; Roque et al. 2023). Even though outcomes will not always be consistent, greater specificity in this regard will enable scholars and practitioners to clarify how more centralized or decentralized dimensions impact users and thus identify paths to ameliorate unjust burdens, inefficiencies, and unsustainable practices. Finally, more nuanced characterizations enable scholars working across disciplines to deepen and improve our theoretical and empirical understanding of water system (de)centralization.

2. Conceptual Dimensions of Water Systems

2.1. Overview

We focus on three primary conceptual dimensions—infrastructure, governance, and O&M—of water systems for household water provision (Figure 1). These dimensions interact with one another (Grey and Sadoff 2007) and are not mutually exclusive or exhaustive.

FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 1

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Schematic of key dimensions visualized as a cube with governance, infrastructure, and operations and maintenance as the three axes with “Decentralized” and “Centralized” on each end. The cube is surrounded by a circle reflecting the broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic context. We note that some water provision systems exhibit hybridity within and across dimensions; that is, a given water provision system may not fit into a specific “point” in the schematic.

Infrastructure, governance, and O&M occur along spectrums from centralized to decentralized, and systems can include hybridity within and across dimensions. For example, within a dimension, a system could include both decentralized and centralized O&M features in a hybrid way (Anand 2017; Lawhon et al. 2018). A given water system could also be centralized in one dimension but decentralized or hybrid in another (Helmrich et al. 2021); for example, decentralized infrastructure does not inherently involve decentralized governance or O&M. We disaggregate and specify these dimensions to improve analytical clarity, and we illustrate two configurations in the sidebars.

2.2. Infrastructure

Water infrastructure might include centralized, decentralized, or hybrid features (Arora et al. 2015). Most scholarship considers centralized infrastructure at the “city wide” or “regional” scale with “wide‐area distribution networks, large storage water facilities and the development of large‐scale resources” (Makropoulos and Butler 2010, 2797). Decentralization is the movement towards reliance on a greater number of nodes (“producers”) within a broader regional network (Helmrich et al. 2021, 3). In this dimension, we examine the facilities, software, and hardware responsible for generating, providing, treating, transporting, and distributing water to users and households.

Piped, centralized water infrastructure is often considered the gold standard for achieving water security, even while it is understood that many segments of the population are not served by such infrastructure (WHO 2021). Further, underfunding, aging infrastructure, and environmental stressors are eroding prior achievements of centralized water infrastructure in the Global North (e.g., Meehan et al. 2020). While some governments are investing in new large infrastructure projects (Crow‐Miller et al. 2017), scholars and practitioners are also exploring whether decentralization of these systems' infrastructures may better meet users' needs, reduce costs, and buffer against environmental stressors.

Decentralized water infrastructures, in some contexts, have been shown to meet community water security needs, whether through small‐scale vendors (Sarkar 2020), packaged water (e.g., Pacheco‐Vega 2019), or other options (e.g., Ruiz‐Aviles et al. 2021). MAD water infrastructures are seen as promising options for water delivery and treatment, even as they might put increasing responsibility and burden on users (Stoler et al. 2022; Wutich et al. 2023) and have varying community acceptance (Mankad and Tapsuwan 2011).

Where and to what extent the dimension of infrastructure fits on a (de)centralization continuum depends on many factors (Arora et al. 2015). For instance, small, rural, or geographically remote communities often rely on decentralized water treatment technologies (McBeath et al. 2020; McFarlane and Harris 2018). However, justice issues such as those experienced by underbounded communities (i.e., communities outside city limits in an unincorporated county territory) or marginalized communities within municipal boundaries can prevent connection to centralized piped infrastructures (Balazs and Ray 2014; Méndez‐Barrientos et al. 2023; Purifoy 2021; Wells et al. 2022). In contrast, relatively privileged communities may associate infrastructure centralization with intrusion on a way of life (Workman and Shah 2023). Decentralized or distributed infrastructure may address climate impacts or terrorism risks through increasing redundancy in sources as well as highly localized delivery and treatment methods (Beresford, Adams, et al. 2024; Makropoulos and Butler 2010).

While decentralized or distributed infrastructures can be promising, justice and sustainability issues must be addressed concurrently to ensure the equitable distribution of water security benefits (Beresford, Brewis, et al. 2024; Roque et al. 2023; Shah et al. 2021; Wutich et al. 2023). Water infrastructures are not passive objects; they vary in space and change over time, and as such “water infrastructure produces spaces, scales, meanings, and differences among communities” (Acevedo Guerrero 2018, 1; see also Anand 2017; Meehan 2014). For instance, advances in urban water security through centralized infrastructure have, at times, been achieved through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands and water (e.g., Perry 2016). Such histories of harm may influence trust in infrastructure and governance systems (Wilson et al. 2023). Water infrastructure also affects social relations, reflecting and influencing historical and geographic processes (Bakker 2012). Overall, analysis of infrastructure decentralization should necessarily extend beyond a narrow focus on “technical fixes and mechanistic responses” (Wutich et al. 2023, 3). We expand on the social and political context in Section 2.5.

2.3. Governance

Governance refers to the political, social, economic, and administrative systems that influence the allocation and use of resources, encompassing formal rules and informal norms (Ostrom 1990; Siddiki et al. 2022) and interactions between them (including state and non‐state actors). We include financing and regulation here (McFarlane and Harris 2018), though others may conceptualize them as unique dimensions (Schwartz et al. 2015). Governance often determines who gets what water, when and how, as well as rights and responsibilities in terms of access to resources, quality of resources, or associated benefits (e.g., Bakker 2003; Sultana and Loftus 2019; Wilson et al. 2019; Zwarteveen et al. 2017). Governance might also include broader ontological and axiological considerations, in terms of what we consider as “water” and how we value and engage with water (e.g., as an economic good, a living entity, a human right; see Arriagada et al. 2024; Beresford et al. 2023; Leonard et al. 2023; Yates et al. 2017). As with the other components, governance can be conceptualized as decentralized, centralized, or hybrid.

Governance decentralization refers to political processes that involve different ways of shifting, sharing, or devolving sector responsibilities from state‐level or centralized institutions to actors at regional, local, or community scales, though many definitions exist (Harguindéguy et al. 2021). Decentralized water governance often aims to enhance citizen participation, address weaknesses of centralized governance, limit state power, and promote accountability and responsiveness to local needs (Herrera and Post 2014; Carlitz 2017). Neoliberal policy reforms favoring efficiency, modernization, and cost recovery also drive decentralization efforts (Adams and Zulu 2015; Herrera and Post 2014; Wilder and Lankao 2006; Workman 2019).

Water governance decentralization often involves the development or expansion of polycentric governance systems—networks of semiautonomous centers of decision‐making authority operating at different levels (Carlisle and Gruby 2019; Ostrom 2005; Pahl‐Wostl and Knieper 2023). These systems include multilevel governance structures, where local units of political authority manage and regulate certain public affairs (Hooghe et al. 2016), and responsibilities are shared across sectors and among both state and non‐state actors at various scales (Ostrom 2005). In such contexts, multiple actors often participate or shape outcomes in water governance processes across different jurisdictions (e.g., decision‐making, water allocation, or tariff and user fee collection), including actors in federal, state, or municipal/local governments and districts (Carlitz 2017; Wilder and Lankao 2006), basin‐level management (Abers and Keck 2013), and non‐state community entities such as water user associations, water committees, community water cooperatives, and other formal organizations and informal groups (Adams et al. 2020; Adams and Zulu 2015; Cooperman et al. 2021; Rempel and Dobbin 2024; Mustafa et al. 2016; Kemerink et al. 2013). Water governance decentralization can shift individual residents' behaviors and identities in relation to the state and others (Birkenholtz 2009), and it can impose emotional burdens and logistical challenges for communities, and shifting work burdens affecting women or other marginalized community members (Roque et al. 2021; Harris 2009).

While decentralization shifts are common in certain jurisdictions (especially with neoliberalization and associated rollback of state authority and institutions), there remain policy attempts to centralize water systems governance (Crow‐Miller et al. 2017). Centralizing water governance typically refers to combining two or more systems to mitigate the technical, managerial, and financial challenges facing small water systems (Dobbin et al. 2023; Mullin 2020). Consolidation of drinking water governance is often pursued to alleviate the difficulties of small, fragmented water systems that are vulnerable to persistent challenges, including racial and economic disparities, in safe water delivery (Dobbin et al. 2023; Méndez‐Barrientos et al. 2023). Consolidation may support either uniform or single tariff water pricing, cross‐subsidization leading to regionalization (Beecher and Kalmbach 2013), or expanded municipal water services to unincorporated communities (Pieper et al. 2022). At times, system regionalization is motivated by privatization and fiscal policies that favor centralized, independent authorities to manage water (e.g., Rossi 2015). In addition, centralizing water governance may reduce democratic opportunities to participate in governance processes, create inefficiencies in response to localized water management issues, and reduce opportunities for local water users to pursue their distinct projects and unique ways of life (Koebele et al. 2024; Méndez‐Barrientos et al. 2023).

2.4. Operations and Maintenance (O&M)

O&M includes the daily “running” of water supply infrastructure; scheduled activities required to maintain systems, assets, and equipment needed to supply safe water; and unscheduled activities needed to return a system to baseline functioning in emergencies (WHO 2018). While sometimes overlapping with infrastructure and governance, O&M refers more to technical assistance, billing, the labor of repair, and other daily operations. While O&M is often formalized, further research on informal O&M—which can be conceptualized as social infrastructure—may be relevant here (Stoler et al. 2022).

At times, O&M is considered in terms of full cost recovery of centralized systems, while cross‐subsidization might also be encouraged across jurisdictions and types of users. However, development practitioners increasingly view O&M as a set of consumer‐facing interventions and personalized water systems that are more cost‐effective when decentralized, as compared with efforts required to maintain centralized infrastructure (Rabaey et al. 2020; Rodriguez et al. 2012). While promising, decentralized O&M activities can also burden communities when not coupled with appropriate human and fiscal resources (Stoler et al. 2022). O&M is key to understanding intermittency in water systems–‐‐an emerging and worsening problem with significant health and well‐being impacts globally (Kumpel and Nelson 2016; Thomson, Pearson, et al. 2024).

Political‐economic forces such as opt‐out and shove‐out dynamics at the community and household levels can impact water system configurations and result in decentralized O&M, exacerbating water injustices (Roque et al. 2023; Wutich et al. 2023). For example, when wealthier communities or households “opt out” of participation in water systems with centralized infrastructure and governance by using private wells or whole‐dwelling filtration systems, this choice to divest can increase O&M costs for lower‐income users still reliant on centralized systems (e.g., Workman and Shah 2023). Alternatively, in “shove out” water scenarios where marginalized populations are excluded from centralized infrastructure systems, the subsequent use of household water rationing, intra‐household water reallocation, and other decentralized, adaptive O&M behaviors (including curtailing water use altogether) can increase user costs and stress (Brewis et al. 2020; Wutich and Brewis 2014). For example, alongside infrastructure deficits and settler‐colonial governance challenges (Bradford et al. 2018; Wilson et al. 2021), O&M is a contributing factor in the First Nations drinking water crisis in Canada (e.g., community operator training and retention) (Black and McBean 2017; White et al. 2012). O&M is also a consistent theme in the literature on small drinking water systems, where state and non‐state actors have invested in a range of approaches to support local operators and managers (McFarlane and Harris 2018).

Water suppliers have increasingly explored how technology as “cyberinfrastructure” can centralize certain O&M functions in water systems with otherwise decentralized infrastructure and/or governance. The use of sensors for water quality monitoring and maintenance schedules is not new (Hope et al. 2012) but has taken new form with biosensors, the Internet of Things, and advances in cloud software and computing (e.g., Laad and Ghule 2023; Dogo et al. 2019). Through service provider contracts that render key O&M activities invisible to users, centralized O&M services can relieve community members of maintenance responsibilities if sustainable revenue supports these services. But centralization excludes users from the contracting process—or even leaves communities vulnerable to dependency and exploitation by service providers—if users have limited technical expertise (Roque et al. 2023).

More decentralized community science O&M approaches to water quality monitoring and other maintenance activities show varying success (Paul and Buytaert 2018) depending on the knowledge, awareness, and motivation of users; adequate training and communication; and commitment of involved NGOs or other convening organizations (San Llorente Capdevila et al. 2020). Community science programs can improve consumer awareness and increase scientific literacy and social capital, but they risk reproducing previous community burdens, such as negative effects on livelihoods, empowerment, and motivation if not implemented carefully (Walker et al. 2021).

2.5. Consider Scale: Political‐Economic and Hydro‐Climatic Contexts

Water system infrastructure, O&M, and governance can all be considered as integral parts of a broader “hydrosocial cycle,” a concept developed by critical geographers and political ecologists (e.g., Swyngedouw 2009). The hydrosocial cycle is an approach that views water as fundamentally relational and inseparable from society (Linton and Budds 2014; Meehan et al. 2023). This approach includes simultaneous consideration of water's physical elements (e.g., flows and stores of H2O, precipitation regimes, hydro‐climatic context), social‐economic elements (e.g., economics, politics, culture, power), and technological elements (e.g., infrastructure systems, measuring, modeling, accounting methods). By explicitly including people and social relationships, the hydrosocial approach expands the consideration of the driving dynamics, influential forces, and actors that are part of water security. A hydrosocial perspective particularly focuses on understanding how power relations at multiple scales impact and are impacted by water (Linton and Budds 2014; Liao and Schmidt 2023). At the same time, water's physical properties cannot be neglected: Water is a non‐substitutable requirement for life; it is a material that has been called “uncooperative” as it flows, dissolves, seeps, erodes, and transcends boundaries (Bakker 2004; Bakker 2012). These dynamic and interconnected conditions and properties influence, and are influenced by, the governance, infrastructure, and O&M for household water provisioning.

A hydrosocial approach understands intertwined hydro‐climatic and political‐economic processes as shaping—and shaped by—water system configurations. Broader hydro‐climatic contexts interact with infrastructure, O&M, and governance via precipitation patterns, water scarcity pressures, groundwater availability, and projections for climate change impacts on hydrologic regimes, etc. Broader political‐economic contexts shape water rights systems, water governance practices, competing water users and industries, and embeddedness within multiple overlapping legal/political systems at different scales. Likewise, water systems can shape political‐economic contexts in complex ways: water scarcity influenced local electoral politics in Mexico and Brazil (Herrera 2017; Cooperman 2022, 2024), and decentralized water infrastructures (e.g., barrels and cisterns) challenged state power in Tijuana (Meehan 2014) and reduced households' reliance on clientelistic politicians in Northeast Brazil (Bobonis et al. 2022).

Processes at multiple scales influence and are influenced by water system configurations. For example, major metropolitan areas in the United States would appear to have a centralized infrastructure system with centralized O&M and centralized governance. However, household water use decisions are also shaped by a simultaneously occurring decentralized system of infrastructure (e.g., point‐of‐use filters, or bottled water), O&M (e.g., replacing filters), and governance (e.g., choosing which water to drink and purchase depending on tap water trust). When households opt for bottled water and reduce their municipal water consumption, utility financing can decline (Yang and Faust 2019). As both rural and urban areas face increasing water scarcity and aging centralized infrastructure, policymakers are increasingly looking to invest in new water sources (e.g., desalination, drilling new wells) and replacing or extending centralized piped infrastructure systems. Any system‐level intervention to invest in new infrastructure and O&M must consider if/how residents will drink and pay for that water. Decisions about infrastructure, governance, and O&M are nested across scales (e.g., household, community, state governance); thus, any interventions merit consideration of the characteristics and processes occurring across scales.

Rural Domestic Well Users in California's Central Valley, United States.

In California's arid Central Valley, private groundwater wells provide water to many households and are typically considered decentralized water infrastructure (London et al. 2021). Domestic wells have largely decentralized O&M, where users decide on well water testing and remediation, albeit with some state funding (CSWRCB 2025; Schmitt et al. 2024). Interventions to improve water quality and supply often focus on infrastructure, either emphasizing decentralization (e.g., point‐of‐use treatment technologies) or centralization (e.g., service extension from neighboring public water systems) (London et al. 2021; Méndez‐Barrientos et al. 2023).

Depending on the scale of observation, however, domestic well communities retain aspects of both centralized and decentralized, or hybrid, governance. From the state perspective, California's 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires largely decentralized groundwater governance: decision‐making authority is devolved to local agencies, but a state backstop retains some centralized governance (Dobbin 2021). SGMA opens new pathways for domestic well users to participate in local water governance, albeit with challenges in practice (Dobbin and Lubell 2021). Domestic well users can also inform centralized state funding decisions (CSWRCB 2019) and engage with regulatory processes at the county and state levels (Balazs and Ray 2014; CDWR 2024). By considering governance interventions at multiple scales (e.g., SGMA, state funding, well permitting ordinances, land use regulations) in addition to infrastructure and O&M interventions, we can improve analyses and envision groundwater futures that meet domestic well users' needs.

Urban Water Access in Malawi.

In Malawi's two major cities, Lilongwe and Blantyre, piped networks and water delivery systems reflect highly centralized infrastructure at the city scale but hybrid governance. The city's centralized water board (parastatal/state owned water utility) allocates water across the piped network and is accountable to the Ministry of Water and Sanitation and city councils in charge of municipal service delivery. In low‐income urban informal and peri‐urban settlements, some aspects of governance are decentralized at the neighborhood scale to community‐elected Water User Associations (WUAs). Part of nationwide policies since 2006, the Malawian government promoted WUAs to decentralize service delivery, create better community‐state partnerships, and improve water services in the poor and underserved urban areas historically outside centralized water governance. WUAs organize community elections, manage local finances in collaboration with the water board, and oversee water vending (Adams and Zulu 2015). Similarly, the system also relies on hybrid O&M. Centralized water boards supply treated drinking water to communities, manage the large‐scale infrastructure, and provide technical assistance, billing, and training to the WUAs. Decentralized WUAs undertake simple plumbing and water‐point repairs.

This configuration has increased pricing transparency due to community pushback against price hikes, strengthened community interactions with the central water boards, increased community water points constructed with water sale profits, and reduced water shutoffs from defaulted payments (Adams and Boateng 2018; Pihljak et al. 2021). Still, the system suffers from political‐economic issues, particularly communities over‐relying on the water boards due to limited capacity, elite capture by powerful members within communities, excessive water board control over communities (Rusca et al. 2015; Adams and Boateng 2018), and exclusion of women from key WUA positions (Adams et al. 2018).

3. Conclusion

This primer elucidates water system configurations and processes by clarifying how centralization and decentralization operate within the dimensions of infrastructure, governance, and O&M. The analytical framework situates these three linked water system dimensions in broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic contexts. While practitioners and researchers often conflate or simplify these dimensions, greater specificity facilitates improved theoretical and empirical understandings of how different system configurations may impact equity, reliability, safety, affordability, sustainability, and other outcomes relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We highlight the multiplicity of distinct system configurations, the prevalence of hybridity both within and across dimensions, and the importance of clarifying scale(s) of analysis. This clarity is more than just semantics: it helps scholars and practitioners to analyze the diversity of water systems and the opportunities or barriers associated with different configurations across scales.

Moving forward, we encourage three lines of future research on equity, hydro‐climatic feedbacks, and political‐economic feedbacks. First, further scholarship is needed on the equity implications of different configurations (e.g., decentralized infrastructure but centralized O&M and governance). Scholars might also study changes to systems: how consolidation (or decentralization) of infrastructure, governance, and/or O&M affects equity in household water security outcomes within and across communities, and how those communities are able to respond (cf. Beresford, Adams, et al. 2024). Second, we encourage scholarship on the feedbacks between different household water provision configurations and the broader hydro‐climatic context, such as the conditions under which different dimensions—or combinations thereof—are more resilient to changing hydro‐climatic shocks. Finally, scholars should assess feedbacks between different household water provision configurations and the broader political economy and political ecology of water, including trust in government and political engagement. With clarity on the key dimensions of water systems and a better understanding of feedbacks in the broader hydro‐climatic and political‐economic context, scholars and practitioners can seize opportunities to advance equitable water security.

Author Contributions

Alicia Dailey Cooperman: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), project administration (lead), writing – original draft (lead), writing – review and editing (lead). Jenny Linder Rempel: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), project administration (lead), writing – original draft (lead), writing – review and editing (lead). Ellis Adjei Adams: conceptualization (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Alida Cantor: conceptualization (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Manuela Muñoz Fuerte: conceptualization (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Jeremiah Osborne‐Gowey: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Nicole J. Wilson: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Cassandra L. Workman: conceptualization (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Melissa Beresford: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Leila M. Harris: conceptualization (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Linda E. Méndez‐Barrientos: conceptualization (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Sameer H. Shah: conceptualization (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Amber Wutich: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), writing – review and editing (equal). Justin Stoler: conceptualization (equal), funding acquisition (equal), writing – original draft (equal), writing – review and editing (equal).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Cooperman, A. D. , Rempel J. L., Adams E. A., et al. 2025. “(De)centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions of Infrastructure, Governance, and Operations.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 12, no. 5: e70035. 10.1002/wat2.70035.

Associate Editor: Lenka Slavikova

Editor‐in‐Chief: Jan Seibert

Senior Editor: Nigel Wright

Funding: This work was supported by National Science Foundation funded HWISE‐Research Coordination Network (BCS‐1759972) and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (DGE‐1752814). It was supported by the following National Science Foundation grants: BCS‐2143766, BCS‐2308573, GCR‐2021147, and EEC‐1449500. It was supported in part by the Texas A&M University System Chancellor's EDGES Fellowship program and the Canada Research Chairs Program (#950‐232734). It was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number 1‐P20ES036775. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or other funders.

Alicia Dailey Cooperman and Jenny Linder Rempel joint first authors contributed equally, listed alphabetically.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

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