Digitalisation and Datafication of Water Services and Infrastructure in Ghana

Abstract

Despite the emerging interest in digital water innovations and infrastructure, with widespread adoption and use across many countries, there is still little empirical evidence on what, for whom and how digital water innovations and policies work in practice. Within many Southern cities, digital technologies have been identified as tools for dealing with significant urban challenges. Researchers and practitioners allude to, and are optimistic about, the far-reaching expectations and benefits of digital technologies to improve infrastructure networks, management operations, and access and utility service provisioning. However, there is difficulty in distinguishing between the aspirational objectives and the practical implementation realities of digital technologies to tackle water sector challenges, especially in developing countries, with few studies focusing on the quantitative and qualitative impacts these innovations bring to water sector actors. This thesis draws on the case study of Ghana to address the underlying research question: how, and to what extent, do digital water innovations impact water service delivery, infrastructure and access in an urban global South context? In order to address the question, this thesis draws on the theoretical and empirical base of digital, urban and infrastructure studies, particularly in the fields of everyday urbanism, Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the literature on smart (digital) infrastructure to provide the first comprehensive, theoretically informed, empirically grounded case study of the deployment, implementation and impacts of digital water innovations in both on-grid and off-grid water services in the urban global South. By drawing on field research in urban Ghana and using a mixed methods case study, combining data from interviews, customer surveys, observations as well as secondary empirical material, this thesis systematically and empirically examines the sociotechnical dynamics and place-based context that undergird digital water infrastructural deployments, implementation and their everyday use as well as the extent to which they impact water utilities and users. The central argument of this thesis is that digital water innovations and infrastructures (such as water ATMs and smart metering) are sociotechnical and incremental systems, which are much more than neutral, and are often shaped through everyday realities. Advancing on a sociotechnical lens, the thesis also shows and argues that sufficient understanding of actors and assemblages within their local socio-political contexts is necessary in designing and implementing context-specific interventions towards improved water infrastructure, access and sustainable water management. Three empirical papers, answering three sub-questions within this thesis advance new knowledge and generate empirical insights into digitalisation, datafication of water infrastructure and service provisioning. Empirically, it extends understandings of digital and water (infrastructural) futures in urban Africa, demonstrating how digitalisation and datafication impacts water access, infrastructure and management. It has brought perspectives and clarity to some of the contemporary issues and the disparities in effects associated with digital water in developing country contexts by moving beyond techno-centric approaches towards sociotechnical. Theoretically, it contributes to smart urbanism, STS and human geography scholarship by offering insights into the conceptual notion of digital infrastructural incrementalism, demonstrating how these new insights can better position and provide a fruitful angle for research and analysis of water digitalisation. Through this work, this thesis contributes to sociotechnical and socio-political agenda of thinking about (water and digital) infrastructures beyond their material features and considering everyday 'people' realities and governance landscapes as part of digital infrastructural systems.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Richard Heeks (Supervisor) & Alison Leigh Browne (Supervisor)