The Claim of 1992 Act to Federal Mega-Projects. A Socio-Historical Perspective on the Creation of Water Policies in the United States: The Western United States Case

This article proposes to shed some light on the water scarcity problems that the western United States are currently going through. Through the historical reconstruction of the water policies of the region, this article defends the idea that the current water scarcity must be understood to certain extent as the result of the action of the economic, politic, and management elites which created the water policies in the United States. To be more specific, beyond the current drought cycle, the water scarcity is the result of the production of a vision of economic development -widely considered as a determinant growth factor-interspersed by the interests and contradictory logics related to the exploitation of natural resources.