The Water Diaries

Sonia Hoque is a Bangladesh-born environmental social scientist, with eight years of postdoctoral research on water security and poverty under the FCDO-funded REACH Programme at the University of Oxford. She has worked in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Kenya, focusing on the inequalities in household and individual experiences of water risks related to rural and urban drinking water services and river pollution by the global fashion industry. Rob Hope is Professor of Water Policy at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. He directed the REACH programme that has improved water security for over 10 million vulnerable people. He co-founded Uptime in 2018 which has issued results-based contracts to guarantee reliable drinking water for over 5 million rural people in 17 countries in 2024. He has published over 100 academic papers, served as an adviser to governments, UNICEF, UK FCDO, USAID, World Bank, and UK Research and Innovation. His research has featured in the Economist, the BBC, and global media.

Table of contents; List of figure; List of acronyms; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Fashionable rivers: social inequalities and pollution in Dhaka; 3. Chronicles from the coast: public and private responses to water risks in Khulna; 4. Watering white elephants: rainfall revenue dynamics for rural water services in Kitui; 5. Small town in Arid Lands: unreliable piped water services and flash floods in Lodwar; 6. Conclusion; References; Index.