This dissertation examines the role that cities can play in human security with particular emphasis on urban water systems. Global environmental change and shifting geopolitical alliances are increasing the vulnerability of individuals and communities. In the absence of enforced human rights protections at international and national levels, cities have agency to ensure that urban spaces are contributing to human security, ensuring that basic needs of individuals are prioritized including water, food, and shelter, as well as medical and legal attention. However, urban water systems, as the literal lifeblood of cities, are the focus of this research.

Urban water systems across the globe are transitioning, undergoing fundamental change. This study first examines transition in two particular cities, in order to understand the conditions, barriers and opportunities of change. A human security analysis follows, drawing on these findings as well as that of a third city. Made up of three discrete papers, the first two articles are case studies in which the evolution of the urban water system as well as its current and future transitions are constructed through participant observation and interviews with primary actors within each city, including Athens, Greece and Los Angeles, U.S. In the third paper, these findings as well as research in Istanbul, Turkey are garnered to inform a human security analysis of urban water systems, especially those in the semi-arid Mediterranean climate region.

While each city has a unique profile with distinct social, economic, political and environmental characteristics, some drivers of change are unsurprisingly shared including global environmental change and aging infrastructure. Findings however reveal another shared vulnerability with deep human security implications: rising numbers of urban inhabitants that are without permanent housing. And while the drivers of homelessness vary across and within the cities studied, there are shared connections to global trends of income inequality, climate change and political instability. Analysis reveals a lack of public water in the cities of interest, a particular concern in dry Mediterranean and arid climates. Recommendations are made for re-introducing public water into the modern city as an assertion of human security.