Perspectives on Reclaimed Water among Urban Residents in Tampa, Florida

Increasing urbanization coupled with increased domestic and industrial uses of water has made water conservation an important aspect of environmental management. Reclamation of wastewater is one way in which such conservation can proceed, and the aim of this thesis is to provide a case study about the perspectives of residents and officials involved in the use of reclaimed water in an urban development in Tampa, Florida. Using semi-structured interviews, it seeks to understand the range of opinions on the safety of reclaimed water, its potential prospects as an alternative drinking water supply, and its contribution to the sustainable use of water resources. While environmental concerns are often focused on controlling global warming through international policymaking, there are also smaller-scale local projects that are equally significant in terms of their potential contributions to long-term sustainability. By drawing attention to the local scale, this study underlines the value of focusing on environmental issues that are relevant to the everyday lives of community members, and hence enables an engagement with the ways in which conservation practices are already part of, and potentially can be further built into, the structure of urban neighborhoods