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Abstract. The development of large infrastructure to address the waterchallenges of cities around the world can be a financial and social burdenfor many cities because of the hidden costs these works entail and socialconflicts they often trigger. When conflicts erupt, science is oftenexpected to play a key role in informing policymakers and social actors toclarify controversies surrounding policy responses to water scarcity.However, managing conflicts is a sociopolitical process, and oftenquantitative models are used as an attempt to depoliticize such processes,conveying the idea that optimal solutions can be objectively identifieddespite the many perspectives and interests at play. This raises thequestion as to whether science depoliticizes water conflicts or whether insteadconflicts politicize science–policy processes. We use the Zapotillo dam andwater transfer project in Mexico to analyze the role of science–policyprocesses in water conflicts. The Zapotillo project aims at augmenting urbanwater supply to Guadalajara and Leon, two large cities in westernMexico, but a social and legal conflict has stalled the project until today.To analyze the conflict and how stakeholders make sense of it, weinterviewed the most relevant actors and studied the negotiations betweendifferent interest groups through participant observation. To examine therole of science–policy processes in the conflict, we mobilized concepts ofepistemic uncertainty and ambiguity and analyzed the design and use of waterresources models produced by key actors aiming to resolve the conflict.While the use of models is a proven method to construct future scenarios andtest different strategies, the parameterization of scenarios and theirresults are influenced by the knowledge and/or interests of actors behindthe model. We found that in the Zapotillo case, scenarios reflected theinterests and strategies of actors on one side of the conflict, resulting inincreased distrust of the opposing actors. We conclude that the dilemma ofachieving urban water security through investing in either largeinfrastructure (supply augmentation) or alternative strategies (demand-sidemanagement) cannot be resolved if some key interested parties have not beeninvolved in the scientific processes framing the problem and solution space.

Unraveling intractable water conflicts: the entanglement of science and politics in decision-making on large hydraulic infrastructure