Narratives and water: A bibliometric review

Social and environmental sciences have shown that narratives have significant impact on human behaviour. Understanding water narratives can therefore help policy-makers understand and regulate public behaviour. We carry out a bibliometric analysis of water narratives, which gives us a broad overview of the types of work, collaborations and key insights. We couple this with a smaller qualitative review, which enabled us to construct a typology that captures the range of themes found in the literature. Narratives might be classified along an axis of expert and local knowledge and an axis of time-retrospective and prospective. We also show that narratives are a useful tool for legitimation and mobilization, and a form of System 1 heuristic. Given that so many water challenges are tied to human activities, an understanding of water narratives and the link to behavioural change would be a useful part of future research agendas.

Automated summary

The role of narratives in influencing human behavior, specifically in relation to water, is significant for policymakers. By conducting bibliometric analysis and qualitative review, a typology capturing themes in literature can be established. Narratives can be classified based on axes of expert and local knowledge, as well as time-retrospective and prospective.