Whose waters, whose nutrients? Knowledge, uncertainty, and controversy over eutrophication in the Mar Menor.

ABSTRACT: This work explores the role of knowledge claims and uncertainty in the public dispute over the causes and solutions to nonpoint-driven overfertilization of the Mar Menor lagoon (Spain). Drawing on relational uncertainty theory, we combine the analysis of narratives and of uncertainty. Our results show two increasingly polarized narratives that deviate in the causes for nutrient enrichment and the type of solutions seen as effective, all of which relate to contested visions on agricultural sustainability. Several interconnected uncertainties are mobilized to dispute the centrality of agriculture as a driver for eutrophication and to confront strategies that may hamper productivity. Yet, both narratives rest on a logic of dissent that strongly relies on divergent knowledge to provide legitim

SUBMITTER: Cabello V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10160264 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature