Unseen Connections: A StoryMap Exploring Case Studies in Water-Energy Transitions and Environmental Justice

Climate change is one of the most important challenges in the world today. Communities and decision makers at many levels, from local to international, are working to ensure that energy, water, and other societal infrastructures can transition and adapt to address climate change (IPCC, 2023). One major mitigation strategy involves the decarbonization of energy systems (Rockström et al. 2017). Despite wide recognition of the need to decarbonize globally, renewable energy infrastructures and technologies are often locally controversial, involving claims of environmental injustice and disputes over land and water (Cantor, Turley, and Maxfield 2023; Jerez, Garcés, and Torres 2021; Turley et al. 2022; Voskoboynik and Andreucci, 2021). Issues such as “sacrifice zones” have been raised with regard to energy transitions (Cantor and Knuth 2019; Mulvaney 2019; Zografos and Robbins 2020). Water in particular interacts with climate change and renewable energy efforts in complicated and place-based ways (Gunda et al. 2024). Renewable energy infrastructures and activities can jeopardize water quality, quantity, and distribution and can affect communities unevenly (Blair et al. 2022; 2024; Cousins, Cantor, and Turley 2024).