Water memory and moral ecologies in adaptive hydrosocial futures

Indigenous nature-cultural practices often embody sustained environmental wisdom but remain underused in contemporary climate adaptation planning. This paper investigates the role of cultural communication particularly Uli songs, rituals, proverbs, and local language practices in shaping water conservation behaviors amid changing rainfall patterns in Anambra State, Southeastern Nigeria, a construct I have categorized in this study as ‘water memory’. Employing a qualitative method through the critical analysis of ethnographic water knowledge in the community, the study examines how Uli communicative ecologies encode hydrological memory, enable community governance of water, and provide channels for adaptive messaging. Findings indicate that Uli practices function as moral and social infrastructures that sustain water ethics, translate climatic uncertainty into meaningful action, and can be adapted into hybrid communication instruments that complement scientific water management. Grounded in three theoretical frameworks: Cultural Communication Theory, which conceptualizes culture as an adaptive infrastructure; Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) Theory, which explains how communication practices influence environmental attitudes and actions; and Decolonial Environmental Humanities, which foregrounds epistemic pluralism and indigenous ecological knowledge, the paper offers a policy framework for integrating cultural communication into participatory water governance aligned with SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). It argues that climate adaptation in contexts of high social memory and cultural density must reframe culture not as heritage to be archived but as living infrastructure for resilience.