Water Alternatives (Jun 2024)
Tasting numbers: The numerical politics of Total Dissolved Solids and the privatisation of drinking water quality in Bhuj City, India
Abstract
Critical water scholarship has acquired a sustained interest in the quantification of water flows to further agendas of control and commodification. However, these numerical politics receive greater attention in the areas of agricultural water and wastewater than that of drinking water quality. This paper explores the numerical politics of the water quality parameter of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and how it shapes the privatisation of drinking water quality in the small town of Bhuj in the western Indian state of Gujarat. TDS, which measures the total organic and inorganic substances dissolved in a specific volume of water, produces a numerically simplified engagement with the complex materiality of drinking water quality in Bhuj, supplanting a more embodied, experiential, and gustatory understanding of the same expressed through a rich lexicon of local terms. As TDS emerges as the sole legitimised indicator of water quality, the TDS meter functions like a clinical thermometer, digitally displaying the health of the drinking water in numbers. This numerical homogenisation of a diverse sensorial understanding of taste and quality serves to stabilise market demand for membrane-based reverse osmosis (RO) water purifiers – the only technology that promises to address the 'problem' of 'excess' TDS in drinking water. As TDS numbers become an indicator of contamination, it nudges the middle classes of Bhuj to seek mediation of public water supply through RO water purifiers, which are exclusively provided through private markets. As I go on to show, interrogating the numerical politics of drinking water quality is critical to understanding the diffused commodification of water in the majority world.
