Utilities Policy 63 (2020) 101003 Available online 13 January 2020 0957-1787/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Is the human right to water suffciently protected in Spain? Affordability and governance concerns Samara L� opez-Ruiz a , Cecilia Tortajada b , Francisco Gonz� alez-G� omez c, d, * a Department of Political Science and Administration, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain b Institute of Water Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore c Institute of Water Research, University of Granada, Granada, Spain d Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Affordability Water tariffs Access to water supply Water poverty Human right to water Spain ABSTRACT Most research on water poverty focuses on developing countries. However, research is also needed in developed countries, where water may be too expensive for some households. This paper examines the case of Spain, using data from 16 cities that combined are home to 35% of the Spanish population. We study both national and local systems of regulation and governance. The objective is to determine whether low-income families face a genuine threat of exclusion from water supply. To this end, we analysed whether the Spanish legal framework allows that water supply is cut off for non-payment of the bill. We also did different estimates of the percentage of the family income spent on the water bill, which in some cases can surpass 10%. The estimates account for tariff discounts, as well as assistance programmes available to those who are struggling to pay their water bill. Although there is no problem of affordability for an average Spanish family in general, we conclude that families at risk of poverty face a real threat of exclusion from water services because they are not able to pay for them and the institutional framework does not suffciently protect them. 1. Introduction The United Nations recognizes access to water as a human right. This implies access to suffcient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use (United Nations, 2010). Roughly 3 out of every 10 people in the world, that is, 2.1 billion people, do not have access to clean water (World Health OrganizationUNICEF, 2017), although this fgure may underestimate the real situation (Guardiola et al., 2010; Grigg, 2018; Martínez-Santos, 2017). The main problems of access to water occur in developing countries (Biswas and Tortajada, 2018). Consequently, most of the research on access to water in terms of coverage and quality has focused on developing countries (for example, Smiley, 2017a, 2017b; Adams et al., 2018). Nevertheless, problems of access to water can also occur in devel- oped countries (Gonz� alez-G� omez et al., 2020). One might not think so when looking at the statistics provided by World Health Organ- izationUNICEF (2017), which show that drinking water supply reaches practically every household. However, in these countries, the problem refers to low-income families who cannot afford to pay their water bills becoming water poor. The sparse research on water poverty in devel- oped countries includes United States (Mack and Wrase, 2017; Teodoro, 2019), England and Wales (Bradshaw and Huby, 2013; Zetland, 2016), Belgium (Vanhille et al., 2018), Portugal (Martins et al., 2016, 2019), Spain (García-Vali~ nas et al., 2010a; Yoon et al., 2019) and some of the Commonwealth of Independent States (Fankhauser and Tepic, 2007). Lack of information and statistics make water poverty in developed countries an “invisible” problem (Jones and Moulton, 2016) and thus very diffcult to solve (Josset et al., 2019). The problem is exacerbated when families are excluded from the service for not paying their water bill. This can happen in countries where the regulatory framework does not protect vulnerable pop- ulations’ access to drinking water. 1 Spain is one of the developed countries in which the institutional protection of the human right to water is an issue of concern. The 2007 economic crisis in the country has had a major impact on all sectors of society; in fact, its effects are still being felt (Guardiola and Guillen-Royo, 2015). Job losses and the * Corresponding author. Institute of Water Research, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. E-mail addresses: samaralopez.24@gmail.com (S. L� opez-Ruiz), cecilia.tortajada@gmail.com (C. Tortajada), fcojose@ugr.es (F. Gonz� alez-G� omez). 1 Some developed countries such as France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ireland prohibit cutting off the water supply services as a result of no payment. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Utilities Policy journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jup https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2019.101003 Received 25 April 2019; Received in revised form 24 November 2019; Accepted 21 December 2019