Call for Papers to PLOS Water Article Series on ‘Nature Rights and Water Governance’

The global nature rights movement has led to rights and personhood being granted to lakes, wetlands and rivers. This has included the Whanganui River (Aotearoa/New Zealand), Aquepi River (Ecuador), Río Atrato (Columbia), Birrarung/Yarra River (Australia), the Ganges and Yamuna (India) and Lake Erie (USA). Often led by Indigenous Peoples, each example exhibits unique differences due to varying water governance arrangements, cultural contexts, political institutions and histories. In some examples, such as Lake Erie and the Ganges and Yamuna, the ideas of rights and personhood for water have been controversial, leading to annulment or deferrals. However, the majority of these new approaches have been moving towards implementation and consideration of what being a novel legal entity actually means in practice for how water is thought about and governed. 

For policy makers, legislators, scientists, engineers and society, it is now time to consider not just whether water bodies could (or should) have their own rights, but how these rights can be effectively implemented. This requires close attention to how these novel forms of governing water bodies operate within and alongside existing water governance arrangements, such as water markets, riparian rights, integrated water resource management and existing forms of self-governance. 

There is a need to accelerate our understanding of how law, policy, institutional frameworks and western scientific knowledge are adapting (or not) to the appearance of these new entities/persons. How are water governance systems responding to these novel legal entities? In what ways are western science and Indigenous knowledge being used to develop, interpret, and implement these rights? What are the implications of rights of nature for water justice and Indigenous rights? Are they proving to be harbingers of transformative change, or do they entrench us even more deeply in the adversarial, individualist, rights-based frameworks? And how do the answers to these questions vary between law, policy and social contexts? 

Call for Papers

With its commitment to open, ethical and reproducible research, PLOS Water is an ideal journal venue for exploring such interdisciplinary questions. We are excited to announce an article series collection on ‘Nature Rights and Water Governance’ to cover this scope for the future. This collection is connected to a forthcoming companion edited book entitled “Rivers have rights. What happens next?” that will be published by ANU Press and emerged from a workshop hosted by UNSW Law & Justice and Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment. Papers in this collection may include those derived from the workshop, but contributions from other interdisciplinary water scholars are welcomed.

Researchers and practitioners interested in contributing to this mini collection should submit their research articles on or before 31 December 2025. 

Articles may touch on any of the above issues, and papers examining the following topics are highly encouraged:

• How compatible are rights of nature and water markets?
• In what ways do the concepts of water security and rights of nature align?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of rights of nature for integrated water resource management?
• How would principles of water governance (e.g. OECD water governance principles) need to change to account for rights of nature (and vice versa)?
• How do rights of nature and the human right to water interact?
• Can nature-based solutions for WASH/Water governance align with rights of nature?
• When and how do existing water governance instruments (e.g. plans, markets, private use rights, government regulation) interact in complementary or counterproductive ways with rights of nature. 

Submissions will undergo a rigorous peer-review process in accordance with PLOS Water’s guidelines. Accepted articles will be published and highlighted on a continuous basis to ensure timely dissemination of findings. 

For questions about the collection, to express interest in contributing, or if you wish to submit your article after the above date, please contact the Editors of this collection: Cameron Holley (c.holley@unsw.edu.au) or Erin O’Donnell (erin.odonnell@unimelb.edu.au).

We are encouraging both original research contributions (including systematic or scoping reviews) and also ‘Narrative’ article types which include Reviews, Essays or Opinions. Please reach out to the Editors above to discuss proposals for a Narrative-style article to this collection.

Submission Process

Ready to submit your research to this collection in PLOS Water? Follow our step-by-step guide to the submission process, and ensure you enter ‘Nature Rights and Water Governance’ in the free-text field for collections during the submission process of your article. We look forward to your valuable contributions!