Dr Jose Esteban Castro is Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University. A sociologist by training, Professor Castro has an interdisciplinary background in the Social Sciences. He has extensive research experience in the field of water and water-related services and his work has focused on the interrelations between water policies and citizenship rights, highlighting the interplay between environmental and socio-political change. Among other topics, he has studied the relation between civil rights (e.g. water rights) and social rights (e.g. water as a public good; water and public health), the intertwining between the public and private spheres in the provision of public services (water and sanitation), the interaction between the different epistemic subjects producing knowledge about water and the institutions and processes involving the social management of this resource, and issues of governance and ecological distribution conflicts.nbsp;

Among other publications he has authored Water, Power, and Citizenship. Social Struggle in the Basin of Mexico (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006). He has done work on a number of countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Portugal, and has coordinated the PRINWASS project on private sector participation in water and sanitation (www.prinwass.org). He currently coordinates the research network GOBACIT (www.gobacit.org), of which this book is one of the first outcomes.nbsp;

Dr Leo Heller is Professor of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He has a BA in Civil Engineering, a MSc. in Sanitary Engineering and a PhD. in Epidemiology. He recently carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford focusing on the theoretical aspects of public policy and management in the water supply and sanitation sector. He has an extensive experience of research in the fields of environmental health and public policy in water and sanitation services, and has recently introduced a research programme on public policy and management in the School of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the UFMG. He has supervised a large number of postgraduate dissertations, and coordinated several national and international research projects on these topics.nbsp;

He has also a track record of journal articles, books and book chapters, including a book on the history of water supply and sanitation services in Brazil and another on health and environmental sanitation. He is a member of the GOBACIT research network (www.gobacit.org) and coordinates the academic network POLISAN (Ethics, Politics, and Management in Water and Sanitation), which includes European and Brazilian scholars and develops interdisciplinary research, teaching, and training activities.