Dr Sonia Hoque

Senior Research Associate in Water Security and Society

Profile

Sonia Ferdous Hoque is an environmental social scientist, currently working as a Senior Research Associate in Water Security and Society for the REACH programme. She leads the ‘Water Society Interactions and Sustainable Development’ module and co-leads the ‘Research Design and Skills’ module of the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Managementat SoGE. She also co-leads the ‘Water Inequalities, Sustainability and Enterprise’ module of the MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

Drawing on theories of human-environment interactions, Sonia’s research focuses on the nature, drivers and distribution of water risks related to drinking water services in rural areas and small towns in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya, as well as urban river pollution linked to the global fashion industry. She is particularly interested in exploring the socio-spatial inequalities in people’s water use behaviour and decision-making through water diary methods, direct observations, and intra-household surveys.

Sonia is part of the core leadership team of the ‘SafePani’ model – a collaboration between the REACH programme at Oxford, the Government of Bangladesh, UNICEF and HYSAWA to reform the institutional design, financing and information systems on rural drinking water services in Bangladesh. The programme seeks to drive scalable impacts to improve water availability and safety in schools, communities, and healthcare centres.

Sonia’s PhD research at the University of Leeds (2016) explored the differential livelihood adaptation to social-ecological change in coastal Bangladesh. She has an MSc in Environmental Management (2011) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a BSc in Environmental Science (2009) from North South University, Dhaka. Sonia received the Shell Gold Medal and Prize and the Chancellor's Gold Medal for being the most outstanding student of her masters and bachelors cohort respectively.

Prior to joining her PhD program, Sonia worked as a Research Associate at the Institute of Water Policy (IWP), NUS (2011 - 2013), where her research focused on the roles of private and public sector in urban water governance and water tariffs in urban domestic and non-domestic sectors.

Selected Publications

Books

Hoque, S.F. (2014) Water conservation in urban households: The role of policies, prices and technology. International Water Association (IWA), UK. pp. 224. ISBN: 9781780405476.

Journal Articles

Grasham, C.F., Hoque, S.F., Korzenevica, M., Fuente, D., Goyol, K., Verstraete, L., Mueze, K., Tsadik, M., Zeleke, G., and Charles, K.J. (2022) Equitable urban water security: Beyond connections on premises. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability.
Korzenevica, M., Johnson, Z., Zerihun, Z., Gebreegzabher, A., Mebrahtu, S., Hoque, S.F., Grasham, C.F. and Charles, K.J. (2022) Negotiating spaces of marginality and independence: on women entrepreneurs within Ethiopian urbanization and water precarity. World Development, 158. 105966.
Nowicki, S., Bukachi, S.A., Hoque, S.F., Katuva, J., Musyoka, M.M., Sammy, M.M., Mwaniki, M., Omia, D.O., Wambua, F. and Charles, K.J. (2022) Fear, Efficacy, and Environmental Health Risk Reporting: Complex Responses to Water Quality Test Results in Low-Income Communities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1). 597.
Grasham, C.F., Calow, R., Casey, V., Charles, K.J., de Wit, S., Dyer, E., Fullwood-Thomas, J., Hirons, M., Hope, R., Hoque, S.F., Jepson, W., Korzenevica, M., Murphy, R., Plastow, J., Ross, I., Ruiz-Apilánez, I., Schipper, E.L.F., Trevor, J., Walmsley, N. and Zaidi, H. (2021) Engaging with the politics of climate resilience towards clean water and sanitation for all. npj Clean Water, 4(42).
Hoque, S., Peters, R., Whitehead, P., Hope, R. and Hossain, M.A. (2021) River pollution and social inequalities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Environmental Research Communications, 3(9). 095003.
Hoque, S.F. (2021) Socio-spatial and seasonal dynamics of small private water service providers in Khulna district, Bangladesh. International Journal of Water Resources Development.
Roman, O., Hoque, S.F., Ford, L., Salehin, M., Alam, M.M., Hope, R. and Hall, J.W. (2021) Optimizing rural drinking water supply infrastructure to account for spatial variations in groundwater quality and household poverty in coastal Bangladesh. Water Resources Research, 57(8). e2021WR029621.
Fischer, A., Hope, R., Manandhar, A., Hoque, S., Hakim, S.A., Foster, T., Islam, S. and Bradley, D. (2020) Risky responsibilities for rural drinking water institutions: the case of unregulated self-supply in Bangladesh. Global Environmental Change, 65. 102152.
Hoque, S. F. and Hope, R. (2019) Examining the economics of affordability through water diaries in coastal Bangladesh. Water Economics and Policy, 6(03).
Hoque, S.F., Hope, R., Arif, S.T., Akhter, T., Naz, M. and Salehin, M. (2019) A social-ecological analysis of drinking water risks in coastal Bangladesh. Science of the Total Environment, 679: 23-34.
Hoque, S.F. and Hope, R. (2018) The water diary method – proof-of-concept and policy implications for monitoring water use behaviour in rural Kenya. Water Policy, 20(4): 725-743.
Hoque, S.F., Quinn, C.H. and Sallu, S. (2018) Differential livelihood adaptation to social-ecological change in coastal Bangladesh. Regional Environmental Change, 18: 451-463.
Hoque, S.F., Quinn, C.H. and Sallu, S. (2017) Resilience, political ecology, and well-being: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding social-ecological change in coastal Bangladesh. Ecology and Society, 22(2): 1-20.
Hoque, S.F. and Wichelns, D. (2013) State-of-the-art review: Designing urban water tariffs to recover costs and promote wise use. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 29(3): 472-491.

Book Chapters

Hoque, S.F., Gunawansa, A. and Rahman, M. (2014) Potential for residential water conservation in Dhaka. In, Lye, L.-H., Savage, V.R., Ming Chou, L., Yu, L.E. and Kua, H.-W. (eds.) Sustainability Matters: Volume 2: Asia's Energy Concerns, Green Policies and Environmental Advocacy. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore. 1108 pp. ISBN: 978-981-4546-80-5.
Gunawansa, A., Bhullar, L. and Hoque, S.F. (2013) Introduction. Chapter 1 in, Gunawansa, A. and Bhullar, L. (eds.) Water Governance: An Evaluation of Alternative Architectures. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK. 448 pp. ISBN: 978 1 78100 641 2.
Hoque, S.F. and Gunawansa, A. (2013) Good Governance - A Final Analysis. Chapter 15 in, Gunawansa, A. and Bhullar. L. (eds.) Water Governance: An Evaluation of Alternative Architectures. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK. 448 pp. ISBN: 978 1 78100 641 2.

Reports

Fischer, A., Hope, R., Thomson, P., Hoque, S.F., Alam, M., El Achi, N., Charles, K., Hakim, S., Islam, S.M., Nowicki, S., Salehin, M., Bradley, D., Ibrahim, M. and Chowdhury, E.H. (2021) Policy reform to deliver safely managed drinking water services for schools in rural Bangladesh. University of Oxford and UNICEF, Oxford, UK. REACH Working Paper 11.
Hope, R., Fischer, A., Hoque, S.F., Alam, M.M., Charles, K., Ibrahim, M., Chowdhury, E.H., Salehin, M., Mahmud, Z.H., Akhter, T., Thomson, P., Johnson, D., Hakim, S.A., Islam, M.S., Hall, J.W., Roman, O., Achi, N.E.and Bradley, D. (2021) Policy reform for safe drinking water service delivery in Bangladesh. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. REACH Working Paper 9.
Hoque, S.F., Hope, R., Alam, M.M., Charles, K., Salehin, M., Mahmud, Z.H., Akter, T., Fischer, A., Johnson, D., Thomson, P., Zakaria, A., Hall, J., Garcia, O.R., Achi, N.E. and Jumlad, M. (2021) Drinking water services in coastal Bangladesh. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. REACH Working Paper 10.
Murgatroyd, A., Charles, K.J., Chautard, A., Dyer, E., Grasham, C., Hope, R., Hoque, S.F., Korzenevica, M., Munday, C., Alvarez-Sala, J., Dadson, S., Hall, J.W., Kebede, S., Nileshwar, A., Olago, D., Salehin, M., Ward, F., Washington, R., Yeo, D. and Zeleke, G. (2021) Water Security for Climate Resilience Report. University of Oxford: REACH, UK.