This special issue is part of a shift in social science and humanities thinking and in public awareness towards planetary water concerns. As societal and scholarly attention to the wet element – and its political import and its cultural constitution – is growing, we ask, how can we rethink our relationships with water in Australia now and into the future? The collection of papers in this issue shows that water responds to human practices which in turn are grounded in cultural imaginaries. Water is thus real in diverse ways, and makes possible diverse material, political and cultural relationships. Taking our lead from the ideas that contributors have developed from this and other questions posed for the issue, our introductory discussion considers three themes that are key to the understanding of water futures in Australia: materialities, temporalities and imaginaries.

中文翻译：

---

澳大利亚的水未来：物质性、时间性、想象

本期特刊是社会科学和人文思维以及公众对地球水问题的认识转变的一部分。随着社会和学术界对湿元素及其政治重要性和文化构成的关注日益增长，我们要问，我们如何重新思考澳大利亚现在和未来与水的关系？本期论文集表明，水对人类实践做出反应，而人类实践又植根于文化想象。因此，水以多种方式存在，并使得多种物质、政治和文化关系成为可能。以贡献者从这个问题和针对该问题提出的其他问题中提出的想法为指导，我们的介绍性讨论考虑了对于理解澳大利亚水未来至关重要的三个主题：物质性、暂时性和想象。