This issue is a product of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network’s Thematic Area (TA) 3, the Urban Water Cycle and Essential Public Services. TA3 brings together academics, students, professionals working in the public sector, workers’ unions, practitioners from Non-Governmental Organizations, activists and members of civil society groups, and representatives of communities and users of public services, among others. The remit of this TA is broad, as the name suggests, but it has a strong focus on the political ecology of urban water, with emphasis on the politics of essential water services (both in urban and rural areas). Key issues addressed within this framework have been the neoliberalization of water services, social struggles against privatization and mercantilization of these services, the politics of public policy and management in the sector, water inequality and injustice, and the contradictions and conflicts surrounding the status of water and water services as a public good, as a common good, as a commodity, as a citizenship right, and more recently, as a human right. This issue complements previous work published as Volume 6 No 2 in June 2019 and addresses the significance of community participation in the management and monitoring of water sources, and in the organization of essential water services in rural and periurban communities. The work has been organized by Marcela Morales-Magaña, National School of Higher Studies, Unit Morelia, Michoacán, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Jaime Paneque-Gálvez, Research Centre on Environmental Geography, also at UNAM in Morelia, Michoacán, México, and Alejandro Torres-Abreu, Transdisciplinary Institute of Social Research-Action, University of Puerto Rico, campus Humacao, Puerto Rico. The collection features four articles focused on experiences from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, presenting research results, some originated in the authors’ recent doctoral dissertations.