Peering Into the Future: Fresh Water in the New Century
by: Peter Gleick
The nature of water-resources
development around the world is changing. This should not be a surprise
- efforts to control and manage fresh water have taken many different
forms and directions over the past 5000 years. We live on a water planet,
but the reality is that the hydrologic cycle is capricious and highly
variable. Humans have long sought ways of reducing our vulnerability
to this variability: we moderate irregular river flows and variable
rainfall by moving, storing, and redirecting natural waters.
As the new millennium begins, a distressingly large number of water
problems still face us, and the way we think about managing freshwater
resources and human demands for water is changing again. Traditional
planning approaches and a reliance on physical solutions continue to
dominate, but new methods are being developed to use existing infrastructure
to meet the demands of growing populations without requiring major new
construction or new large-scale water transfers from one region to another.
More and more water suppliers and planning agencies are beginning to
shift their focus and explore how to improve efficiency, implement options
for managing demand, and reallocate water among users to reduce projected
gaps and meet future needs. There are new efforts underway to reduce
the risks of water related conflicts. And global climate change is forcing
a reassessment of water management and planning.
In my talk today
I discuss where we are and where we are going. What is the nature of
the world's water problems today? What are the critical issues? And
how might we address them. Enormous opportunities exist. An ethic of
sustainability will require fundamental changes in how we think about
water, and such changes come about slowly. Rather than endlessly trying
to find the water to meet some projection of future desires, it is time
to plan for meeting present and future human needs with the water that
is available, to determine what desires can be satisfied within the
limits of our resources, and to ensure that we preserve the natural
ecological cycles that are so integral to human well-being.
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