By Elizabeth Cutright
Over the summer, the East Coast found itself in the crosshairs of a storm that threatened to pound the region with record wind and rainfall. As prognosticators, weathermen, and news anchors conspired to predict the worst—flooding, deaths, billions of dollars in damage—Hurricane Irene made landfall with some vigor, but not nearly the level of violence that had been predicted. And while much of the eastern seaboard emerged from the storm unscathed but underwater, ultimately Hurricane Irene will most likely be known as the disaster that never was.
It is, perhaps, human nature to use tragedies—or in this case, near tragedies—as an impetus for self-reflection. While the storm clouds still lingered, and the now “tropical storm” Irene began her leisurely retreat, critics and pundits began to rally around the notion that perhaps the danger had been overstated and local and federal officials had “over prepared.”
That kind of circular thinking reveals the inherent flaw in the public’s perception of crisis containment and resource management. When executed correctly, emergency planning and efficient administration of resources should be almost invisible: catastrophe and upheaval averted through careful strategizing and competent coordination of services and personnel. When the public and private entities charged with managing and protecting our natural resources operate effectively, the result should always be a general sense that “Hey, that wasn’t so bad after all.”
Water security is a term that encompasses—and in some way expands—water resource management. To be “water secure” means you are certain your city, state, country, or community has enough potable water to meet the needs of the population. Yet, every day around the world, water security is menaced by catastrophic weather events like Irene, as well as exponential population growth, ongoing drought, increased urbanization, and pollution. And while all these dangers are important and should be vigilantly monitored, those of us focused on water efficiency know that overuse and over-utilization of water sources combined with inefficient and inadequate water resource management is the number one challenge—and number one threat—to our water supply.
Back in August 2006, Asit Biswas, head of the Third World Centre for Water Management, stated, “There is no shortage of water in the world…what it is facing is a crisis of bad water management”. Considered a bold statement at the time, Biswas’s assertion has never gained much traction in a world where the prevailing wisdom upholds the notion that the disparity between the water we need and the water we have can be blamed on diminishing supply.
A new study released Monday at the World Water Congress meeting in Brazil emphasizes the connection between water efficiency and water security. Released by the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF—a subset of the UN-supported Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), the new research reveals that there is more than enough water in the river basins of the Nile, Ganges, Yellow, and Volta to supply all of the world’s population. According to the researchers, scarcity is the not the problem.
In a statement, CPWF director Alain Vidal elaborated on the issue: “Our findings show that the problem overall is a failure to make efficient and fair use of the water available in these river basins. This is ultimately a political challenge, not a resource concern.”
Those of us tasked with water resource management have known for a long time that while the rest of the world fiddled over climate change, fossil fuel dependence, and a host of other distractions both legitimate and ephemeral, efficient water management was continuing to slip through the cracks and down the drain. Water is imbedded in just about every aspect of our lives—from basic living requirements to the products and services we’ve grown accustomed to, to the energy that makes our modern world possible—and yet its contribution is so effective that it’s almost as transparent as that fresh glass of water you just poured out of your tap.
We’ve known for a long time that we must recalibrate our focus so that water source protection and collection are not performed in a vacuum. Effective conveyance, operational infrastructure and efficiency are key components of any water resource plan. We must also battle fragmentation of services: lakes, streams, river basins, and watersheds are often managed and beholden to a myriad of different sectors including agriculture, industry, residential, and environmental concerns. As such, we must make sure that our current management protocols are inclusive as we work to forge new interstate and international partnerships that will allow us to more efficiently capitalize and protect our most valuable resource.Elizabeth Cutright is a former editor of Water Efficiency.
