David Groenfeldt Opines: 'A Conceptual Framework for Water Ethics'

David Groenfeldt, one of the smartest folks I know when it comes to issues of water ethics and culture, wrote an informative short article on A Conceptual Framework for Water Ethics in the current issue of Water Resources IMPACT. 

David begins:

Values about water, beyond the usual economic values, are finally getting serious attention in many venues: the UN High Level Panel on Water’s “Bellagio Principles” on valuing water (May 2017); the Vatican conference on water values on World Water Day last year (worldwatervalues.org), and American water utilities sounding the alarm for greater investments in urban water infrastructure (thevalueofwater.org). Meanwhile, the ongoing tragedy of Flint’s water crisis and the tone-deaf and violent response to indigenous values at Standing Rock (see Jennifer Veilleux’s article in Water Resources IMPACT, March 2017, pp. 32-34) have brought water issues to the forefront of public awareness.

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"If that [classical economic theory] is our language of [water] value, our moral language is impoverished." - Christiana Zenner

Comments

[Roman Kanivetsky]

It is gratifying that water value have drawn an unprecedented attention of World leaders and institutions. Water is indeed the World’s most undervalued resource. And ethical considerations are important, but they need to be studied within behavioral economics. Hydrologists alone simply cannot address this issue properly. What is sorely missing is complete oblivious in hydrologic community on how to provide science based research program for sustainable management of water resources (and by extension the value of the water). First, hydrologists must have recognition of the paradigm that water resources of the planet cannot accommodate the theory of infinite growth and time is right for redrafting of the contract between a man and nature with the focus on knowledge. To do this the new field of knowledge called “sustainability science” emerged in the first decade of the 21-st century (Keitdch, 2010). Its focus is the interaction between nature and society with equal attention how society changes environment and how environment changes society. Sustainability science uses system approach. System approach is both formidable and necessary in science as well as in policy making. Human -environmental systems are complex, heterogeneous, non-linear, spatially nested and hierarchically structured. An important attribute of systems is their resilience, the system ability to maintain structure and function in the face of perturbation and change. Thus, to develop knowledge for water sustainability the critical next phase is to develop a unified system model for convergence of hydrologic, economic, social and governance systems. The key message of convergence is that merging ideas, theories, approaches, and technologies from widely diverse fields of knowledge at a high level of integration is one crucial strategy for solving complex problems and addressing complex intellectual questions underlying sustainability. To move from knowledge of water availability to action this biophysical limit will guide the development of new economic model -the model that addresses the value of water - be it monetary or non-monetary on biophysical metrics of water and then a need to change and create new social logic and social system rooted in this new economic model that recognizes the limit of biophysical system of water resources. A similar place-based system model needs to be developed for economic, social and governance systems with subsequent convergence of the knowledge to address water sustainability. Convergence, integrated effectively, offers the possibility of a new paradigm capable of generating ideas, theories, discoveries, methodological and conceptual approaches, and forms and strategies of education and training. However, “knowing” notion is not enough, we must make a shift in thinking toward “learning”, simply because we have so much to learn. Trying to discover or write blueprints for such turbulent, rapidly evolving systems will in many cases prove futile. More important is that we recognize the extent of our ignorance, accept the concomitant necessity to treat policies and other management interventions as experiments, and take measures for learning from, the experiments we are forced to conduct on ourselves. Sustainable water resources management thus becomes viewed as a process of adaptive management and social learning in which knowledge plays a central role.
Finally, to make it happen a proper institutional structure must be organized where convergence of expertise and web of partnership must work together effectively.

[Boris]

The article reflects good attention of the author, however, not sure that the writing helps his goal. The article is something between poetry and scientific concept formulation.

There is a contemporary field of hydrology with scientific publication on a rational water use. Doing science is hard, doing contemporary science is harder. So, some peoples write texts and other publish it, both categories are happy it keep them busy and looks like right thing to do.