What do you think is the most effective way to encourage sustainable water use?

It seems like the average citizen is always "paying" the price for environmental concerns. Isn't it about time Corporations should be "stepping up to the plate". Example: Restrictions and possibly fines if water usage is exceeded by Hotel chains? Since many giants of industry seem to have no problem creating a profit on Weapons (some for Mass Destruction) why would it be such a bad thing to put some of that "hard earned money" back into creating water usage programs and devices? It is so sad to think about the proportion of effort that goes into killing our fellow human VS saving him or her! Wouldn't it be ironic to see a major effort of say a Corp. like Raytheon put an effort in making devices to HELP humans instead of killing them! Maybe corporations like Raytheon are just helping those that feel population control is the answer? Final note: 1982 I was diagnosed with Testicular cancer...reason.....drinking well water found to be contaminated with TCE from Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, CO (Denver). Shell Oil CORPORATION bailed out of that one! Possibly another answer to population control. I have never or ever will be able to father a child.

E C E Re manage the taxes.. putting more to industrial areas big firms..etc.and put law-less for the agricultural production fields .. Its gonna be accurately solution to encourage sustainable water use..

How to Control Population Growth? On sustainable water use: deciding on an entitlement amount, to be provided cheaply, beyond which the price rises sharply is a pretty elegant solution. On population control: Perhaps we should ensure that all members of a society can dream of a tomorrow. When people control their lives, are able to plan for tomorrow and accumulate some capital, then they become interested in limiting the number of children they have. Below this level of access to choices, there is no incentive, as all happenings in one's life are seen as 'acts of God'. Even in my high school geography lessons, this seemed clear. An example of this: no parent wants his/her children to be less educated than others, so if the quality of education is linked to the number of children, in other words the parent/family has enough money to plan children's education, then the logical decision to limit the number of children will follow. Yes, total equality in society is undesirable, yet so are the excessively large gaps we today see between the rich and poor.

Sheila #1. STOP population growth and #2. Reduce the population down to what is sustainable. There are far too many people on this planet and we are causing vast damage to the ecosystem because of it. Merely conserving is useless as long as we remain so overpopulated. Because we have used a fossil resource to excessively grow our population, as it declines, our excessive numbers will also be forced to decline the same way yeast in a petri dish is forced to decline, pollution, disease and starvation. There is no "shortage" of water, there is an excess of humans.

We use to hear many perspectives about sustainability, many theories but in my point of view there are two fundamental factors with profound impact on this subjetct: overpopulation and consumption habits. One reflects directly on other as a multiplying effect opposed to a sustainable condition. As aggravating circumstance are our dumb economy model that do not regard the costs of production, wich externalize everything is possible in order to reduce prices and therefore improve market share gains. Our fast paced technological innovation have its dark side too. It accelerates our natural way human beings are designed to live, leading to a high sensorial stimulus with superficial significance, against a deep spiritual and meaningful life.

In the U.S., at least, water is improperly priced. If water were priced based on its scarcity, it would be significantly more expensive, and people would be far less inclined to waste it. If water were properly priced, people would naturally use water conserving measures. This is as true of agriculture as it is of residential uses.

I think the best way is to charge people at an affordable rate for basic residential or industrial or agricultural needs and then charge very high rates for any additional water.... with a cap on water use which becomes wasteful ...You only get so much water a month, and everything that's a luxury (swimming pools, lawns, tropical gardens) will cost a lot, but there is still a limit on the amount of water each person can personally use. There will be a special cheap water rate for those who have gardens to grow their own food. Peace, Sue Nash I could not pick one of your choices, because all of the above and more will be needed to truly conserve water..

I heard somewhere a man had devised a completely non-electric solar desalination plant using tubes and solar energy, it's shaped like a Greek theatre I think, anyway, I think that would be the best way to create sustainable water sources for coastal cities, and if it works really well, then maybe we might even create a pipeline of fresh water to inland areas like the Midwest that are using up their aquifers. We need to recharge the underwater aquifers. In addition I am in favor of reclaiming waste water using natural ponds, and using water-saving devices and methods in and around homes, businesses, and in agriculture. tlshell@concentric.net

In the United States, at least, the best way to get to sustainable water is to end all government subsidies for water. That is, charge what it costs to produce and sustain plus a reasonable profit (surplus for gov't entities). If we let a free economy work, it will force conservation where it is most needed. If an aquifer is being depleted, the government should charge all entities withdrawing from the aquifer a fee - equivalent to the net present value required to replace the water in the future. The most ridiculous thing is the US government subsidizing water in the West and Southwest. If people want to live in a desert - they should have to pay the entire cost of their water. If they can't or won't, they can move to somewhere that has water naturally - and tolerate rain and snow like the rest of us.

The most effective mechanism to control consumer behavior is prices. We must include externalities (hidden costs, such environmental consequences) in the cost of commodities such as water. Then the cost will reflect its true value, and consumption will adjust accordingly. If necessary, that is where environmental authorities and experts come in, in estimating those costs. Admittedly they may still be imprecise, but better than ignoring them completely. In any case, many studies and prior experience have already provided a good basis for estimating the costs of remediation, new supplies, etc. It is too bad that we still continue to fear an effective and realistic pricing mechanism as a way of controlling supply and demand. It only shows that we want something for free, and are unwilling to accept changes which will hurt our pockets, irrespective of the consequences of an artificially cheap commodity price. One such forward step to recognizing the cost of commodities considered "free" is the recently instituted charge for water use in Brazil, slowly being implemented in several states. While still woefully inadequate in recognizing the true costs of water use and wastewater discharge, it sets a positive example and precedent. At least in this case it is hoped that these charges will increase substantially, in order to recognize realistic costs of water. Then, waste will be reduced, and water use will be reasonable, as fees will be adequate to cover the costs of maintaining supply syustems and carrying out pollution control measures. If such measures to build-in the real costs of water use and wastewater discharge were to be widely adopted, we can expect resources to be consumed reasonably. Social concerns, as with any other essential services, should always be handled with allowances or subsidies for minimum essential use, but not for amounts in excess. Prof. Cleveland M. Jones State University of Rio de Janeiro

An excerpt from an article by Roxanne Warren at www.vision42.org

Ecological Perspectives

With decentralization unconstrained, we are depleting farmland, forests and wildlife habitats at an unprecedented rate, and absorbing an estimated 50 acres of prime and unique farmland every hour, every day in exurban development.¹³ Largely because of their loss of habitat, animal species are becoming extinct at a rate some 100 times their normal replacement levels.¹⁴ What was once a vast continuum of interrelated natural landscapes is being fragmented into isolated islands so small that they are unable to sustain viable populations of flora and fauna. As these area are degraded and destroyed, there are massive losses of invertebrate life-those small creatures that serve as the very basis of every ecosystem-the source of pollination, fertility, waste decomposition, and maintenance of soil structure upon which plant growth and higher organisms depend.¹⁵

Perhaps the most compelling case against continued sprawl, which has been illuminated by authors Benfield, Raimi and Chen, is that of the need to protect the quality of our water, many of whose persistent problems derive directly from current patterns of development. "Non-point-source" pollution is the term use to describe the contamination of water runoff from widespread surfaces (as compared with the "point-source" pollution that comes from industrial drainage pipes and sewers.) The sources of non-point pollution are normally much harder to identify, as they include urban runoff, agriculture, logging operations, construction sites, and large hydro-engineering projects that alter water flow patterns. However, it is now the nation's leading threat to water quality.¹⁶

Natural landscapes are typically porous; rainwater percolates slowly through them in a filtering and cleansing process on its way to underground aquifers, lakes, streams and estuaries. But when forests, wetlands and grasslands are replaced with impervious surfaces, such as parking lots, roads, and rooftops, stormwater becomes trapped above these surfaces, running off in large volumes, often at high velocity, picking up pollutants along the way. There is consequently a strong correspondence between the percentage of land in a given area that is covered with impervious surfaces and the ability of our water systems to regenerate themselves. The degradation of streams has been found to begin when impervious cover in a watershed exceeds 10 percent of the land area (when fish begin to disappear), and a watershed is considered generally degraded at levels above 30 percent imperviousness. Residential subdivisions with one-acre lots typically result in 10 to 20 percent impervious surfaces, and industrial, commercial, and shopping center development in 75 to 95 percent imperviousness.¹⁷

Therefore, for the vital purpose of protecting regional water quality, the very best solution for urban development, as urged by author Tom Schueler, is to concentrate as much development as possible in high-density clusters within areas that are already developed and therefore biologically non-supporting, allowing them to be degraded to as much as 100 percent imperviousness, in order to spare other watersheds from exceeding the 10 percent maximum threshold needed to protect the area's water quality.¹⁸ This recommendation is in direct synchrony with other ecological needs for concentrating future growth within existing urban areas.

World population control is desperately needed. We need to be reducing world population with a mandatory plan similar to the 'one child family' in China. All the other choices offered in this 'poll' are only means to slow the consequences of ignoring this problem; they are not solutions. This goes for all the other problems we face: world energy supply, food supply, etc. It is getting way past the point where we should all be engaged in this discussion, but I see this mentioned in only a few of the comments above! Richard Bentley

(Peter Buck) I agree with others. The consumer responds to economic pressure. Progressive scale for water use, incentives and subsidies for technologies to reduce use. Lobbying to change restrictive legislation to allow safe low-use solutions (e.g. composting toilets) or safe grey-water use (such as for flushing toilets and irrigation). Strong legislation with heavy penalties prohibiting dumping of poisons into wastewater, with the goal of safe total recycling. And, unfortunately, population stabilization or reduction.

Douglas T. Hawes I feel that on a personnal level citizens should be charged a low rate on the first 20 gallons/day/person. After that there should be an increased rate for the next 100 gallons and a much higher rate again for all water used above 120 gallons/person/day. Industries should be charged the intermediate rate (rate charged per person/day for 20 to 120 gallons) for all water used unless it is untreated or effluent. Agriculture should be charged at the lowest rate for treated water. They also need to be charged for all runoff if it exceeds certain low levels of pollution. Industry also needs to be charged for discharges exceeding certain low levels of pollution.

The REAL problem is not too little water, and only marginally is it waste and a lack of consevation. Population growth will quickly devour any conservation savings. The real problem is overpopulation, and we do ourselves a disservice if we continue focusing only on band-aids while avoiding discussion of the real cause of resource shortages. Dave Gardner Producer/Director Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity www.growthbusters.com

I agree that our attitude towards water (and other "resources") must change dramatically if we are to live a sustainable life. WE are water, so to view it as a resource is to view ourselves as a resource. When something becomes a product, a certain set of marketing laws begin to operate. These laws basically demand more production/consumption and maximum profit. "How can we be free, when the water that we drink id owned by some company?" This is just part of a much bigger trend of converting the planet into products. I am afraid we cannot find solutions working in the system. We have to resist!

Reduce the population of the planet.

I am South African. We have a physical scarcity in many areas and economic scarcity in others. The one reinforces the other, but with sufficient political will, education and economic incentives these shortages will not curtail our agricultural or industrial development and all, even the poorest, will access sufficient water to cover their health, hygiene and productive needs. In all areas, care for the wellbeing of our water resources is paramount. Pollution causes serious threats to the wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems. Despite our progress in meeting the Millenium Development goals with respect to people accessing acceptable water supply and sanitation services, physical access and affordability are continuing issues that require further updates to our legislation and continuing monitoring, evaluation and regulation, supported by all spheres of government. Particularly, but not only, in areas of physical scarity, the need to decrease the quantities of unaccounted for water, and increase the water usage efficieny by all classes of water users is necessary. Increased efficiency will include increased investments in well tried and tested technologies, but also in new technoligies and in increased on and off site water recycling.

We need to harness market forces to solve resource shortage problems but Cap and Trade (I call it Cap and Charade) is not the way to go. Adopt the policies of Earthrights Democracy http://www.earthrights.net/ Institute substantial user fees on natural resources including raw water. Then remove taxes on labor and capital investment. And finally redistribute the user fee revenue to pay for public services, to protect ecological services, and to give everyone an Earth-Inheritance dividend that goes into social security/health savings/education/energy transition accounts. Paul Justus Support The Green Tax Shift 80/80 by 2020

It seems to me that the best way to ensure sustainable water supplies and use is through a combination of factors. Since most people in the world are not educated about environmental issues and consequences (and solutions) or, in many cases, do not have access to basic education, there needs to be, first and foremost, opportunities for public education and engagement with respect to interactions with the world around them. People need to learn how to become good, responsible environmental and global citizens, something that most global citizens don't know and something that is becoming increasingly foreign to most people as the planet becomes more urban. They need to learn about the interconnections between everything in the world (especially that their decisions and actions have repercussions globally). They need to learn that human health is directly correlated to environmental health. They also need to learn that each of us plays, or should play, an active role in ensuring that footprints are reduced and that resource consumption practices are sustainable, at both a global level and at our own individual level. In addition to this, it is essential that governments work together to collaborate on establishing policies and laws that help to sustain the environment. In recent research that I have done in Ontario, the public is open to the establishment of laws that protect and preserve the environment even if it means that some of their personal freedoms and choices are limited as a result. Larry White Second Nature Learning Services Inc. www.snls.ca

Healthy Communities. I just wrote a paper on this for my water policy class, though I should say I was focused on water use by average citizens rather than by companies or institutions. My paper was about getting citizens to change their activities and behaviors on land that result in non-point source pollution runoff (86% of water impairments in my state of Minnesota come from contaminated runoff). In short, I think many of our water use dilemmas can be better addressed on the demand-side, and are better approached from the grass-roots. That is, by promoting true citizen participation in our governance. In Minnesota, watershed districts at the local level do the vast majority of water resource management. My own District has tried very hard to engage citizens through their education and outreach program, but two problems persist: 1.) State level policies still follow a top-down, command-and-control approach to water resource management, which hampers my District's ability to include citizens in any meaningful decision-making. 2.) Social scientists have long contended that knowledge acquisition is weakly correlated with behavior change, so my District's education programs really only affect the 'already converted' in their attempts to encourage water stewardship. Plus, expecting our love of natural waters to easily translate to our relationship with stormwater (my District's approach) is much more complex than we might realize. (But that is another story in itself.) What's missing in our attempts to promote water stewardship among citizens, according to the research I've done, is a focus on organizing communities to build supportive social structures and civic capacity. The 'soil' so to speak that the 'seeds' of education need if they are to take root. This is by far the best way to positively impact water use behavior change on the part of citizens. Behavior change doesn't happen in a vacuum - it needs a supportive social environment, such as a community that has identified common goals, built social networks, and uses social capital to access resources and affect change. In essence these social structures become a mechanism to help neighbors change their perspective from the isolated resident with sovereignty over his/her property, to the engaged citizen that is part of a community working, collaboratively, to take charge of their own community's water future. So, I say, we start with small neighborhood groups and see where that takes us. As citizens become empowered and take back ownership of their water's health, then maybe these citizen groups across neighborhoods can team up with each other and teach our companies and institutions how to be "good neighbors" who are accountable to The People. That's my 2 cents anyway. :) J.

Money is what everything is about. If water costs too much, people will conserve. That includes agricultural, residential, and industrial users. Establish a basic subsistance price, then ramp the price up steeply with useage. The reason we over-consume everything is that stuff is too cheap. The price of most stuff does not reflect its true environmental cost. That goes for tennis balls, books, CDs, toys, meat --- you name it. Sadly, it is not in human nature to reflect on future consequences of present actions. We must be motivated by something other than long-term self-interest.. Can any of you think of any other motivation that is proven to work? Water and fuel must become dramatically more expensive if we hope to conserve. And contrary to the popular media, technology is not the answer. At least not in the near term. Conservation is the key. When is the last time you heard that in the media? Probably never.

Population growth control (independent of country, race, religion, social status or income) is the best and most effective way to encourage sustainable water use.

Restricting the number of people requiring water is the best option. People must live comfortably, but according to limits in natural resources –particularly water- on their region.

The options to solve water scarcity, along with the crises and conflicts it causes, mainly rest on the social, moral and economic realm, rather than on the technical one, although at first glance may appear the other way. Technology most likely always can find a way to improve efficiency, but also it implies costs and damages sometimes not apparent. Solutions often have clear and immediate economic components; but often also may have vague, but possibly important, environmental, quality of life and long-term consequences. Unfortunately traditional economic and technical models, merely depreciates and not consider such impacts just because they do not know how to deal with them.

===== There are lots of technical and managerial options to deal with water scarcity, which propose different solutions and ways to face the problem. When severe permanent scarcities are present or are latent for the near future, treatment is radically different from when it is a mild or temporary scarcity. Unfortunately most existing proposals are too mild and afraid to face the taboo that the words “overpopulation” or “population control” generate on powerful politicians, big corporations and religions. Selection and strategies are not merely technical, but in a great degree are moral. Water institutions need to be more aware of limits in natural resources and have more congruence and co-operation with other institutions to limit demographic growth.

Now that are evident the failures and flaws of traditional economic models cheering growth and expansion, there is need for a new paradigm. Efficient water use and conservation should be seen as a route to reach this new paradigm and not as a means for reinforcing the old one.

When continued, long lasting and growing sacrifices, or “improved efficiencies” is the alternative to make available water to increasing populations, and when there is not a clear end for these situation; a serious questioning must be made about the risk of failures of this route (plagued with decreasing safety levels) and of the worth of such sacrifices. It could be that opting to limit growth and limit technology would be more appropriate, sound and simple.

To finish my comment, here are four interesting quotes:

=== The really efficient labourer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. Henry David Thoreau

"Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim." ~Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Future generations--the presumed beneficiaries of our strategic planning--will care not a lick for how we stacked up against the conventional indicators of institutional success. They will measure us, rather, by our foresight and for what we were willing to risk on their behalf. (David Orr, 1998)

“We the water resources engineers are indeed the unwitting, primary agents in the long-term, inexorable destruction of the world”. William James (professor, Guelph University)

Our attitude to water is that if we do have enough we can easily get more. This is our experience. We only need to dig a well or drill a bore hole and pump out as much as we need. When our technology was a bucket on the end of a rope we were not overstressing the hydrology. Now we have high capacity pumps. This means we can draw so much water that we push down the water table. This reduces the capacity of the local hydrology to keep the rivers flowing in dryer years. We now know that climate change will lead to dryer weather in many places making the situation worse. The main lesson is live within the hydrology. The mechanism I have proposed in my book, 'Adapt and Thrive: The Sustainable Revolution' is to separate the charge for the delivery of water from a charge for the water itself. When water is plentiful, the water component is free. When water is scarce the price rises. The amount of water available is determined by a committee of experts who decide on a regular basis how much can be drawn. There is then a true market to guide our investment. It also drives our behaviour. For example, only filling a swimming pool when water is cheap. This is also when water is plentiful and clearly the right behaviour. Water shortages are handled by working within a capped water market. There will be poorer people who pay more for water to drink. We can earmark the water income (not the service charge for delivery) for water conservation measures for poorer people such as low flow showers and short flush loos. We might also decide that a small and frugal level of water consumption is allowed before charges kick in so people can drink and cook for free.

Peter McManners