Water - The Crisis Ahead

Water –
The Crisis Ahead

Workshop Executive Summary
Bellevue, Washington USA ∙ April 21–23, 2010

Water – The Crisis Ahead
Workshop Executive Summary
Bellevue, Washington USA ∙ April 21–23, 2010
• A Foundation For the Future Publication

“Water – The Crisis Ahead” Workshop Executive Summary
© 2010 Foundation For the Future
Foundation For the Future, Publisher

123 105th Avenue SE
Bellevue, WA USA 98004
Tel: 425.451.1333
Fax: 425.451.1238
www.futurefoundation.org
ISBN 978-0-9794081-8-2
1. Future – Humanity.
2. Water.
3. Resource depletion and degradation.
I. Title.
The goal in publishing the Executive Summary of the workshop

“Water – The Crisis Ahead” is to encourage humans to think
about and act upon issues that the workshop participants
deemed critical to the long-term future of water and humanity.
Printed copies of this publication are available from the

Foundation For the Future. Contact the Foundation for details.
Printed in the United States of America
∞
Contents
List of Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
Summary Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Is the Crisis and What Is Causing It?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Regional Assessments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
South Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Middle East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Other Regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Nuances on “Global Crisis”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Lessons Available to Us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

From History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
From Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
From Ethics and Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
From Current Trends in Water Policy and Governance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
From Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Gamut of Issues Identified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Two Most Critical Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Appendix Participants’ Statements, Biographies, and Partial Bibliographies . . . . . . . 15
iii
iv
List of Participants
Mr. Ger Bergkamp Dr. Andrew R. Parker *

Director General Research Leader
World Water Council The Natural History Museum
Marseille, France London, England UK
Dr. Dennis M. Bushnell * Dr. Peter P. Rogers

Chief Scientist Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental
NASA Langley Research Center Engineering
Hampton, Virginia USA Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts USA
Dr. Brian Fagan Dr. Vernon L. Scarborough

President Charles Phelps Taft Professor & Dept. Head
Lindbriar Corporation Department of Anthropology
Santa Barbara, California USA University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio USA
Prof. Basia Irland Dr. Tony J. Wilkinson *

Professor Emerita Professor
Department of Art and Art History Department of Archaeology
University of New Mexico Durham University
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA Old Elvet, Durham UK
Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda Mr. Kenneth R. Wright

Associate Professor, Environmental Studies, Founder
Theology and Religious Studies Wright Water Engineers
Seattle University Denver, Colorado USA
Seattle, Washington USA
Prof. T.N. Narasimhan Dr. Chunmiao Zheng

Professor Emeritus Professor of Hydrogeology
Dept. of Materials Sciences and Engineering Department of Geological Sciences
University of California, Berkeley University of Alabama
Berkeley, California USA Tuscaloosa, Alabama USA
Mr. Ravi Narayanan * * Four participants were unable to attend the

Vice Chair workshop but still contributed to the findings.
Governing Council
Asia Pacific Water Forum
Bangalore, India
v
Pictured in front of the

“Cosmic Origins” mural
at the Foundation For
the Future building are
workshop participants
(left to right):
Ger Bergkamp,
Vernon L. Scarborough,
Basia Irland,
Walter Kistler
(Foundation President),
Peter P. Rogers,
T.N. Narasimhan,
Brian Fagan,
Chunmiao Zheng,
Kenneth R. Wright,
and workshop facilitator
Sesh Velamoor.
Not shown are

Dennis M. Bushnell,
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda,
Ravi Narayanan,
Andrew R. Parker,
and Tony J. Wilkinson.
vi
Summary
Lake Mead, the largest
reservoir in the United
States, is at its lowest
water level in 40 years
due to continuing below-
normal runoff from the
Colorado River.
Introduction
The workshop “Water – The Crisis Ahead” was sponsored and conducted by Foundation
For the Future, April 21–23, 2010. It was held at the Foundation For the Future building in
Bellevue, Washington USA, with experts on water from Europe, Asia, and the United States
participating.
In keeping with the mission of the Foundation to increase and diffuse knowledge con-
cerning the long-term future of humanity, the intent of the workshop was to examine the
world’s water situation. Water is emerging as a bigger crisis for humanity than oil, but few
in the general public are aware of the urgent need to address this issue. In this invitation-
only workshop, Foundation For the Future put sharp focus on the subject by constructing a
process designed to optimize multidisciplinary perspectives.
An inaugural address was given by Professor T.N. Narasimhan, from the University of
California at Berkeley. Eleven 20-minute presentations were planned for the first day’s agen-
da, under the headings:
▶▶ Understanding Water
▶▶ History of Water and Civilization
▶▶ Regional Assessments of Water
▶▶ Governance, Policy, Finance, Business, and Water Management
▶▶ NGOs, Technology, Solutions, and Ethics
The presentations were followed by Q&A and discussions in plenary sessions, leading
to a determination by the participants of what they considered to be the most critical issues
related to water on the planet. Two of those critical issues were chosen for deeper discussion
in “fishbowl” conversations. Following is a Summary of the proceedings and findings of the
workshop.
1
What Is the Crisis and What Is Causing It?

The water crisis facing humanity results from two basic facts: humans are using water at a
rate much faster than nature can replenish it, and at the same time, some uses that humans
have for water are degrading the biological habitat. Issues surrounding water become further
intensified when water is viewed as a source of economic or political power, which has led to
moral and ethical questions related to ownership, rights to use, and management of water.
finite resource Perhaps the basis of the crisis is the inability, to date, of humans to accept that water is
a finite resource circulating in a continuous cycle between the atmosphere and the planet.
Neither nature nor science can make more water than what we have in the hydrologic cycle,
which entails rain falling from the atmosphere, some of it flowing over the land surface and
some going underground; the return of the moisture to the atmosphere through evaporation
from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants; and rain falling again
from the atmosphere. Groundwater requires thousands of years to replenish naturally.
In his inaugural speech opening the workshop, Professor T.N. Narasimhan urged that
humans avoid withdrawal of water from what he called “dead-storage,” rainwater that has
accumulated in aquifers over long periods of time, in some cases over hundreds to thou-
sands of years. Long-term water security cannot be assured if these waters are mined and
used. Instead, humans must focus on effective use of water in transient storage (both on the
land surface and below ground), which is periodically emptied and refilled, and protecting
it from depletion or degradation.
climatic variability Though more water cannot be manufactured in the cycle, in some years less precipita-
tion occurs because of normal climatic variability and for special reasons such as El Niño
or La Niña patterns, creating less available water in those years for consumption by ecosys-
tems and all living things. Actual water availability for use by humans, Narasimhan said,
“may be taken on reasonable hydrological grounds to be about 15 percent of the total annual
rainfall” – and every year as global population increases, there are more users vying for
that limited quantity. This problem is further exacerbated by higher per capita consumption
and diversification of demands made upon water as economic growth brings higher living
standards.
Professor Narasimhan outlined both the science and human dimensions of water and
encapsulated the response required of humanity: “The fundamental challenge in meeting
the water crisis locally or globally is to establish a credible water budget, assess temporal
year-to-year uncertainty, and formulate management strategies that limit water use within
the bounds of availability.”
2
Summary
Left to right:
The culture of Varanasi,

India, is tied closely to
the Ganges River and its
religious importance.
A young boy fills up water

jugs in Delhi, India.
Himalayan glacier in
Nepal projected to shrink
by 68 percent between
now and 2100.
Regional Assessments
The workshop included overviews of the current water situation at various places in the
world. South Asia and China drew particular attention through presentations, respectively,
by Peter Rogers and Chunmiao Zheng.
South Asia
One of the world’s most water-stressed regions is South Asia, where overexploitation has glaciers
created severe problems in many river basins. The Himalayan glaciers are projected to shrink
from approximately 5,000 square kilometers at present to approximately 1,600 square kilo-
meters by 2100, which will have a major impact on water. “The major issue is not that annual
flows will be less,” said Professor Rogers, “but that the natural storage in the glaciers will be
lost and will have to be made up for by groundwater and surface storage.”
Among countries suffering adverse conditions is Bangladesh, where the diversion of the floods
Ganges water at Farakka has had significant negative impact. Nearly 30–40 percent of the
land area goes underwater every year due to floods, and then during the dry season, saline
water penetrates up into the western reaches of the delta, damaging crops. Treaties have not
allayed the contentious water issues between India and Bangladesh.
India is badly water-stressed not only on its border with Bangladesh, but also in South
India as well as on the western border with Pakistan.
Though Professor Rogers questioned the statistics, more than one participant referenced
the report of the 2030 Water Resources Group, published in 2009, which stated that by 2030,
India’s water availability will lag demand by 50 percent, and in the world overall, availabil-
ity will lag demand by 40 percent.
Even changing dietary patterns will play into the water situation as India and China be- dietary patterns
come wealthier and their people choose more and more to consume meat. The same amount
of water required in production of grain can serve either one person eating beef or ten per-
sons eating the grain.
3
Left to right:
Chongqing Chaotianmen
port at the junction of the
Jialing and Yangtze rivers.
Longji rice fields in

Guangxi Province, China,
terraced to slow the runoff
of irrigation waters.
China
Chunmiao Zheng spoke about China, which he called “a thirsty nation.” In relation to the
world overall, China has 20 percent of the population (which is growing at the rate of about
14 million a year), 10 percent of the farmlands, and only 7 percent of the water. China has
emerged as a global economic power with economic expansion of 10 percent each year since
the late 1970s, but many economists and researchers are asking if that unprecedented eco-
nomic expansion can be sustained.
pollution In its water availability, China has an extreme imbalance that divides the country into
two halves. On average, people in the south have four times more water than people in the
north. On top of the issue of water scarcity is pollution, which from a long-term perspective,
Zheng said, is more severe. Two-thirds of the large and medium cities are experiencing water
shortage, and pollution to aquatic systems and groundwater aquifers is pervasive.
In the North China Plain, average precipitation has been decreasing steadily for the last
50 years, due in part to climate change. Today, surface water is almost nonexistent. Huge
bridges that formerly spanned significant rivers now span dry land. Water seen flowing in a
river is very often untreated wastewater used by farmers for irrigation.
solutions Possible solutions identified for China include saving water through higher efficiency,
changes in agricultural practices, rainwater harvesting, desalination, and price reform. But
the key method chosen by China is a massive engineering project now underway to address
the water imbalance, a south-to-north water transfer, conceived with three routes and ul-
timately expected to move some 45 billion cubic meters of water per year by 2050. Studies
on the project began in the 1950s under Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Re-
public of China. At present, the eastern route is near completion; the middle route has been
delayed; and the western route is in debate, Zheng said.
consequences If the major three-route project is completed, it will be accompanied by consequences
such as reduction in Yangtze River flows, polluted inflows and return flows, environmental
and ecosystem issues, energy consumption, and social impacts for displaced people.
4
Summary
The Middle East
Another region to which the workshop had expected to draw particular attention was the water deficit
Middle East, through a presentation by T.J. Wilkinson, Professor in the Department of Ar-
chaeology at Durham University in the UK. Dr. Wilkinson was precluded from attending the
workshop by the volcanic ash from the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull that grounded
nearly all flights from Europe. His presentation materials included a statement by J.A. Allan,
who has written extensively on Middle East water issues, that most Middle East countries
were in water deficit by the 1970s. Wilkinson provided a chart delineating comparisons of
the ancient water systems and the modern conditions for various Middle East areas, includ-
ing Yemen, Iraq, North Syria, the Jordan Valley, Northeast Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Among
his conclusions: “large-scale administrative systems can be associated with the develop-
ment of large-scale water systems that are unsustainable over long periods. On the other
hand, small-scale systems under large-scale administrations or collaborating polities may sustainable systems
make the most sustainable systems.”
Other Regions
Some countries, such as South Africa and New Zealand, have asserted public ownership of water law
water, making the State responsible for equitable water management. The European Union,
in its Water Framework Directive of 2000, required all member nations to treat water as a
common heritage and formulate water law based on river basins. In the United States, Cali-
fornia has set a goal of reducing water use by 20 percent over the next decade. Especially in
the United States, groundwater depletion is extensive and worrisome for the future.
Nuances on “Global Crisis”
Though the existence of a global water crisis already in progress was largely accepted as water governance
fact by the participants, two voices offered a balancing view. One was Ravi Narayanan, Vice
Chair of the Governing Council of Asia Pacific Water Forum, Bangalore, who was also slated
to participate in the workshop but was detained in India because of the impact of volcanic
ash to European air traffic. Among Narayanan’s questions prior to the workshop was the
issue of whether there really is a “global” water crisis or if it is more a crisis of local water
governance. He wrote: “ … arguably solutions can be found at more local levels through bet-
ter analysis of local problems and accountable and inclusive policies. So, is the perception
of ‘big problems’ a distraction…?” In a follow-on email, he further clarified: “The problem
could better be described as one of global proportions (in that almost all countries are con-
cerned by water issues but impacted in different ways) rather than a global crisis (which
implies or suggests that all countries are afflicted in the same way). Therefore solutions can
best be considered starting from local perspectives and then working upwards.”
Peter Rogers offered a similar precaution in “forecasting is not destiny,” stating that
though there is a very serious water crisis brewing, we don’t have to have a crisis, but we are
growing one right now.
5
Lessons Available to Us
The workshop was designed to be multidisciplinary, offering participants a variety of per-
spectives on water issues. The result was the uncovering of lessons that might not otherwise
have surfaced. Following are some of these lessons.
From History
technological fixes Anthropologist Vernon Scarborough, who has studied water management in ancient
societies, believes that technology is only a partial answer to humanity’s future, with con-
siderations such as social organization, labor allocation, kinship, and worldview requiring
the same level of attention. “We can come up with technological fixes but they are for the
short term,” said Scarborough. “It’s what people do in terms of their varied ideologies and
how they treat their environments and their relationships with one another that is long term
and truly lasting.” Even today, the most adaptive systems globally are community-level soci-
eties operating in relationships that are a glove-fit with their environments, he said.
Scarborough pointed to the Zuni as one earlier society that worked with the immediacy
of its environment. The Zuni took advantage of snowfalls to roll huge snowballs that they
purposely retained in closed depressions so that when the snow melted, the water could be
contained and used.
reverence Archaeologist Brian Fagan also emphasized the local level: “A lot of water management
has got to be done at the small-scale, local level because millions of people still live at the
subsistence level, from drought to drought, from harvest to harvest.” A key lesson from the
past is that water was once a matter of reverence, something to be respected and conserved,
said Fagan, not merely a commodity to be consumed.
agricultural methodology Kenneth Wright’s presentation discussed how the Tiwanaku empire in ancient Bolivia
responded to drought. During a 30-year drought in the 6th century AD the people changed
their agricultural methodology to a mound system that enabled them to thrive for another
400 years. However, another major drought that began about AD 950 was so severe that the
people lost confidence in their central government. The social structure collapsed and the
people reverted to the subsistence agriculture still used today, a thousand years later, by the
Aymara near Lake Titicaca.
From Art
awareness Basia Irland, water- and eco-artist, emphasized the capacity of the arts to create public
awareness. “One of the things I do is create projects along the entire length of rivers to bring
awareness to the various problems that are happening along them and to stress that we all
live downstream,” she said. More and more, as water levels decline, rivers do not make it
all the way to their destinations. Many watersheds are heavily polluted with chemicals, acid
mine drainage, and other toxins. Her various art-based methodologies get information out
about international water issues. Among the projects are carved wooden “hydrolibros” cov-
ered with earth from different sites and embedded with shells or plant life to tell the story of
the natural location, and carved ice books embedded with seeds native to the waterway into
which the ice book is launched; as the melting ice releases the seeds, they can take root to
6
Summary
Left to right:
A child enjoys a carved,

seed-embedded ice book
created by eco-artist Basia
Irland. Launched in the
river, the book will melt,
releasing the seeds to
take root along the banks.
An aqueduct near Los

Angeles, California.
Indonesian farmers at
work in a rice paddy,
which requires large
quantities of water.
restore plant life to the banks.

Irland’s sculptural rainwater-harvesting projects divert rainwater from roofs for use in rainwater-harvesting
fountains that ultimately irrigate urban gardens or to provide for personal uses without tap-
ping into the municipal water supply.
Pathogens in water are another focus of attention. “Every eight seconds, somewhere water-related disease
in the world, a child dies from a water-related disease,” Irland said. To communicate the
seriousness of the situation, she developed “Waterborne Dis/ease,” a series of art pieces
focused on the pathogens that cause the diseases. These artistic scrolls feature Vibrio chol-
erae, Giardia, and a number of other infectious microorganisms. Further, she has worked
with local musicians in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nepal to compose songs about how to avoid
deadly pathogens such as schistosomiasis, and to perform the songs in the local languages,
accompanied by traditional instruments.
Our water future, Professor Irland said, will depend upon “our commitment to creative
actions, constellations of diversity, collaborations and cooperation, community and cul-
ture, compassion, conservation, and communication.”
From Ethics and Theology
“The ethical problem is that we are not all in this mess in the same way,” said ethicist and social justice
theologian Cynthia Moe-Lobeda. “Few things will have more impact on who lives and who
dies in the coming decades than the decisions we make regarding the world’s freshwater
supplies. A viable water ethic will hold social justice and ecological sustainability as insepa-
rable in the quest for a moral relationship between humankind and planet Earth.
“The human task today is not to dominate the Earth but fervently to repent of our de-
structive role and then to reconceptualize ourselves in a way that resituates human beings
within, rather than above, Earth’s web of life,” said Moe-Lobeda. We must come “to un-
derstand ourselves as water creatures, kin to all, descendants of the same stardust that
comprises the water bringing life itself to our plant and animal kin.”
7
From Current Trends in Water Policy and Governance
politicization Ger Bergkamp spoke about the increasing politicization of the water issue. It’s no longer
just an environmental discussion for scholars and engineers; now politicians get involved,
bringing a different way of looking at things. For some of the questions we want to resolve,
he said, we need the perspective of a much longer time horizon than politicians facing elec-
tions every four or six years are accustomed to. Even so, at the 5th Water Forum in Istanbul
in March 2009, the Istanbul Water Consensus was formulated, with mayors of some 600 to
700 cities coming together to demonstrate that elected officials at the local level, during
their time in office, can commit to water. A recent conference of US mayors also saw a dec-
laration on water and their challenge to keep up the levels of investment in coming decades.
In corporations, too, there is increasing discussion about their “water footprint,” an ef-
fort to examine production uses of water and determine the total amount of water they are
using besides just what is in their taps.
energy production The issues to be faced by politicians and corporations alike are very complicated and seri-
ous. How will we bring together more energy production with other water requirements? If we
want to produce more energy, we’ll need more and more water to do so. There may be limits on
how much hydropower we can produce, how much cooling water will be available for nuclear
power plants, and how high prices can be set. Two years ago, West African farmers could not
afford to pump water from wells to irrigate crops because of the higher cost for energy. How do
we bring together the need to use river water to light Bangkok and still serve the one million
fishermen in Cambodia who are dependent for their livelihoods on the same river?
institutions Bergkamp recommends putting in place institutions that can manage the distribution and
access to water. The institutions need to be locally grounded and have local capacities to man-
age and innovate. Second, we need to be looking at investing in a green economy that focuses
on efficiency, on ecological tax reforms, on incentives to not pollute and actually to depollute.
Third, we need to invest in people focusing on secondary education and networked water uni-
versities where students learn to work in an integrated and interdisciplinary manner.
From Nature
adaptations Andrew Parker, another workshop participant who could not attend because of the impact
to commercial flights of the Icelandic volcano eruption, had one question to ask: Why are
we not considering the myriad of adaptations to water found in animals and plants? From
Parker’s research, “these include devices that help living organisms to survive under ex-
tremes of high and low rainfall, and in hot and cold deserts, which may ultimately help
us to increase our water collection and to optimize our water efficiency, thereby reducing
our water consumption.” Animals and plants have evolved, over millions of years of “trial
and error,” ways to optimize water usage and to obtain water under adverse conditions, in
addition to filtering water by removing pathogens and impurities, and storing it over long
periods. In biology and engineering, humans are just beginning to learn how.
An example of humans learning to adapt techniques from studying other organisms is
the experimental renewable technology of “fog harvesting” now being used in 22 countries
on six continents. The technique was learned by studying the black darkling beetle of Na-
mibia to observe how it obtains water from fog through a droplet-growing system.
8
Summary
The Gamut of Issues Identified

Workshop participants were asked to name, based on the presentations and related discus-
sions, the two most important issues concerning water on the planet. The following ten
issues were identified; they are not ordered for priority but only as they arose in the session.
1. The importance of turning around the attacks on science that have precluded frank
discussions of climate change.
2. Climate change and the lessons to be learned from past adaptations.
3. Technological advances required for more efficient water use; for example, desalination
as a long-term solution, as well as advances in agriculture.
4. Governance: How to create the political will necessary to solve the problems surround-
ing water use, as well as issues of political and economic justice.
5. Quality/quantity, in view of statistics that unsafe water kills more people than war and
all other forms of violence combined.
6. Futures scenarios: The 100- to 1000-year outlook and how it influences what we need to
be deciding today. Also, how to address both the short and long term, because tech-
nical change in the long term may enable us to solve water-quantity problems with
inexpensive solar electricity.
7. Public awareness: How can we influence people’s attitudes, values, and worldview
towards conserving water?
8. The variety of challenges involved in local uses versus requirements for megalopo-
lises. For example, an upstream large city may capture and utilize water that might be
needed for local use downstream.
9. Water justice: One issue is the extent to which the world’s highest consuming sectors
are responsible for the water scarcity and water degradation of the world’s most impov-
erished sectors. Who will own and control the world’s freshwater and determine who
has access to it and who does not?
10. Nation-states: Will nations make the conscious decision to determine economic growth
based on availability of water and not make arbitrary decisions about economic growth
without giving any consideration to water, ecosystem, and land resources? Will nations
make explicit declarations in their constitutions regarding how water decisions and
strategies will be guided?
While any of these issues and questions would be suitable for further study and discussion,
the participants chose two for consideration in greater depth during the workshop.
9
The Two Most Critical Issues

Governance and technology were the two broad categories selected by the participants as
the leading issues facing humanity in the water crisis ahead. Nuances of each topic were
also addressed.
Fishbowl 1
Governance / Political Will / Justice / Constitutional Guidelines / Growth Targets
Workshop facilitator Sesh Velamoor asked the fishbowl participants to approach the subject
as if they were writing a book: What would be the chapter headings? As the conversation
progressed and ideas emerged, Velamoor added to an outline, with the following result:
Working Title: Towards Water Justice
1. Trajectory of privatization
▶▶ Origin of property rights vs. survival rights
▶▶ Basis for origin of property rights
2. Right to water
▶▶ Human rights/others’ rights
▶▶ Tragedies of the commons
3. Means to codify the right to water

▶▶ Rebalance of political vs. economic
4. New paradigms
▶▶ Current institutions vs. future
▶▶ Principles, illustrations
▶▶ What is emergent and its utility?
Under the issue of property rights and privatization, Peter Rogers said that privatization
is actually a very modern concept, but the origin of property rights goes back to the large,
historic societies. “Common” property came about differently in different cultures, in dif-
ferent time periods, and different legal systems. The creation of nation-states substantially
changed the question of who controlled what and how the globe was divided into countries.
human rights This discussion led quickly to the issue of human rights: how to explain the human right
to water as a concept, and how to implement such a right – and not only the rights of the
humans now but the rights of future generations and the rights of nonhumans as well. For
example, degradation of the oceans will impact significantly on future generations. The flip
side of rights, which is responsibilities, would also have to be addressed, specifically: Who
bears disproportionate responsibility and accountability not only for degradation of the re-
source but also for water scarcity?
tragedy of the commons The idea of “tragedies of the commons” came in for both discussion and scrutiny. One
participant commented that sometimes the assumptions in a situation considered a tragedy
of the commons turn out to be false, so the concept itself has come under some rebuke.
However, groundwater depletion or pollution is an authentic example of a tragedy of the
10
Summary
Left to right:
Extensive flooding
devastated New Orleans,
Louisiana, following
Hurricane Katrina.
Polluted waters spread

contamination, kill
aquatic life, and carry
waterborne diseases.
commons, as the entity doing the pumping or polluting benefits but the detriments will ac-
crue to many others and for a very long time.
The means to codify the right to water might include broad guidelines laid down in a con- right to water
stitutional framework, providing principles by which water managers could make decisions.
Water might be included in the human rights outlined in the United Nations Declaration on
Human Rights; however, as water is bought and sold on a global market, it becomes accessible
only to those who have the means to purchase it. In the last three years, some 140 nation-states
have formally recognized the right to water but this has not yet translated into national legisla-
tion or changes in constitutions. Expected next year is a report from a United Nations Special
Envoy on right to water, working through the UN Commission on Human Rights.
What humanity needs in the future, said Professor Narasimhan, is water management
in which people have a say in an equal fashion, based on the premise that an informed
citizenry capable of balancing rights with responsibility is fundamental to enlightened self-
governance. Institutions need to evolve that would enable the people in a village to have an
equal say about a river that is shared by human communities and ecosystems from its source
to its destination. Kenneth Wright added that whatever paradigm is created must be aimed,
not at dividing up the existing resource, but at managing a diminishing resource, as increas-
ing populations put greater and greater strain on water availability.
Perhaps the Murray-Darling basin in southeastern Australia represents an element of
a new paradigm. An eight-year drought has devastated the region. The Australian govern-
ment, which had formerly allocated water rights freely, is now buying back water rights to
keep river water flowing.
Ger Bergkamp listed four principles for a new water paradigm: 1) order of priority, 2) new water paradigm
equity of use, 3) sustainability, which includes restoration and recycling, to protect future
generations, and 4) affordability.
As evidence that political will can be effectively impacted, Narasimhan pointed to the
influence of Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring. He said, “It is our duty as scientists to
present our research to the public the best as we know how, showing the limitations of sci-
ence and the uncertainty of science; let the people think about it and help evolve equitable
water management.”
11
Fishbowl 2
Technology / Futures Scenarios / Public Awareness (values, worldview) /
Variety of Challenges (local vs. metropolises)
unintended consequences Abundant evidence exists that, the world over, water is being used at a greater rate than
it can be annually replenished; many rivers have dried up; and water resources have be-
come polluted. This crisis situation is the result of technology – of decisions made in good
faith on the basis of the available technology but which led to unintended consequences.
Brian Fagan noted: “Everything changed with the Industrial Revolution, when entirely new
pumping technologies led to the promiscuous pumping of deep-water sources, and water
has become an industry and a commodity.”
education Because of the Industrial Revolution, said Narasimhan, humanity came to believe that
water could be conquered by science and technology. “Today we are going through another
transition of recognizing that we have to learn to live with water in compassionate ways,” he
said. Going forward, technology must focus attention on how to live with a finite resource,
how to utilize the finite resource efficiently, and how to cover for the uncertainties of the
future. And once technology has been reoriented, public education must be emphasized
at all levels, from the person on the street to politicians to elementary school children to
universities of research.
Education was pointed to several times in the workshop as an important part of the re-
sponse. Water curricula in the schools will help young people better understand limits and
appropriate uses of water.
scenarios Chunmiao Zheng suggested, as a title for this endeavor: Sustaining the Freshwater Sup-
ply for the Next Millennium. He recommended laying out different scenarios, with attendant
benefits and costs, for each possible option: water-conservation and optimization efforts,
changes in agriculture, desalination, irrigation methods, food production, options for
wastewater use and reclamation, and so on.
hydro projects In some areas of the world, technological solutions may mean large hydro projects. In his
presentation, Professor Rogers mentioned the “massive unexploited hydroelectric potential
in India, Pakistan, China, Africa, and Nepal. In those countries only up to 25 percent of the
potential has been developed.” But while the temptation and incentive exist to build more
hydro projects, there is little infrastructure for storage of the water, and building large dams
means relocating people.
low tech Not every effort has to rely on expensive technology. Basia Irland commented that the
authors of Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises
suggest that villages employ pumping devices that make use of children playing on seesaws,
as well as methods to push water in barrels with handles instead of carrying the weight
on a person’s head. Kenneth Wright told of a hydrologic engineer and former Department
Chairman at the Rose-Hulman Institute who left his position to work in the Sudan enabling
people to make their own simple water filters out of wood and desert sand for use in their
homes.
In some situations, no new technology is needed. Since the bulk of water use is in agri-
culture, even small improvements in efficiency in the use of irrigation water could provide
ample supply for city and industrial water needs.
12
Summary
Left to right:
Damming on Drina River,

Serbia, created Lake
Perucac
� for development
of a hydro-electric power
plant.
Near Brisbane, Southeast

Queensland, Australia,
during recent severe
drought.
Salt piles outside a

desalination plant in
Trapani, Sicily.
Desalination was one technology mentioned several times during the workshop. Peter desalination
Rogers called it “a way out,” especially 50 to 100 years into the future, but other participants
pointed to the strong brine that results in the desalination process and requires disposal. In
general, desalination was viewed as a useful component but not a panacea.
Desalination, not of ocean water but for use in recycling urban wastewater, is another
promising technology. Orange County, California, is already recycling toilet water into drink-
ing water, producing enough water for 700,000 people. Though recycled wastewater also
creates brine, the quantity of brine produced is much less than in desalinating ocean water.
But maybe the best approach is leaving the salt in the water and learning to use saltwa- halophytes
ter widely in production of food and energy. Some 97 percent of the water on the planet is
saltwater; only 2.75 percent is freshwater, much of which is frozen in glaciers or stored as
groundwater. Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, could
not attend the workshop but provided a PowerPoint presentation on the thesis that a major
solution option for water issues is to emphasize halophytes, plants adapted for growth in
saline conditions, as an alternative to conventional agriculture. Over 10,000 natural halo-
phyte plants already exist, with 250 of them having potential to be staple crops. Beyond that,
research is in progress to develop halophilic (salt-loving) plants for which more salt would
mean faster growth.
Many areas of the world now considered “wastelands” would be suitable for halophyte
biomass production. These include western Australia, the Persian Gulf region, areas in the
Middle East, the Sahara Desert, southwestern United States, and the Atacama Desert in
South America. Using halophyte/seawater agriculture could return some 68 percent of the
freshwater for direct human use in solving current issues related to land, water, food, and
energy.
13
Conclusions
A mix of pessimism and cautious optimism marked the workshop conclusions.
Dr. Fagan said that it will take a catastrophic drought with millions of people dying to
make humanity take the water crisis seriously, because the biggest problem in this society
is to get people to change and think in the long term. Even so, he maintains a basis for op-
timism in the fact that humans have an infinite capacity for planning, innovation, thought,
and ingenuity. “Sometimes we come up with solutions,” he said.
learning from mistakes Professor Narasimhan commented that one of the lessons of the workshop was from the
archaeologists: that humans have historically adapted in very ingenious ways, but many
major civilizations, despite their innovative technologies, came to the limit of their adapta-
tion and then they either moved away or disappeared. Science, he said, has recognized that
water is a finite resource; now the question it has to address is not how fast to extract but
how to manage what we have. He expressed concern about whether developing nations,
specifically India and China, will learn from the mistakes made by the West or will insist on
repeating the mistakes in the interest of short-term gain.
Earth’s economy Dr. Moe-Lobeda said, “There is a mindset that we have in modernity that the human
economy can exist separate from Earth’s economy, and that is what we are finding out is
not possible. We must reconstitute what economic life means.” Religion can serve to aid
in this effort because, she said, “it appeals to values and spirituality and motivation and
sometimes moral courage.”
Ger Bergkamp reminded the workshop participants of what he called “boundary condi-
tions” that will make the future fundamentally different from the past. For one thing, the
US deficit will skyrocket in coming decades, which will have tremendous impact on what is
possible in the United States.
resilience Dr. Scarborough believes in the resilience of the human species: “We’ll muddle through,
as we have in the past. There have been many obstacles put in our path as a species from the
get-go and we do muddle through.”
three key messages Dr. Zheng summed up three key messages from the workshop: 1) The water crisis is a
major challenge to humanity, and has both science and human dimensions. 2) Governance,
political will, and constitutional guidelines are key to a sustainable water future. 3) Tech-
nological advances will solve the water crisis for the long term but the problems of water
shortage, water pollution, and waterborne disease will intensify – the situation will get
worse before it gets better.
14
Appendix
Participants’ Statements, Biographies, and Partial Bibliographies
Ger Bergkamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Dennis M. Bushnell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Brian Fagan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Basia Irland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
T.N. Narasimhan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Ravi Narayanan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Andrew R. Parker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Peter P. Rogers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Vernon L. Scarborough. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Tony J. Wilkinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Kenneth R. Wright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chunmiao Zheng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
15
16
Appendix: Participants’ Statements, Biographies, and Partial Bibliographies
Ger Bergkamp
What are the three critical questions you would ask pertaining to the
global water situation – and why?
1. Water, food, and energy interdependencies: how to solve this conundrum?

To produce food and energy, we need water. Increasingly, both food and energy produc-
tion are constrained by limited water availability. At the same time, we know that agriculture
is the most important water user, impacting water resources around the world. With in-
creasing food and energy demand, originating from an increasing population and changing
lifestyles, water shortages are projected to increase sharply. This in itself will potentially
limit the ability to grow more food and produce more energy.
The “canaries in the coal mine” highlighting this problem now feature prominently: Aus-
tralia, Spain, China, US (California), the Middle East. Increasingly, a wider set of actors is
becoming involved in these issues, especially politicians and “non-water” actors, including
private companies. How are we going to solve increasing food and energy demands for water
with a dwindling resource base?
2. The looming water crisis: what is the cost of no action?

We are more and more aware that water is a finite resource, no longer available for all at
every moment in time. In many ways, this is nothing new. Ancient and modern civilizations
have often invested in water management, at the heart of creating prosperity and stability.
Today, however, too little attention is given to water management and investments. As a
result, waterways are polluted, groundwater levels are falling, and rivers no longer reach
the ocean. This is not only an environmental disaster of global proportions but is directly
affecting people’s health, livelihoods, and opportunities to prosper.
Not responding to the looming water management crisis will increasingly impact our
economies, which all depend on water for growth. No action on water will have a serious
cost. In 2006, Nicholas Stern prepared a report indicating the costs of no action on climate
change. Hailed by some, criticized by other, his report stimulated a wider political debate
about the need to respond to climate change, as the costs of no action were deemed to large-
ly outweigh the required investments to mitigate and adapt to climate change. What is the
cost of no action on water?
3. Innovation in the water sector and beyond: how to address it and adapt to it?
Like the transport or energy sector, the water sector is bound to go through a major wave
of innovation. With water becoming more and more of a risk, companies and citizens alike
come forward with new demands and new ideas: technological innovations, e.g. the role
of IT in water management; social innovations, e.g. the role of citizens and social media in
water management; political innovations, e.g. the role of elected officials in water decision-
making.
17
Water managers and decision-makers have to respond to these demands and ideas. This
requires opening up the sector to new actors, new approaches, and new paradigms. How are
we going to address innovation in the water sector and how are we going to adapt current
water management and governance?
Brief Bio
Ger Bergkamp is Director General of the World Water Council, headquartered in Marseille, France. He
has served the water community for more than 20 years. After he completed university studies, he became
convinced through extensive travel and field experience that successful “ecosystem management” did not
depend on managing ecosystems but rather on managing humans, empowering communities, making peo-
ple the principal actors of the change they need and seek in every level in society, from the local farmer to
transboundary river basin negotiators. Not long after becoming water advisor for IUCN (The World Conserva-
tion Union), he began to quietly test his hypothesis. He prepared a background study for the United Nations
Commission on Sustainable Development, defining ecosystems through their basic services to humanity,
and putting people at the centre of water governance. He then began to advise governments and NGOs on
how to translate this approach on the ground, and where to bring environmental sustainability into their
own water management practices.
Building on these experiences and based on consultations with hundreds of organisations, he led the
preparation of a global agenda for sustainable water management. The resulting Vision for Water and Nature
advanced the then-radical notion of using water to solve environmental problems, rather than constantly
increasing supplies for wasteful water practices. He sought and found partners from 300 organisations will-
ing to co-pioneer an initiative that would empower poor communities with the resources they would need
to thrive. The partnerships he forged in over 40 countries provided the network for what became known as
The Water and Nature Initiative. Through hundreds of projects in 35 countries, the Initiative helped nations
rewrite their own water legislation, develop their own strategic water plans, or co-operate with their own
neighbouring states on their own terms. He continues to believe that balancing water allocation between
users is vital to improve health, expand prosperity, and ensure resources for future generations.
18
Dennis M. Bushnell
Brief Bio
Dennis M. Bushnell is Chief Scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center. He is responsible for technical
oversight and advanced program formulation with technical emphasis in the areas of atmospheric sciences
and structures, materials, acoustics, flight electronics/control/software, instruments, aerodynamics, aero-
thermodynamics, hypersonic airbreathing propulsion, computational sciences and systems optimization
for aeronautics, spacecraft, exploration, and space access. Bushnell has 43 years’ experience as Research
Scientist, Section Head, Branch Head, Associate Division Chief, and Chief Scientist. His technical specialties
include flow modeling and control across the speed range, advanced configuration aeronautics, aeronautical
facilities, and hypersonic airbreathing propulsion. He has authored 247 publications/major presentations
and 310 invited lectures/seminars.
Bushnell is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of ASME, AIAA, and The
Royal Aeronautical Society. He holds six patents. Other honors include the AIAA Sperry Award, Fluid and
Plasma Dynamics Award, AIAA Dryden Lectureship, as well as the Royal Aeronautical Society Lanchester,
Swire and Wilber and Orville Wright Lectures, ICAS Guggenheim Lecture, Israel Von Karman Lecture, USAF/
NASP Gene Zara Award, NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement and Outstanding Leadership Medals, Dis-
tinguished Research Scientist Award, ST Presidential Rank Award, nine NASA Special Achievement and ten
Group Achievement awards, University of Connecticut Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award, Academy
of Engineers Award, Pi Tau Sigma and Hamilton awards, and University of Virginia Engineering Achieve-
ment Award. He has also served on numerous national and international technical panels and committees,
and been a consultant to national and international organizations. DOD-related committee/consulting as-
signments include USAF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, BMDC, ONR, Intelligence Community/STIC, AFOSR,
NRAC, NRC, WL, LLL, HASC, NUWC, DARPA, AGARD, ARL, IAT, AEDC, JANNAF, NAVSEA, Air Force 2025,
AFSOC, Sandia, SAB, Army War College, ACOM Joint Futures, SOCOM, TRADOC, SEALS, JFCOM, IDA, NDU,
DSB, and Army After Next. He has been a reviewer for 40 journals and organizations, and Editor of Volume
123 of the AIAA Progress Series “Viscous Drag Reduction in Boundary Layers.”
Bushnell is responsible for the invention/development of the “Riblet” approach to turbulent drag re-
duction, high-speed “quiet tunnels” for flight-applicable boundary layer transition research, advanced
computational approaches for laminar flow control, and advanced hypervelocity airbreathing and aeronau-
tical concepts with revolutionary performance potential. He has contributed to national programs including
Sprint, HSCT/SST, FASTSHIP, Gemini, Apollo, RAM, Viking, X15, F-18E/F [patent holder for the “fix” to the
wing drop problem], Shuttle, NASP, submarine/torpedo technology, America’s Cup racers, MAGLEV trains,
and planetary exploration. He earned a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering, with Highest Honors Distinc-
tion, from University of Connecticut, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from University of
Virginia.
19
Recent, Relevant Publications

“Précis of Post-Petroleum Energetics including Seawater Agriculture.” Conference on Future Energy [COFE]
2. Sept. 22–24, 2006, Silver Springs, MD.
“Seawater/Saline Agriculture for Energy, Water, Land, Food and Warming.” In Mohamed Gad-el-Hak (Ed.)
Large Scale Disasters: Prediction, Control and Mitigation, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“Green[er]-to-Green Aircraft/Aeronautical Possibilities.” Royal Aeronautical Society Meeting “Air Travel –
Greener by Design.” London, UK, 5 October 2006.
“A Review of US Air Force and Department of Defense Aerospace Propulsion Needs.” National Academy
Press, 2006.
“Energy Futures.” In “2020 Future Technology Landscape.” National Intelligence Council. [In Review].
“Energy Harvesting Net Assessment” for DDR&E, 2006.
20
Brian Fagan
1. How do we balance finite global water supplies with accelerating population growth?
Since the Industrial Revolution and the development of pumps driven by fossil fuels, we
have pumped finite water supplies promiscuously from deep aquifers. Most such aquifers
are not being replenished, so that many are in danger of running dry. How do we solve the
problem of rapid urbanization and chronic water shortages in arid and semiarid lands? Con-
servation, more economic irrigation combined with less thirsty crops, or what?
2. Arising from this, how do we manage finite water supplies from major rivers and other
traditional sources to ensure equitable distribution between nations up- and down-
stream? What strategies can mitigate the threats of military action and widespread famine
triggered by nationalistic, draconian policies? Arising from this, how do we ensure fair dis-
tribution to people living at the subsistence level in arid and semiarid lands?
3. What will be the effects of anthropogenic and natural global warming on the world’s
water supplies and how can we mitigate such effects? Clearly, a warming world will mean
much more widespread extreme and severe droughts as well as changes in the distribution
of rainfall for agriculture and other purposes. How do we combat the changes and potential
inequities in global water supplies? What changes will be needed in global rather than na-
tional governance to handle the realities of a significantly warmer world?
Brief Bio
British-born Brian Fagan is an internationally known archaeologist, historian, and author who is widely
regarded as one of the world’s leading archaeological writers. Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he
spent his early career in tropical Africa, where he worked in what is now the National Museum of Zambia,
and was one of the pioneers of pre-European African history. He came to the United States in 1966 and to
the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1967, where he was Professor of anthropology until 2003. He
is now Emeritus.
Since coming to the United States, Fagan has specialized in communicating archaeology and history
to the general public through articles, books, and lectures. His many popular books include seven college
texts, and The Rape of the Nile, a classic story of early Egyptology. Other titles include The Adventure of
Archaeology and two other books for the National Geographic Society, and Time Detectives, a book about
science and archaeology. Four books on ancient climate – Floods, Famines, and Emperors, The Little Ice Age,
The Long Summer, and The Great Warming – have become bestsellers. His latest book (2010) is Cro-Magnon:
How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans. A former Guggenheim Scholar, he also is an enthusi-
astic small-boat sailor and bicyclist. His other interests include good foods and cats. He is married with one
daughter and lives in Santa Barbara, California.
21

Floods, Famines, and Emperors. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Egypt of the Pharaohs. Washington DC: National Geographic Society, 2003.
The Little Ice Age. New York: Basic Books, 2003.
Before California. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.
Chaco Canyon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Long Summer. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Fish on Friday. New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Where We Saw a Whale: A History of Lake Clark National Park, Alaska. Anchorage: National Park Service,
2008.
The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010.
22
Basia Irland
Preface: Everything in the worldwide hydrologic cycle is interconnected, so I find it difficult

to create three separate questions about global water issues, especially due to the complex-
ity and vastness of the problems. Instead of focusing on minutia, my questions focus on the
humongous concerns surrounding quantity/location, quality, and access.
1. QUANTITY/LOCATION: It seems to me that the most obviously pressing question is: How
can we provide water where it’s most needed on Earth to sustain life (including its own)?
This, of course, is an immense issue with huge implications. There is a host of dendritic
issues extending from this central question: How can we stop and/or slow the progress of
receding glaciers that supply so much of the world’s water supply? How do we deal with
the exponentially expanding population, which will double the demand for water before
the end of the century? How do we get moisture into the soil to restore ecosystems and aid
the growing of food? How do we prevent human destruction of aquatic systems? All of these
interrelated questions pertain to the quantities of global waters at locations where they sus-
tain the planet’s life, and ours.
2. QUALITY: “There’s hardly a river, stream, or brook that isn’t contaminated with the runoff
from human misuse, whether industrial effluents, agricultural pesticides and herbicides,
or worse. (The ‘worse’ could be bacterial contamination – the river as disease vector….)” —
Marq de Villiers, Canadian author, Water
Most waterways around the world are loaded with toxic pollutants devised and
dumped by humans. How do we put a stop to it? And waters have their own minute living
killers. How can we assist with the reduction of preventable waterborne diseases that kill
someone every eight seconds around the world? Most often these organisms are ingested
into the body with drinking water, but sometimes a person might only wade into water and
become infected. The dark, destructive side of water is as fascinating and rich in history as
its more sanguine side. If we trained a microscope onto the same bucolic lakes and serene
streams portrayed in historic paintings, we would discover a rich soup of living organisms,
most of which are harmless to humans, but some of which kill.
3. ACCESS: How can we help people around the globe gain access to clean, potable wa-
ter and the sanitation water makes possible? It is usually women who are responsible for
household cleaning, cooking, and washing – tasks requiring water. The role of sourcing
water also normally falls to women and girls. Hours are taken out of their days collecting
water, time which could be spent earning money, receiving an education, or caring for their
children. This work is also extremely physically demanding with women carrying weights of
as much as 40 pounds daily. In South Africa, the total number of miles walked each day by
23
the female population, in the course of gathering water for their families, is the equivalent
of sixteen times the distance to the moon and back.
Brief Bio
Basia Irland is an author, poet, sculptor, installation artist, and activist who creates international water
projects featured in her book Water Library, University of New Mexico Press, 2007. She is Professor Emerita,
Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, where she established the Arts and Ecology
Program.
Irland often works with scholars from diverse disciplines building rainwater-harvesting systems, con-
necting communities along lengths of rivers, filming and producing water documentaries, and creating
waterborne disease projects around the world, most recently in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Nepal.
She is the recipient of over forty grants including a Senior Fulbright Research Award for Southeast Asia,
Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship Grant, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Grant.
She lectures and exhibits extensively. Essays about her work have been included in books published in Ger-
many, England, Switzerland, and the U.S. In 2009 Irland had five solo exhibitions, four group shows, and a
cinema screening of her seven video documentaries. In 2010 she is scheduled to lecture at Stanford Univer-
sity, the University of California Davis, San Francisco State University, and the University of West Virginia,
where she will focus on mine runoff in the Deckers Creek watershed. Her website is basiairland.com.

Water Library. University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
“Source to Sea.” The New Quarterly (Canada) (2006).
“Water in the History of Photography.” Encyclopedia of Water. Wiley Press, 2005.
“Walkerton Life Vest.” The New Quarterly (Canada) (2004).
“Navigating the Currents.” Performance Research, London, England. Interview with Dr. David Williams,
2001.
“Corriendo con el Agua.” La Corriente – Rio Bravo/Rio Grande Sustainable Development Initiative, 1997.
“A Gathering of Waters.” Arts Advocate (New Mexico) (1997).
Water Cycle. Philadelphia: Borowsky Center for Publication Arts, The University of the Arts, in collaboration
with Pyramid Atlantic Press, Riverdale, MD. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
1996.
River Reciprocity. Albuquerque: Salient Seedling Press, 1996.
24
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
Brief Bio
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda lectures and consults internationally and nationally in theology and ethics. She
has served as Director of the Washington, DC, office of Augsburg College’s Center for Global Education; as
the first appointed theological consultant to the Presiding Bishop of the Lutheran Church; and as a health
worker in rural Honduras. At present she is Associate Professor of theological ethics in Seattle University’s
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Environmental Studies Program, and graduate School of
Theology and Ministry. Moe-Lobeda is the author of numerous books, chapters in books, book reviews, and
journal articles in her field. In 2002, she began including in her publications and speaking engagements
the ethical concerns related to the commodification of water in a world in which water has become a scarce
resource and is becoming more so. Her forthcoming book probes this matter further.
Moe-Lobeda’s Ph.D. in Christian ethics was earned at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Among
many professional service activities, Dr. Moe-Lobeda was a sub-editor in environmental ethics for Religious
Studies Review from 2004 to 2007, and she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the American
Academy of Religion’s Religion and Social Sciences Section since 2001.

Ethics for the Uncreators. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, under contract.
“Dry Bones ... Breath Came into Them and They Lived.” In David Rhoads (Ed.) Earth and Word: Sermons on
Ecology, Nature, Creation, and Justice. New York: Continuum, April 2007.
“Economic Justice, Ecological Degradation, and Militarization in the Global Economy: Moral and Theologi-
cal Responses.” Juried paper in Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace section of the American Academy of
Religion annual meeting (San Diego), November 2007.
“Communio and Moral Agency.” In Peter Heslam (Ed.) Globalization and the Good: Ethical Perspectives on the
Global Economy. London: SPCK, 2004.
“Christian Ethics toward Earth-honoring Faiths.” Invited essay in Festschrift in honor of Larry Rasmussen.
Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 57 (1–2) (2004): 132–150.
Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002.
“Christian Ethical Framework for Debate on Agricultural Biotechnology.” In Proceedings from the Conference
on Agricultural Biotechnology: Can It Help Reduce Hunger in Africa? Washington, DC: Bread for the World
Institute, 2003. (Plenary address at an international conference of Bread for the World Institute, March
2002.)
“Being Human on Earth: Our Role in Reversing Environmental Degradation” (Perspective review of Being
Human: Ethics, Environment, and Our Place in the World by Anna Lisa Peterson and of The Care of Cre-
ation: Focusing Concern and Action by R.J. Berry). Second Opinion, refereed journal of the Park Ridge
Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics (April 2002): 84–94.
“Population Growth and Sustainable Earth-Human Relations.” Public lecture for Earth Ministry and
Audubon Society (Seattle), April 2001.
“Journey Between Worlds: Economic Globalization and Luther’s God Indwelling Creation.” Word and
World: Theology for Christian Ministry, XXI (4) (Fall 2001).
25
26
T.N. Narasimhan
1. Is there a meeting of the mind that water is a finite, renewable resource, subject to
unpredictable climatic forces?
Ultimately, sustainable water management depends on the answer to this question. If
the answer is negative, sustainable management is contingent upon policies that provide
incentives to private ownership and efficient extraction to maximize profit. If the answer is
positive, water has to be recognized as publicly owned, and managed based on best avail-
able science knowledge for common good.
2. Is contemporary water policy an outcome of a harmonious collaboration between

natural science and social science?
Science can only explain the behavior of water resource systems, and forecast their po-
tential behavior in response to various alternatives of resource utilization. Science cannot
make policy. Policy has to reconcile science knowledge with societal values. Thus, science
and policy are interwoven. Without a constructive coming together of science and societal
values, water cannot be managed to achieve equitable sharing among all segments of society.
3. Is society likely to accept that constant-rate economic growth is not sustainable in an

interconnected Earth with finite resources?
Just as water, mineral and land resources are finite, and vulnerable to degradation by
human activities. If so, there is a larger world-crisis in relation to resources vital for human
sustenance. Thus, civilized survival of human society depends on adaptation of life-style to
what is available, and to preserve its integrity for future generations. These goals are incom-
patible with exponential growth.
Brief Bio
T.N. Narasimhan is Professor Emeritus, Dept. Materials Science and Engineering, and Dept. of Environmen-
tal Science Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley, and a Guest in the Earth Sciences
Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After B.Sc (Hons) (geology) from University of Madras (1956), he was with Geological Survey of India
(1956 to 1970), attending to exploratory drilling for water and studying groundwater in West Bengal, Kar-
nataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. Between 1970 and 1975 he did graduate work at
Berkeley, obtaining an M.S. (1971) and a Ph.D. (1975) in engineering science in the Civil Engineering Depart-
ment. He joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1975, and has been associated with the lab ever
since. Between 1977 and 1990 he taught in the erstwhile Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engi-
neering as a Professor-in-Residence, and between 1990 and 2006 as a Professor with dual appointment in
Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management,
retiring in 2006.
27
In 1986, Narasimhan was awarded the Oscar Meinzer Award in Hydrogeology by the Geological Society of
America. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Groundwater Resources Association of Califor-
nia in 2009. Narasimhan frames his specialization in hydrogeology in broader context within Earth sciences,
science in general, and philosophy. He believes that civilized adaptation to water cannot succeed without
deliberate effort by specialists in the sciences, social science, humanities, and law to reach out beyond their
fields and work together.
Narasimhan’s publications in archival journals can be grouped into two categories: pure and applied
science, and water resources. In pure and applied sciences his publications cover history, physics, and
mathematics of diffusion, historical aspects of hydrogeological sciences, modeling of geothermal systems,
nuclear waste disposal, agricultural drainage, triggered earthquakes, and theory of mathematical modeling.
In water resources, he has written about nature of Earth systems and implications to water management, his-
tory of water law, limitations of science, and dependence of economic growth on land and water resources.

“On Adapting to Global Groundwater Crisis.” Appearing in Column “Groundwater – Conflict and Crisis.”
Groundwater (2010). (In press)
“Groundwater: From Mystery to Management.” Env. Res. Letters, 4 (3) (2009) 035002.
With V.K. Gaur. “A Framework for India’s Water Policy,” Report R4-09. Bangalore, India: National Institute
of Advanced Studies, 2009.
“Hydrological Cycle and Water Budgets.” Encyclopedia of Inland Waters, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009.
“Water Law for India: Science and Philosophy Perspectives.” In Ramaswamy R. Iyer (Ed.) Water and the Laws
of India. New Delhi, India: Sage Books, 2009, 535–563.
“Water, Land and India’s Economic Expectations.” Curr. Sci., 95 (2008): 1525–1526.
“A Note on India’s Water Budget and Evapotranspiration.” Jour. Earth Syst. Sci., 117 (3) (2008): 237–240.
“Groundwater Management and Ownership.” Commentary. Econ. and Pol. Weekly, 43 (7) (February 16, 2008):
21–27.
“Water, Law, Science.” Jour. Hydrol., 349 (2008): 125–138.
“Limitations of Science and Adapting to Nature.” Env. Res. Let., 2 (2007), 034003.
28
Ravi Narayanan
1. Is there really a “global water crisis” or is it more a crisis of local water governance?
Much of the popular discourse on water, based perhaps on transboundary river basin is-
sues, revolves around the dire consequences of water shortages leading to conflict between
regions, states, and countries. But the reality for most people is more immediate and argu-
ably solutions can be found at more local levels through better analysis of local problems
and accountable and inclusive policies. So, is the balance wrong, is the perception of “big
problems” a distraction, and would we be better off concentrating more on local issues? Or
perhaps there is a more nuanced temporal and spatial aspect to the “water crisis” that can
bridge both approaches.
2. Given that the bulk of water resources are used in agriculture, should our discussions
focus on ways to ensure food security, which really is a “global” issue?
Recent spikes in food prices and projections of rising demands, especially but not only
in the big giants, India and China, suggest that our safety margins are slender. With all the
local and national interests that are involved and which surface so regularly in any dis-
cussion on tariff rationalization, trade, and pricing, are the odds of finding a way to a less
water-intensive approach to agriculture stacked against us? Or perhaps science can make a
compelling case that can influence policy.
3. How much does a water-secure world depend on radical changes to our educational
system and content at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels?
If profligacy in the use of water is based on unthinking and uncaring attitudes to conser-
vation and consumption, can we hope to develop more sensitive and thoughtful attitudes
and values through education and changes to general and professional curricula? Perhaps
this is not a contentious issue and one that can lead to a longer-term beneficial outcome.
Brief Bio
Ravi Narayanan, with degrees in physics and engineering from Delhi and Cambridge universities, has had
twenty years’ experience in the corporate sector in engineering and technology companies in India and the
UK, and later over twenty years in the not-for-profit sector working for international development organi-
zations. He worked in various capacities as India Director, Director of International Operations, and Asia
Director for ActionAid and then as Chief Executive of WaterAid, an international nongovernmental organi-
zation specializing in water and sanitation programs in Africa and Asia. Currently a Vice Chair of the Asia
Pacific Water Forum, International Mentor to the Japan Water Forum, and a member of the International
Advisory Group for the Singapore International Water Week, he has been a member of the World Panel on
Financing Water Infrastructure (the Camdessus Panel) and the UN Millennium Task Force on Water and
Sanitation. He is also a member of the Technical Expert Group set up by the Government of India to assess
its national drinking water mission. He is a life member of Norwegian Water Academy and an Associate of
29
the National Institute of Advanced Studies in India. Narayanan has been a Board member (and Chairman
during its early years) since the inception of Partners in Change, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to
promoting partnerships between the corporate sector and civil society organizations, which he helped set up
during his term with ActionAid. He was awarded an honorary CBE by the UK Government in 2009 for water
and sanitation services to poor communities.

“Investment Opportunities in the Water and Sanitation Sector in India.” Presented at the Singapore Interna-
tional Water Week, June 2009.
“Saving Bangalore’s Lakes.” Presented at a Bangalore Lakes Seminar at the Raman Research Institute, Ban-
galore, India, June 2009.
“Capacity Development in the Water and Sanitation Sector.” Op-Ed piece for the first issue of capacity.org,
February 2009.
“Preliminary Thoughts on Water and Human Rights.” Presented at a seminar on business and human rights
in Washington, DC, September 2008.
“The Challenge for Asia in Uncertain Times.” Presented at a conference on climate change and water orga-
nized by the Japan Water Forum, Asian Development Bank Institute, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in Tokyo, February 2008.
“Report on India’s National Drinking Water Mission” by the Technical Expert Group commissioned by the
Government of India, January 2008.
“Addressing the Integrated Water Resources Management Aspects of Water and Sanitation.” Presented at an
Integrated Water Resources Management seminar at the Asian Development Bank, Manila, November
2007.
“India’s Urban Water Challenge.” Prepared for UN Habitat and presented at the Asia Pacific Meeting of Min-
isters of Urban Development, June 2007.
“Bridging Vulnerabilities in Water and Sanitation Across Health and Financing.” Prepared for a Rockefeller
Foundation seminar on “Innovations for an Urban World” at Bellagio, Italy, May 2007.
“Addressing Financing Challenges in the Water Sector through Good Governance.” Presented at A Global
Water Partnership Seminar in Manila, May 2006.
30
Andrew R. Parker
The questions I would ask on the global water situation would all link to biomimetics. To
summarize I would ask the single question: Why are we not considering the myriad of
adaptations to water found in animals and plants? These include devices that help living
organisms to survive under extremes of high and low rainfall, and in hot and cold deserts,
which may ultimately help us to increase our water collection and to optimize our water ef-
ficiency, thereby reducing our water consumption. This is the subject of my research.
Brief Bio
Born in 1967 in England, Andrew Parker moved to Australia in 1990 where he spent ten years studying
marine biology and physics, working on biomimetics. He returned to the UK as a Royal Society University
Research Fellow at Oxford University in 1999. In 2000, based on his “Light Switch Theory” for the cause of
the Big Bang in evolution, he was selected as one of the top eight scientists in the UK as a “Scientist for the
New Century” by The Royal Institution (London).
The Light Switch Theory holds that the Big Bang of evolution, 520 million years ago, was triggered by
the evolution of the eye. This is the uncontested solution to the most dramatic event in the history of life,
most famously supported by Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA). Now Parker is producing
biomimetic predictive software based on this event to help solve environmental problems.
Parker is a Research Leader at The Natural History Museum (London) and also works at Green Templeton
College (University of Oxford) and is a Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His scientific research
centres on evolution and biomimetics – extracting good design from nature. He has copied the natural
nanotechnology behind the metallic-like wings of butterflies and iridescence of hummingbirds to produce
commercial products such as security devices (that can’t be copied) to replace holograms in credit cards
and nonreflective surfaces for solar panels (providing a 10 percent increase in energy capture). His work
on water-collecting in desert beetles has resulted in a device to extract water that would otherwise exit air-
conditioning systems. Today he collaborates with engineers at MIT (Boston) to produce biomimetic devices
based on the water efficiency found in animals and plants.
He wrote the popular science books In the Blink of an Eye and Seven Deadly Colours (Simon & Schuster,
UK; Perseus, USA), and regularly speaks at literary/arts festivals as well as scientific and political institu-
tions. He has given the annual Hewlett Packard lecture on evolution and the Stanford University annual
physics lecture on biomimetics, and he opened the new Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light.

“Discovery of Functional Iridescence and Its Coevolution with Eyes in the Phylogeny of Ostracoda (Crusta-
cea).” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 262 (1995): 349–355. This paper
revealed Parker’s discovery of diffraction gratings in animals and hence triggered new interest in the
field of animal structural colours.
31
“Colour in Burgess Shale Animals and the Effect of Light on Evolution in the Cambrian.” Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 265 (1998): 967–972. This paper revealed diffraction grat-
ings in three species from the Burgess shale (Cambrian, 515Ma) (discovered while on a scholarship at the
Smithsonian Institution) and demonstrated that they would have displayed iridescent colours when and
where they lived. This represents the first accurate reconstruction of ancient, extinct animals.
With Z. Hegedus and R.A. Watts. “Solar-absorber Type Antireflector on the Eye of an Eocene Fly (45Ma).”
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 265 (1998): 811–815. This paper revealed
a new type of anti-reflective surface that reduces reflectivity efficiently over a wide range of angles.
“515 Million Years of Structural Colour.” Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, 2 (2000): R15–28. This
paper was Parker’s first review of the field of structural colour in nature and revealed, for the first time,
the potential of optical biomimetics.
With R.C. McPhedran et al. “Aphrodita’s Iridescence.” Nature, 409 (2001): 36–37. This paper reported the first
photonic crystal identified in living organisms.
With C.R. Lawrence. “Water Capture from Desert Fogs by a Namibian Beetle.” Nature, 414 (2001): 33–34. It
has long been known that tenebrionid beetles capture water from desert fogs in Namibia. This paper
reports how they do it.
“Fluorescence of Yellow Budgerigars.” Science, 296 (2002): 655. This paper revealed evidence that fluores-
cence in budgerigar feathers had behavioural significance.
With V.L. Welch et al. “An Opal Analogue Discovered in a Weevil.” Nature, 426 (2003): 786–787. This paper re-
ports an identical sub-micron structure in a weevil to that responsible for iridescence in gemstone opal.
“Conservative Photonic Crystals Imply Indirect Transcription from Genotype to Phenotype.” Recent Re-
search Developments in Entomology, 5 (2006): 1–10. This paper revealed that, while there is a diversity of
“simple” optical reflectors in nature, photonic crystals are remarkably conserved within all living organ-
isms. Conceivably, numerous designs of these complex 2D and 3D sub-micron structures are possible (as
they exist in physics labs). However, in nature only four designs exist, which re-appear within different
families, phyla and even kingdoms.
With H. Townley. “Biomimetics of Optical Nanostructures in Nature.” Nature Nanotechnology, 2 (2007): 347–
353. This is the first review of optical biomimetics. It reveals the successes in the subject and the various
ways in which nature can provide inspiration for the optical engineer, from design to manufacture by
cells.
32
Peter P. Rogers
1. Will we have enough water to feed ourselves in the 21st century?

By far the largest quantities of fresh water are, and will be, those used in agriculture.
Currently agriculture uses about 4,000 km3 of fresh water each year to feed approximately
7 billion people. Even though population growth has slowed globally, we will still face a
population of 9 billion by 2050. The demand for agricultural water is complicated by the
fact that as people become wealthier their dietary tastes change, moving away from grains
toward animal products. The same amount of water that provided food for 10 people sub-
sisting on grains previously now satisfies the agricultural needs of only one person who has
moved up the food chain toward animal products.
2. How will we provide water and sanitation for an additional 3 billion urban dwellers?
Since 2007 the urban population has exceeded the rural population. This has major
implications for sustaining the water and sanitation for cities. For example, China’s urban
population is expected to reach 1 billion by 2030. Urbanites typically are wealthier than
their rural compatriots and have radically different water demands, more appliances, wash-
ing machines, bathtubs, showers, and flush toilets. Even though the absolute magnitude of
their demands is much smaller than the demand of agriculture, water plays an important
role in urban public health that cannot be ignored. This is particularly the case in the large
cities of Asia and Africa where already there are huge unserved populations demanding
water and sanitation services. One study estimates that as much as $22 trillion is needed by
2030 just to meet the demands for water and sanitation services.
3. How should we address the future climate uncertainties?

One issue that water engineers always prided themselves on was that they could make
robust forecasts of the future, at least good enough to be able to build reservoirs, dams,
and embankments that would function well enough under a wide range of actual future
outcomes. The very existence of the possibility of climate change seriously challenges our
ability to rely upon our forecasts. The shift from using stationary time series as the basis for
future forecasting is seriously undermined when faced with the possibility of nonstationar-
ity in the time series. There is a need for creative adaptation strategies that would help to
avoid the rapid collapse of engineered and social systems.
Brief Bio
Peter P. Rogers is the Gordon McKay Professor of environmental engineering as well as Professor of city
and regional planning at Harvard University.  Born in England, he was educated in England and the United
States, receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard. He has held a series of professional positions at Harvard since 1966.
He has been a member of Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) since 2000.
33
Rogers’ research interests include the consequences of population on natural resources development,
improved methods for managing natural resources and the environment, the development of robust indices
of environmental quality and sustainable development, conflict resolution in international river basins, the
impacts of global change on water resources, and transportation and environment with an emphasis on
Asian cities. He has carried out extensive field and model studies on population, water and energy resources,
and environmental problems in Costa Rica, Pakistan, India, China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and, to a
lesser extent, in 25 other countries.
He is Senior Advisor to the Global Water Partnership. Among other recent appointments are Member,
Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Water Partnership, 1996–2005; Commissioner, World Water
Commission for the 21st Century, 1998–2000; and Member, Scientific Program Committee and Policy Com-
mittee, Swedish International Water Institute, 2006–present.

“The Global Water Crisis: Six Steps for Survival.” Keynote Speech at The William Pitt Seminar: A Blueprint
for Survival, Pembroke College, Cambridge, October 16, 2009.
“The Role of Irrigation in Meeting the Global Water Challenge.” Keynote Talk at The Future of Water for Food
Conference, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, May 3–5, 2009.
With L. MacDonnell and P. Lydon. “Political Decision Making: Real Decisions in Real Political Contexts.”
In C.S. Russell and D.D. Baumann (Eds.) The Evolution of Water Resource Planning and Decision Making.
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009.
“Fresh Water Crisis?” Scientific American (August 2008): 28–35.
With K.F. Jalal and J.A. Boyd. An Introduction to Sustainable Development, 2nd edition, London, UK: Earth-
scan, 2008.
“Problems with Civil and Environmental Engineering Education in the US.” Special Issue: A Creative Critique
of U.S. Water Education, edited by Charles Howe. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education,
139 (June 2008): 3–5.
“Coping with Global Warming and Climate Change.” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management,
134 (3) (May 2008): 203–204.
With S. Srinivasan. “Comparing Sustainable Cities: Examples from China, India, and the USA.” In M. Keiner
(Ed.) Sustainable Urban Development in China: Wishful Thinking or Reality? Munster, Germany: Verlag-
shaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat, 2008.
“Drinking Water for All: A 21st Century Challenge.” Geotimes: Earth, Energy and Environment News (April
2007).
With M.R. Llamas and L. Martinez-Contina (Eds.). Water Crisis: Myth or Reality? London, UK: Taylor & Fran-
cis Group, 2006.
34
Vernon L. Scarborough
Water is the most fundamental component for life. It is more primary than food. As a proxy
for all our most primary of resources, how we treat it reveals our attitudes toward the planet
and all those that occupy its habitats. We need to treat it better, and by doing so we will treat
ourselves better. Water sharing has been a hallmark of all society through history. Water
wars are what one learns from Western history, but cooperation is by far the principal out-
come of its allocation and consumption. A closer evaluation of the social import of water
sharing globally will make this resource more accessible, but it will also allow ways to as-
sess how sustained human cooperation develops and functions. It is hoped by examining
the flow of relationships around water management from past and present societal use, in-
sights into cooperative forms of governance might be revealed, established, and maintained
cross-culturally. Both democracy and education are parts of this real-world material assess-
ment via water management.
Brief Bio
Vernon L. Scarborough is Distinguished Research Professor, Charles Phelps Taft Professor, and Head of
the Anthropology Department at the University of Cincinnati. His topical interests remain water manage-
ment and the engineered landscape in the context of the archaic state. By examining ancient engineered
water systems and landscapes, he addresses societal sustainability issues from a comparative ecological
perspective. In addition to his work in the US American Southwest (El Paso area, 1982–1986), he has em-
phasized international fieldwork. He has taught and conducted excavations for the University of Khartoum,
Sudan (postdoctoral exchange with Southern Methodist University, 1981–82) and the University of Pesha-
war, Pakistan (Fulbright Fellowship, 1986). Ongoing land use and water management studies in Belize and
Guatemala complement past work in the Argolid, Greece (1994) and Bali, Indonesia (1998). Since 1992, he
has been Co-director of the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (with Dr. Fred Valdez at the Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin), a large, annually active, research project in northwestern Belize.
Scarborough has been directly funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic
Society, the Alphawood Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Balinese support) in addition to
several grants from the Taft Foundation Fund and the University of Cincinnati. He received a Weatherhead
Fellowship (1994–95) and two Summer Resident Scholarships (1996, 2000) from the School of Advanced
Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2004, he was awarded the All-University Faculty Rieveschl Award for
Creative and Scholarly Works from the University of Cincinnati. Most recently he received a Taft Center Fel-
lowship for the academic year 2006–07.
Routinely he participates in cross-disciplinary exchanges including international invitational workshops
such as those sponsored by the International Hydrological Programme (IHP, Delft), the International Re-
search Center for Japanese Studies (Tokyo), Man and the Biosphere (UNESCO – Paris), Foundation For the
Future (Seattle), the Santa Fe Institute, the School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe), and the National Cen-
ter for Atmospheric Research (Boulder).
35
He is currently editing the volume Water and Humanity: A Historical Overview for UNESCO, a major ini-
tiative of UNESCO’s IHP (Delft), inclusive of over forty lengthy chapters. An invited participant at IHOPE’s
(Integrated History for the Future of the People of Earth, an effort of the International Geosphere and Bio-
sphere Programme, Stockholm) global workshop in Berlin and regional Asia workshop in Akita, Japan, he
is one of the organizers of the Americas initiatives. He has published seven books, including five edited
volumes, and over seventy book chapters and journal articles.

Editor. Water and Humanity: A Historical Overview. History of Water and Civilization Book Series, Volume
VII. Paris: UNESCO. In Press.
Senior author, with W. Burnside. “Complexity and Sustainability: Perspectives from the Ancient Maya and
the Modern Balinese.” American Antiquity. In Press.
“The Archaeology of Sustainability: Mesoamerica.” Invited article for Katun issue of Ancient Mesoamerica.
In Press.
Senior author, with Fred Valdez. “An Alternative Order: The Dualistic Economies of the Ancient Maya.” Latin
American Antiquity, 20 (1) (2009): 207–27.
“Rate and Process of Societal Change in Semitropical Settings: The Ancient Maya and the Living Balinese.”
Quaternary International, 184 (2008): 24–40.
Senior author, with W. Burnside. “Global Change: Mapping Culture onto Climate.” In Claudio Vita-Finzi and
Robert Giegengack (Eds.) Climate Crises in the Human Past. Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society. In Press.
“Beyond Sustainability: Managed Wetlands and Water Harvesting in Ancient Mesoamerica.” In C.T. Fisher,
J.B. Hill, and G.M. Feinman (Eds.) The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socionatural Legacies of
Degradation and Resilience. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009, 62–82.
“Colonizing a Landscape: Water and Wetlands in Ancient Mesoamerica.” In V.L. Scarborough and J. Clark
(Eds.) The Political Economy of Ancient Mesoamerica: Transformations during the Formative and Classic
Periods. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007, 163–174.
“The Rise and Fall of the Ancient Maya: A Case Study in Political Ecology.” In R. Costanza, L. Gramlich, and
W. Steffen (Eds.) Sustainability or Collapse? Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE).
Dahlem Workshop Report 96R. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007, 51–60.
Junior author, with C.L. Redman et al. “Group Report: Millennial Perspectives on the Dynamic Interaction
of Climate, People, and Resources.” In R. Costanza, L. Graumlich, and W. Steffen (Eds.) Sustainability
or Collapse? Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE). Dahlem Workshop Report 96R.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007, 115–148.
36
Tony J. Wilkinson
1. What is the future potential for runoff agriculture and water harvesting?
In the past arid countries such as Yemen relied to a considerable degree on water har-
vesting techniques, but in recent years there has been a switch to extracting underground
water. Can this pattern be reversed?
2. In the first millennium BC (i.e., under the later territorial empires of the Assyrians and
later) new technologies together with administrative clout and organization came together
to enable irrigation systems to spread across the Near East. This enabled land use systems to
be intensified and larger populations to be supported.
Is it realistic to expect an equivalent set of processes, namely international coop-
eration and administration together with new technologies, to come together to make it
possible for the “peak water” problem to be ameliorated?
Brief Bio
Tony James Wilkinson is a Professor in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University in England.
He was trained as a geographer at the University of London and then at McMaster University in Hamilton,
Ontario, where his research involved the hydrology of overland flow in the Canadian High Arctic. From there
he moved into archaeology where he worked on regional landscape projects in the UK and the Middle East.
Somewhat perversely he specialized in landscapes of dry lands (deserts) and submerged landscapes (be-
neath the sea). He has worked in Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran as well as various
places in the United Kingdom. He was formerly Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition to
Iraq; Research Associate (Associate Professor) Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; as well as Lecturer
and Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh. His book Archaeological Land-
scapes of the Near East (University of Arizona Press) received the Book Prize of the Society for American
Archaeology (2004) and the Wiseman Book Award of the Archaeological Institute of America (2005).

“Erde und Wasser: Irans natürliche und von Menschen gestaltete Landschaften” (“Earth and Water”). Intro-
ductory Chapter in David Stronach and Ali Mousavi (Eds.) Irans Erbe in Flugbildern von Georg Gerster.
Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2009.
“Environment and Long-term Population Trends in Southwest Arabia.” In M.D. Petraglia and J.I. Rose (Eds.)
The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia. Springer Science, 2009.
“Political Landscapes and States in Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant.” In C. Redman and S. Falconer
(Eds.) States and Landscape. University of Arizona Press, 2009, 152–62 (including 2 figs).
“Human Dimensions of Environmental Change in the Ancient Near East.” In H. Kuhne, R.M. Czichon, and
F.J. Kreppner (Eds.) Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Ancient Near East (Berlin). Vol. 1:
The Reconstruction of the Environment. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008, 3–18.
Editor, with Janet Starkey and Paul Starkey. Natural Resources and Cultural Connections of the Red Sea. Soci-
ety for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 5. Oxford: BAR (International Series 1661), 2007.
37
With Nicholas Kouchoukos. “Landscape Archaeology in Mesopotamia: Past, Present and Future.” In Eliz-
abeth Stone (Ed.) Settlement & Society: Essays Dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams. UCLA: Cotsen
Institute Publications, 2007, 1–18.
With A. Parker and Caroline Davies. “The Early to Mid-Holocene Moist Period in Arabia: Some Recent Evi-
dence from Lacustrine Sequences in Eastern and South-western Arabia.” Proceedings of the Seminar for
Arabian Studies, 36 (2006): 243–255.
With C. Hritz. “Using Shuttle Radar Topography to Map Ancient Water Channels.” Antiquity, 80 (2006):
415–426.
“From Highland to Desert: The Organization and Landscape and Irrigation in Southern Arabia.” In Charles
Stanish (Ed.) Agriculture, Polity and Society: Agricultural Intensification and Socio-political Organization.
UCLA: Cotsen Institute Publications, 2006, 38–68.
With E. Wilkinson et al. “Landscape of Empire: The Assyrian Countryside in Context.” Bulletin of the Ameri-
can Schools of Oriental Research, 340 (2005): 23–56.
38
Kenneth R. Wright
1. How can large migrations of hungry people be avoided?

Over the past five decades, irrigation planners have projected future food production
needs, but population increases have tended to outpace new irrigation projects. With un-
foreseen climate changes, past production planning criteria may be adversely affected.
2. Can governments with likely food shortages be persuaded to plan to avoid civil un-
rest and subsequent collapse of governing institutions?
If governments are unable to provide adequate food, populations can lose faith in their
governments.
3. With a core environmental impact problem being an increasing world population

and the likelihood of inadequate capability for food production, is it reasonable to as-
sume that population growth can be curtailed?
This question addresses the limits to growth.
Brief Bio
Kenneth R. Wright, P.E., has been a civil engineer focused on water projects for 58 years. He holds three
degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is a professional engineer in 13 states. In 1961, after
stints with Saudi Aramco and the USGS, Wright founded Denver-based Wright Water Engineers, Inc. (WWE),
a 50-employee water engineering firm. WWE serves clientele in the central and western U.S. on a variety of
water rights, water resources, water quality, and drainage projects. Over the years, Wright has seen a lot of
change in water availability, pricing, and management practices in the arid west.
For the last 15 years, Wright has been involved in paleohydrology, the scientific examination of the water
management practices of ancient people. He has done extensive research on water handling by the Inca of
Peru and the water collection, storage, and use of the Ancestral Puebloans of Mesa Verde. In 1998 he formed
the non-profit Wright Paleohydrological Institute (WPI).
Wright has overseen paleohydrologic research around the world, with a focus on Machu Picchu, Tipon,
and Moray in Peru and the reservoirs of Mesa Verde, Colorado. Current WPI projects include the Alhambra
in Granada, Spain; Pompeii in Italy; the Roman mill site in Barbegal, France; and Olympia in Greece. He
has written five books on his paleohydrological work, of which two have been translated into Spanish and
published in Peru. A sixth book, Inca Moray: Engineering a Natural Wonder, is slated for publication in 2010.
Three of Wright’s research sites, Machu Picchu, Tipon, and Mesa Verde reservoirs, were designated as His-
toric Civil Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
In 2007, Wright was decorated with the Order of Merit for Distinguished Services from Peruvian President
Alan Garcia Perez. He has also received academic honors from three major universities in Peru, including
the Ricardo Palma University in 2007, the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria in 2002 and 2009, and the
Universidad Nacional San Abad del Cusco in 2008.
More information on Wright’s paleohydrological work can be found at wrightpaleo.com.
39

“Civil Engineering, Legal, and Political Collaboration: Solving Denver’s Drainage Infrastructure Dilemma.”
Leadership and Management in Engineering, 8 (4) (October 2008).
“A True Test of Sustainability: The Triumph of Incan Engineering over Scarce Water Resources Survives To-
day.” Water Environment & Technology, 20 (9) (September 2008).
With G.F. McEwan and R.M. Wright. Tipon: Obra Maestro de la Ingenieria Hidraulica del Imperia de los Incas.
Lima, Peru: The Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria; Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Ramon Llull; and
Barcelona, Spain: Empresa Petrolera UNIPETRO, 2008.
With R.M. Wright and A.V. Zegarra. Machu Picchu: Maravilla de la Ingenieria Civil. Lima, Peru: Universidad
Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI), 2006.
With G.F. McEwan and R.M. Wright. Tipon: Water Engineering Masterpiece of the Inca Empire. ASCE Press,
2006.
Water Mysteries of Mesa Verde. Johnson Books, 2006.
With R.M. Wright and A.V. Zegarra. Archaeological Excavations and Exploration at Machu Picchu. Denver:
WWE, 2004.
With A.V. Zegarra. Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel. Reston, VA: ASCE Press, 2000.
With P.K. Flood et al. “Colorado Drought: A 1,500-Year Perspective.” American Water Works Association,
June 2000.
“The Rise and Fall of Andean Empires, El Niño History Lessons.” World History Bulletin. (Spring 2000).
40
Chunmiao Zheng
1. How will global changes impact the world’s water resources?

One of the most urgent challenges facing the world today is ensuring an adequate supply
and quality of water in light of both burgeoning human needs and climate variability and
change (National Science Foundation, 2010). There are especially large gaps in our basic un-
derstanding of the impact of a changing and variable climate on the world’s water system.
How will global warming and intensification of climatic extremes affect the distribution and
quality of the world’s water resources? Will “the wet get wetter and the dry get drier,” as
some climate models are predicting for the future precipitation pattern of the world? What
are the consequences of and adaptive management strategies to such a gloomy scenario?
2. How to sustain a clean and adequate water supply to the world’s poorest population?
With more than a billion people lacking safe drinking water in some poorest parts of the
world and as many as two million dying from water-related diseases in 2008 (Gleick, 2008),
the wealthy nations of the world have an obligation to help the poor countries gain access
to safe and affordable water supplies. How to achieve this goal is a major challenge for the
world’s political leaders and international organizations.
3. Can China cope with its water crisis ahead?

The long-term prognosis on China’s grain production and consumption is not optimis-
tic. One important reason is the increasing difficulty of finding sufficient water resources
to support irrigated agriculture. Thus, of greater concern may be the question of whether
the unprecedented economic growth in China over the past three decades can be sustained
as the problems of water shortage and environmental pollution continue to worsen. China
has been battling water shortages in its northern and western provinces for a long time. But
burgeoning economic growth and widespread environmental pollution have aggravated the
water storage problem. China’s State Council warned in a December 2007 drought-fighting
directive that even after taking water-saving measures into full account, China’s water use
will reach or approach the total volume of exploitable water resources by 2030. Can China
cope with its water crisis ahead? The answer to this question clearly has huge implications
for China and the rest of the world.
Brief Bio
Chunmiao Zheng is Professor of hydrogeology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University
of Alabama. He is also a Visiting Professor and founding Director of the Center for Water Research at Peking
University, China. The primary areas of his research are contaminant transport, groundwater management,
and hydrologic modeling. Zheng is developer of the MT3DMS computer simulation model used widely in
hydrologic research and practice to characterize contaminant movement in the subsurface. He is also au-
41
thor or co-author of over 100 technical publications including the textbook Applied Contaminant Transport
Modeling published by Wiley in 1995 and 2002, and translated into Chinese in 2009. Zheng is recipient of the
1998 John Hem Excellence in Science and Engineering Award from the National Ground Water Association,
a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and the 2009 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer awarded
by the Geological Society of America Hydrogeology Division. He is Software Editor for the journal Ground
Water and Associate Editor for Journal of Hydrology. He is a member of the Committee on Hydrologic Science
of the National Research Council, and President of the International Commission on Groundwater of the
International Association of Hydrologic Sciences. Zheng holds a Ph.D. in hydrogeology with a minor in civil
engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

With J. Liu et al. “Can China Cope with Its Water Crisis? – Perspectives from the North China Plain.” Ground
Water, (2010), doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2010.00695.x.
With R. Ma et al. “A Field-scale Reactive Transport Model for U(VI) Migration Influenced by Coupled
Multi-rate Mass Transfer and Surface Complexation Reactions.” Water Resources Research, (2010),
doi:10.1029/2009WR008168.
Challenges and Opportunities in Chinese Groundwater Sciences. Beijing: Science Press, 2009.
Editor, with X. Feng. Environmental Geosciences, Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2008.
With J. Liu et al. “Ground Water Sustainability: Methodology and Application to the North China Plain,”
Ground Water, 46 (6) (2008), doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2008.00486.x.
With G.D. Bennett. Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling, 2nd edition, New York: John Wiley & Sons,
2002. (http://www.mt3d.org/bookinfo.htm).
With G. Liu and S.M. Gorelick. “Evaluation of the Applicability of the Dual-domain Mass Transfer Model in
Porous Media Containing Connected High-conductivity Channels.” Water Resources Research, 43 (2007):
W12407, doi:10.1029/2007WR005965.
With S.M. Gorelick and G. Liu. “Quantifying Mass Transfer in Permeable Media Containing Conductive Den-
dritic Networks.” Geophysical Research Letters, 32 (2005): L18402, doi:10.1029/2005GL023512.
With S.M. Gorelick. “Analysis of the Effect of Decimeter-scale Preferential Flow Paths on Solute Transport.”
Ground Water, 41 (2) (2003): 142–155.
With P.P. Wang. MT3DMS: A Modular 3-D Multi-species Transport Model for Simulation of Advection, Disper-
sion and Chemical Reactions of Contaminants in Groundwater Systems; Documentation and User’s Guide.
Contract Report SERDP-99-1, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS,
1999. (http://hydro.geo.ua.edu/mt3d).
42

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Water­ – ­

The Crisis Ahead

Bellevue, Washington USA ∙ April 21–23, 2010

Bellevue, Washington USA ∙ April 21–23, 2010

• A Foundation For the Future Publication

© 2010 Foundation For the Future

Foundation For the Future, Publisher

The goal in publishing the Executive Summary of the workshop

Printed copies of this publication are available from the

Printed in the United States of America

What Is the Crisis and What Is Causing It?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Lessons Available to Us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Gamut of Issues Identified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Two Most Critical Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Appendix Participants’ Statements, Biographies, and Partial Bibliographies . . . . . . . 15

Mr. Ger Bergkamp Dr. Andrew R. Parker *

Dr. Dennis M. Bushnell * Dr. Peter P. Rogers

Dr. Brian Fagan Dr. Vernon L. Scarborough

Prof. Basia Irland Dr. Tony J. Wilkinson *

Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda Mr. Kenneth R. Wright

Prof. T.N. Narasimhan Dr. Chunmiao Zheng

Mr. Ravi Narayanan * * Four participants were unable to attend the

Pictured in front of the

Not shown are

▶▶ History of Water and Civilization

▶▶ Regional Assessments of Water

▶▶ Governance, Policy, Finance, Business, and Water Management

▶▶ NGOs, Technology, Solutions, and Ethics

What Is the Crisis and What Is Causing It?

The culture of Varanasi,

A young boy fills up water

Longji rice fields in

The Middle East

Nuances on “Global Crisis”

A child enjoys a carved,

An aqueduct near Los

restore plant life to the banks.

From Ethics and Theology

From Current Trends in Water Policy and Governance

The Gamut of Issues Identified

2. Climate change and the lessons to be learned from past adaptations.

The Two Most Critical Issues

Working Title: Towards Water Justice

3. Means to codify the right to water

Polluted waters spread

Damming on Drina River,

Near Brisbane, Southeast

Salt piles outside a

Participants’ Statements, Biographies, and Partial Bibliographies

1. Water, food, and energy interdependencies: how to solve this conundrum?

2. The looming water crisis: what is the cost of no action?

Recent, Relevant Publications

Recent, Relevant Publications

Preface: Everything in the worldwide hydrologic cycle is interconnected, so I find it difficult

Recent, Relevant Publications

Recent, Relevant Publications

2. Is contemporary water policy an outcome of a harmonious collaboration between

3. Is society likely to accept that constant-rate economic growth is not sustainable in an

Recent, Relevant Publications

Recent, Relevant Publications

Recent, Relevant Publications

1. Will we have enough water to feed ourselves in the 21st century?

3. How should we address the future climate uncertainties?

Recent, Relevant Publications

Water –