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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
In my recent visit to Morrocco, I found a society immersed in a history of water, of constant tension between supply and demand, and the development of a body of tradition, customary law, invention and technology, management innovation, and real success as an international exemplar of a viable, enduring “hydraulic society.” A visit to the Civilization and Water museum, in Marrakesh, during my recent trip there, described in the last edition of World Ocean Radio, provides a description of that ancient history, its innovation, and ongoing success.
But, as in all things in all places, solutions to problems are a function of scale, the inevitable pressure brought to bear on systems, physical and social, that are the result of significant population expansion, new technologies for old methods with volumetric stress, additional expense, amplified consequence, and inadequate response to factors like climate change that accelerate the negatives and demand innovation and change to old structures and behaviors. It is a worldwide challenge, and involves almost every aspect of our personal lives, our economies, our national identities, and communal nature and attempts to live in harmony in a rapidly scaling world. Like water in a confined space, increased volume and pressure demand release, most always a destructive event with unfortunate outcome.
Again, Morrocco is an instructive example: its population has doubled since 1970, growing from 18 million to 38 million people, with diminished rural to increased urban development, and dramatic expansion of finance in the face of the demands of civil society. From an internal market, Morrocco has expanded through scaled-up export trade in salt, sugar, olives, fruit, grains, vegetables, fish, crafts, and other manufactured goods. Today, the country has more than 2.5 million acres of irrigated fields which have required larger dams, hydro-electric power generation, transport infrastructure, port development, and new sources of investment.
Morrocco’s long tradition of water administration and management have also required significant upgrade and emphasis, which has required a major re-definition and application of customary law, administrative improvements, and a new national water plan that includes review and revision of laws and regulations, urban and rural re-organization, new dams, reservoirs, and circulation systems, new conservation practices, wastewater recycling, increased energy production and alternative technologies, preservation of submerged or impacted cultural sites, pollution controls, and small innovations like a composting toilets and filters.
And all this change demands expanded authority, funds, and support of new methods from home and abroad. And all this is moving quickly; the urgency is palpable; the stakes are high.
And what about tomorrow? What next? What about the 22nd century, where the need for water will continue its exponential magnification? Morrocco has called for a “school of water,” a new university to study and catalyze policy and process to meet amplified demand: education, training, new investment in new invention, full treatment and recycling of all water in all forms, waste and otherwise, new tests, new policies, new models for management, desalination, and nationwide public engagement through education, communication, and action that builds a new hydraulic society, a state of perfect water, through acceptance of a new water ethos that informs every inter-action, every decision, every aspect of the present, and every hope for the future.
How can we engage and emulate this progress? First, we need to understand our own water profile, our own water “shadow,” the hidden water in almost everything we do and everything we consume. We are, each of us, a reservoir, a fountain, part of the forward flow, a function of 60% water, a hydraulic agent, a citizen of our blue planet. Whatever we contain, retain, and sustain within ourselves and our community engagement, we do for us all. That is the true scale of water without which we cannot survive.
We will discuss these issues and more in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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