Water, Environment, & development Dr. Stanley Kabala Duquesne University Part 2 UNIT 2 Click here to begin.

INSTRUCTIONS Navigation through the course will occur by clicking on the following action buttons located in the lower right corner of each screen: The HOME button will be placed in the center of each slide and will bring you to the Table of Contents for further navigation. The NEXT and BACK buttons will move you through the course content. The EXIT button will be placed at the end of each unit and will exit the unit and return you to the course menu.

INSTRUCTIONS This course is meant to be self-paced, though there will be opportunities to interact with your local and global JPIC groups. Course content and activities should be completed in the order that they are presented to maximize student success. The Table of Contents will be your starting point for each Unit

ACTIVITY ICONS Each type of course activity has a unique icon located in the upper right corner of the screen. In this course you will: Online journal Local discussion Read online Create doc Reflect Global discussion Watch video Quiz/test

PART 2: SUFFICIENCY – DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH WATER PART 2: SUFFICIENCY – DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH WATER? Unit 2: RESEARCH ON SUFFICIENCY

TABLE OF CONTENTS This unit is divided into several sections. Start with the Learning Objectives, OR click on the link below to navigate to the component where you left off. Revisit as needed. Section 1: Learning Objectives Section 2: Beyond Scarcity Section 3: Readings & Activity

Section 1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the conclusion of this unit, students will be able to: Recognize the social, economic, and environmental aspects of water use beyond the solely technical; Understand the terms “hard path” and “soft path” for water and how to apply them to assess policy choices for water supply; Grasp the intentions and aims behind the characterization of a “soft path” for water; Distinguish among diverse end-uses of water, so as to identify appropriate and feasible water supply options.

Section 2 BEYOND SCARCITY

BEYOND SCARCITY The world’s technical authorities on water supply are unanimous in asserting that the world will experience a water shortage in the next few decades. And, it is correct to say that there is no way to make more water—even if we consider desalinization, which is expensive and very energy intensive. By broadening what we mean by the phrase "increasing the supply" of fresh water, we find that there only a few ways to do so, and they all really translate into protecting supply. Our options are limited to: Avoiding pollution of flows, such as streams, rivers, and groundwater recharge Reducing or halting diminishment of flows by poor land use Transporting water Using available water as efficiently as possible.

SOFT PATHS FOR WATER The Pacific Institute addresses these issues by way of the term “soft” path or alternative path for water. In technical jargon, “hard paths” for the delivery of resources are those that require extensive, expensive infrastructure of production and delivery, in a word, dams, reservoirs, pipelines, which are often environmentally destructive infrastructure and all of which, by the way, cost a lot of money to build. “Soft” paths are those alternatives are decentralized, relatively small in scale and output, and adaptable to local circumstances.

SOFT PATHS FOR WATER Let’s review how the soft path for water has been characterized, especially how it is differentiated from the conventional hard path approach. The soft path can be characterized by the fact that it: Intends not simply to supply water, but rather to satisfy specific end-uses of water, including drinking, cooking, washing, laundering, gardening, farming, commodity production, and sanitation Aims to supply water of varying quality for differing uses, for example using storm runoff, gray water (which is water used for washing laundry, and other household purposes excluding toilets), and reclaimed wastewater to irrigate landscaping and some manufacturing purposes

SOFT PATHS FOR WATER Is based on the realization that decentralized infrastructure can be as cost-effective as large, centralized systems Engages water users and communities to consider their particular needs as opposed to problems/solutions put forward by conventional water engineering Acknowledges that ecological integrity and many activities that depend on it such as swimming, fishing, and tourism are important to water-users in ways that go beyond only delivering a steady supply of water.

Section 3 ACTIVITY

UNIT READINGS Required Readings Gleick, Peter H., “Global Freshwater Resources: Soft-Path Solutions for the 21st Century, Science 302 (2003): 1524-8. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. <http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/soft_path/science_112003.pdf >. “The Soft Path for Water.” Pacific Institute. Pacific Institute. n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2012. <http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/soft_path/index.htm >.

ACTIVITY Your aim here is to firm up your understanding how the soft path for water differs from the conventional, or “hard,” path, and to do so in a practical way that can set the stage for crafting policies and programs to implement soft path solutions. Review the six elements of the soft path as they are presented in the required readings from the Pacific Institute and by Peter Gleick. Note that that each of these elements is the express opposite of an element of conventional thinking on water supply. Assess in broad terms how the supply of drinking water in your community is inadequate, and how. Working from the likely premise that capital-intensive, engineered water supply infrastructure is not available, use the six elements of the soft path to further assess your local situation in order to identify ways to increase the supply or improve the quality of drinking water in your community.

ACTIVITY In the process, you will gain insight into the limitations of the “hard” path for water in your community or region, as well as begin to identify opportunities to apply local solutions with intermediate technologies.