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Water quality and availability are at the root of many of society’s most
pressing concerns — from human health to economic prosperity to environmental
protection. In some cases, we lack fundamental scientific information upon which
to make informed water policy decisions. In other cases, water policies are
inconsistent with basic tenets of water science.
| Hydrological and ecological linkages, rather than political boundaries, should form the basis for water management. |
The urgent need to close the gap between water science and water policy dominated
the 4th National Conference on Science Policy and the Environment, which explored
science-based strategies for achieving water sustainability. Hosted by the National
Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) in January 2004, this unique
event attracted more than 800 scientists, policy-makers, business executives
and civil society representatives from 46 states and 14 countries. The participants
worked together to craft recommendations about the role of science in achieving
sustainable relationships among water, people and the environment.
In order to pursue sustainable water management, we must first be able to measure
our progress toward this goal. Conference participants discussed ways indicators
of water sustainability can help us assess and improve our management of water
resources. With careful selection, we need to develop a linked set of indicators
at multiple spatial and temporal scales that encompass the ecological, economic
and social conditions and processes that are relevant to sustainable management
of water resources. We should include measures of precision or uncertainty when
reporting water sustainability indicators. And, the public must participate
in identifying the important issues.
Perhaps more importantly though, we need additional data on freshwater resources
and we need to make better use of existing data. For example, a modern national
assessment of water availability for the United States does not exist. Recognizing
the importance of water availability to communities, agriculture, energy production
and ecosystems, Congress has called upon the U.S. Geological Survey to describe
the scope and magnitude of the efforts needed to provide periodic assessments
of the status and trends in the availability and use of freshwater resources
in the United States.
The White House has established an interagency panel under the auspices of the
National Science and Technology Council to develop coordinated solutions to
questions of water availability and quality. In order to make informed policy
decisions, we should undertake an aggressive initiative to collect and synthesize
information on water availability and use, including groundwater, surface water
and long-term trends.
Amassing information on our water resources is not enough, however. We need
to create a framework that can incorporate this information into water management
strategies. Hydrological and ecological linkages, rather than political boundaries,
should form the basis for water management.
Additionally, governance structures should be designed to facilitate a watershed,
basin or ecosystem approach to water management. For example, researchers are
increasingly attributing coastal pollution problems, such as nutrient over-enrichment,
dead zones and toxic contamination, to diffuse sources far inland from coastal
environments. Therefore, effective solutions to these issues must be holistic,
entering at the watershed level and connecting coastal pollution with inland
sources.
Other key points discussed at the 2004 NCSE conference include the connection
between groundwater and surface water, the need for river management and the
importance of scientist participation in setting water policy, as illustrated
by the following speakers:
* Robert Glennon, author of Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate
of America’s Fresh Waters, said that a profound misunderstanding of
water science has been institutionalized in many states, where groundwater and
surface water are legally two unrelated entities. This gap has led to practices
of unsustainable groundwater withdrawal in some areas and ineffective water
management policies that do not take a holistic approach.
Groundwater and surface water are inextricably linked through the hydrologic
cycle, and we need to reform the governance of surface and groundwater to reflect
actual hydrologic linkages. We also need to improve our scientific understanding
of surface water and groundwater linkages. Likewise, we need to improve education
and outreach about these linkages, Glennon said at the meeting.
* Brian Richter of the Nature Conservancy said that the challenge of 21st century river management is to better balance human water needs with the water needs of rivers themselves. Meeting this challenge will require a fundamentally new approach to valuing and managing rivers. Richter argues that each component of a river’s flow pattern — the highs, the lows and the levels in between — is important to the health of the river system and the life within it. At the NCSE conference, he said he is optimistic that new policies will be based on the “scientific consensus that restoring some degree of a river’s natural flow pattern is the best way to protect and restore river health and functioning.”
* Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly said that in general, U.S. policy is “a patchwork of laws, precedents and practices from a time when people were fewer and water was more readily available,” which has resulted in “water conflicts in the absence of droughts.” Focusing on the role of scientists in improving water policy, Reilly believes strongly in the need to engage scientists in helping to make environmental policies and setting environmental priorities. At the meeting, he urged scientists to avoid becoming “truants from the policy process.”
To further all these efforts, NCSE is working to increase the scientific literacy
of the policy community and to increase the policy literacy of the scientific
community. Both are needed to close the gap between water science and water
policy.
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