Decisions on urban water systems: some support

Abstract

“Water is a scarce resource and its management has to be as effective as possible”.

Most of us would certainly agree with this fine sounding phrase. But developing it and putting it into practice is not easy. Firstly, because we are already having problems identifying the meaning or interpretation we give to some words. For example, water as a resource. Water is not just a natural resource, it is the basis of the industrial sector, a generator of cultural heritage and a linchpin of society. And we sometimes use the term scarce when referring to a problem of distribution or overexploitation. In any case, this means that water management is very complex. This is because there are different agents involved and all of them have different interests; these interests are often contradictory and can lead to conflict. Everyone understands the concept of efficient management differently. Efficient: why and for whom? At the same time, we have to make decisions. Decisions that involve a way of managing the resource. For example, authorising (or not) a withdrawal from a water course, building (and how) a treatment plant or defining (what and in which range) the quality parameters guaranteeing its drinkability... These examples, and many more that we could cite, are some of the aspects on which a group of people are responsible for acting, deciding and getting the decisions implemented. The hypothesis presented in this book is that to achieve this efficient management there are no simple formulas or universal solutions. However, this does not mean that all solutions are equally correct. Experience shows us that some are better than others.