The philosophy of Advaita (non-dualism literally), comes from the school of Vedanta, from the writings of ancient India. When Advaita Vedanta explains how to see the world, gives a lecture: things are never as we see them, because each of us to apply all that we see a distorting element: our history, our past.
When you see everything that is related to water even the same fluid element, we deduce very divergent conclusions, based on our history, our experience: water is not the same if you are an irrigator, an urbanite, or a fisherman, engineer, architect, economist, African, a Swiss, professor, prosecutor or a politician.
However, all express our opinions and we align with those who think something like our ideas. This healthy debate (generated when the amount of information that allows the democratic system joins a relatively high average quality of life) can lead to the «fallacy of the expert,» which occurs when a be deemed sufficiently informed on a matter of interest, to consider themselves entitled to give an irrefutable opinion.
In the case of water, the controversy between advocates of the vision ecosystemic (water = inheritance) and the defenders of the anthropocentric view (water = resource) has given birth to a lot of experts everywhere, which polarize the debate ends up really chaotic.
The state of the art globally, allows me to draw the following considerations geographically random, but significant:
• By 2100, California is expected to triple the number of people present. The state has 51 reservoir and 28 aquifers : The marked path leads to desalination and irrigation efficiency. In economic terms, flood damages are similar to drought damages. The highest priority in water management is the ecological flow.
• In Portugal, 35% of the area is allocated to irrigation and only un13% have irrigation The irrigation area will grow by 161% with the regulation of Alqueva the hiperdam of the Guadiana river, provided the EEC continue paying for not producing.
• Of the 40,000 km³/year global renewable resource, only 9,000 are temporary and geographically accessible: this means that more water be stored? Yes. It is expected to move from a global storage capacity of 30% of available water (in the existing 48,600 large dams), 35%.
• The Madrid region is comprised of 14 reservoirs, of which almost 80% water. Strict compliance with current legislation, would require the construction of a new dam at Alberche to compensate for the «loss» of reservations that originate from the drop environmental flows from dams and provide greater security guards against flooding. What a paradox!
• Nearly 800 million people lack access to safe drinking water in the world, while half of the population has no access to sanitary water: weak economies need other countries to meet the Millennium goals: accepting immigrants, opening markets and rethinking unsustainable subsidies. For World Water Vision, the only possible solution to establish a system driven by human values: hydro-solidarity
• The development of hydropower produce a 13% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions: Two billion people lack access to electricity. So far 19% of the generated energy is hydroelectric (dams)
• 15% of deaths related to natural disasters, the flooding which is the most important.
• There are 263 international river basins shared to the world. 200 have already signed cooperation treaties.
• Asia has the most polluted rivers in the world, where daily dumped 2 million tons of waste. 60% of large dams and rivers are important referrals: You must adopt a new ethic of resource management.
• 20% of the total use of water is transformed into agricultural products and sold on the market as a result of trade deregulation: is called virtual water.Deregulation will double the virtual water in animal and vegetable products, this water will be increased by the virtual nutrients.
• The water planning should be participative must unlearn the undisputed dogma: prevent turbulence in the complicated phase changes we contemplate and seek common ground, to get the potential conflict to the potential of collaboration. Engineering is a tool, not an end. The goal will be to guarantee quality of service for users and non-users and the preservation of inheritance, with a ecosystemic (not anthropocentric), approach
Quotations to finish:
«Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing», (Disraeli).
«It Is Not the Strongest of the Species that Survives But the Most Adaptable», (Darwin).
With these reflections, each person can apply the Vedanta philosophy as directed by your personal story. For my part, after thirty years of working near water and writing about it, every day I am more convinced that there are very few experts and above all, I’ll never get to be.
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