August and September bring us wet news. There are two interesting events showing the importance of water as a natural resource that is scarce and necessary and about which there are a lot of questions pending to be solved.
The two events have been the World Week of Water, which took place last August between 21st and 27th in Stockholm and the World Conference of Education on Water, which was celebrated on September, from 13th until 16th in Bozeman (Montana), beside Yellowstone National Park, in the United States.
Semana Mundial del Agua
The World Week of Water is an event which takes place every year being The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in charge of organizing it every year from 1991. Each year, the World Week of Water is focused on a relevant matter related with water; thus, the last encounters have been devoted to “The challenge of quality of water” last 2010 and “Water in an urbanized world” in 2011. Next appointment will take place next 2012 and will analyze “Water and World Alimentary Security”.
The central matter this year, Water in an urbanized world, has shown the problems of water in urban areas. Statistics regarding growth population in the world estimate that on 2050 the urban population will be as much as the world population at the moment, so approximately 95% of population growth during the next years will take place in urban areas. Under this premise, the World Week of Water has analyzed in several workshops and lectures how to tackle the management of water and its rational use in the future urban areas.
The evidence of global warming is shown in most of the lectures during the World Week of Water. The objective of many of these conferences is to show different means of adaptation in front of global warming, as well as proposals to improve the rural and urban areas where management, distribution and consumption of water are still deficient.
We consider interesting to point out the word used during one of the lectures, devoted to Ecosalud, namely, the interdisciplinary study of the interactions among people, ecosystems and human health. This lecture raised the need of tackling, in a global way, the consequences of an increase in the population growth rhythm in urban areas, both from the point of view connected with the ecosystems degradation and from the human and financial resources increase in order to cope with the new century challenges.
The World Conference of Education on Water has been organized by Project Wet Foundation, which was created on 1984 in North Dakota with the task of supplying children, parents, teachers and communities all over the world with education about water.
This foundation is aware of the fact that water is an essential resource for society, so it has considered that any debate whatsoever regarding this resource must be extended to all the users, both citizens and rulers. The final objective of these encounters is to get deep in all the aspects which contribute to a better knowledge of our environment in order to be able to face future challenges aroused precisely by the said environment.
For the Project Wet Foundation, the project is mainly addressed to childhood. First of all, because they know that if their programs regarding Education on Water are developed at the schools, children, that will be our young and adult generations in a next future, will be prepared to tackle in a global way the questions of water and a sustainable world. Secondly, the Project Wet Foundation feels, likewise, more linked to childhood because of their vulnerability, and this is why they join it and want to collaborate with the Objectives for the Millenium Development that the United Nations proposed and, to be specific, with the objectives related with healthiness and hygiene.
As a conclusion of the said encounters, we can outline the need of adaptation to the problems raised by global warming and the little rational use we make of our resources, getting an special interest on the consequences for children’s health, not only in rural areas but in urban ones, where the concentration of population can generate new supply and salubriousness problems in future if suitable measures are not taken.
