Yes, it has been quite some time since I last offered my thoughts on global water issues. Suffice to say, its been a busy year. So busy, that I was completely swamped and unable to keep up with what was happening in the water world. The two major items that took up my time were a book project for the United Nations Environment Programme, and my move to another university.
The book project (which I will present in greater detail when it comes out this fall) focuses on the “greening” of water law. In essence, it addresses how and why water laws (at both the national and international levels) should become more concerned with environmental matters. Here is an excerpt from the latest draft:
People, cities, and nations worldwide are now facing growing water crises on both the human and environmental tracks. As a result, governments and decision-makers are coming under increasing pressure from civil society to institute new and innovative policies and strategies to improve the management of fresh water resources. In particular, there is a growing sense that people, communities, and nations must learn to live within the natural hydraulic constraints imposed by nature and to develop a more harmonious water relationship with the environment.
The “greening” of water law is both a theoretical and practical effort to implement that harmony through modification of the legal regime governing the management and allocation of fresh water resources. It is based on the recognition that the life and well-being of people and the natural environment are interrelated and even interdependent and that the coordination of the needs of these two water-dependent stakeholders will further the sustainable use of freshwater resources for both. It is also founded on the notion that by ensuring adequate supplies of clean fresh water for the environment, people, communities, and nations, the human condition can be enhanced through improved health and more sustainable resource exploitation and economic development.
In practical terms, the greening of water law calls for the implementation of a more holistic approach to the management of fresh water resources that integrates environmental issues into the decision-making process at both the national and international level of governance. Among other things, this means an expansion, or possibly a reinterpretation, of existing legal regimes governing water management and allocation to encompass all hydraulically related water resources. It also entails implementing laws and regulations that take into account the impacts on the natural environment generally, and water resources specifically, arising from water-related decision-making, including water use administration, pollution management, and resource allocation and exploitation.
The book is scheduled to be released in early September at the Stockholm World Water Week. Stay tuned for more on this development.
As for the second time-killer, earlier this year, I decided to leave Texas Tech University (TTU) where I had spent most of the last seven years. As I noted to my TTU colleagues in a departing email, “To say that Texas Tech launched my career is not an exaggeration. The opportunities that this institution has afforded me are innumerable and their value incalculable.” TTU is a wonderful institution and I will very much miss the camaraderie and support that I found there.
But I am also looking forward to my new home institution, Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, TX. Texas Wesleyan is a fine academic institution with a vibrant faculty and student body and I am excited about this next stage of my life.
Of course, the IWLP blog continues. Look for my take in my next posting on a new Nile River Basin agreement that was recently signed by half of riparians on that watercourse.