The World Water Week celebrated its 20th anniversary in September and had water quality as its theme. At the Älvsjö Fair in the south of Stockholm, the meeting was attended by about 2500 people from 135 countries – researchers, politicians, civil servants, engineers, environmental organisations and industrialists. Teenagers from all over the world came with their posters under their arms, hoping to win the Junior Water Prize. Two Canadian teenagers went home as the winners. They received the prize for their method to degrade the plastic Polystyrene so that it does not spread toxins in the water.
The Stockholm Water Prize, 150,000 dollars, was won by American professor Rita Colwell for her research results that prevent cholera. Rita Colwell’s research shows that the cholera vibrio can survive in a dormant state attached to zooplankton and becomes virulent at a later stage. She has also discovered that old saris or other pieces of cloth can be used to filter out cholera bacteria from drinking water.
Winner of the water prize. Professor Rita Colwell has studied how the cholera vibrio can survive in a dormant state attached to zooplankton and becomes virulent at a later stage. Photographer: Thomas Henrikson/Siwi.
“We build longer pipes”
The previous water prize winner, Sunita Narain, Director of Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, as usual gave a concrete and engrossing lecture. This time she described how, because of modern technology, we have stopped caring for our nearest watercourse.
- If we have polluted our own water, the engineers say: “No matter, we build longer pipes and bring water from further away”. But this is not sustainable in the long term, summed up Sunita Narain.
An unscheduled lecture dealt with the highly topical flood disaster in Pakistan. Daanish Mustafa, researcher at Department of Geography, King’s College, London, underlined that we must plan and build for extreme weather conditions, not for some average.
- Preventing good minor floods makes the extreme floods worse. Rivers need room for their discharge, he said.
Role models. Jack Sim from Singapore, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, approves of a campaign that uses the football star Didier Drogba as a draw for better sanitation. Photograph: Wash United.
From the sources of the Baltic Sea. Belarus is one of the 14 countries in the Baltic Sea’s catchment area. The White Russian geographer Alena Kalmakova has studied the upper reaches of the river Neman and seen that about 75 and 24 per cent respectively of the phosphorus and nitrogen that ends up in the river comes from towns.
See all from the source to the sea
The organiser of World Water Week, Siwi, together with the Swedish Foreign Office, held a full day session on the water’s way from the source to the sea. Interesting examples were shown from Xiamen Bay in China, where a number of countries are collaborating on a water management scheme based on ecosystems, with agriculture also as an important component.
On the same day, two Polish researchers received a prize for making their country reduce the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. They are not alone in seeing our common sea as a microlaboratory. This was also understood by the seminar delegate Alena Kalmakova, although she does not live near the sea. She is a geographer at Belarus State University and has studied the upper reaches of the river Neman. Conditions there influence the entire river and thus also the Baltic Sea.
- The problem is particularly important near the frontier with Lithuania where the discharge from the White Russian part of the catchment area of Neman delivers, on average, up to 7,900 tonnes of nitrogen and 530 tonnes of phosphorus annually to the Lithuanian part of the catchment area.
- My study shows that the greatest environmental culprits behind surface water pollution are the rapid growth in the size and population of towns, together with an intensive industrial production, said Alena Kalmakova.
How are we behaving?
The organisation Wash held a special meeting on water as a communications issue. Water researchers and activists talked there of both funny and unusual campaigns that have the aim of educating and involving the public concerning sanitation and water. One of the stratagems is not to have too many “feel bad” vibes in one’s message.
After a number of power point slides there was a serious discussion with the public. Several people remarked that research is needed here also. Not only measurements of how many are reached by the message. No, we must also know why we are behaving in a certain way. There must also be a baseline from where we can measure how we are altering our behaviour.
Building high. In the Punjab in Pakistan, the catchment area for two of the tributaries of the Indus, those who can afford it build their houses on three metre high foundations to escape the floods. Photographer: Daanish Mustafa.
World Water Week is twenty years old
Sunita Narain talked about building longer and longer pipes. But we have now come to the end of the road. If we live in a growing town that is short of pure water, it is not easy to find pure water “further away”, since towns there also are growing, with new pollution and competition as a consequence.
- Growth takes place extremely quickly, and this demands new thinking. We must look after our nearest water sources – treated sewage effluent and rain. Perhaps I should call these our reborn old water sources, concludes Jan-Olof Drangert.