WATER CONSERVATION EDUCATION - A Multi-level, Multi-disciplinary path
WATER CONSERVATION EDUCATION - A Multi-level, Multi-disciplinary path
A WIN perspective
Paresh Vora, Shanti Menon, WIN Foundation
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INTRODUCTION
What is Water Security:
What is Water Security:
1. Water is essential for all living organisms.
2. Life on earth is interdependent. E.g. Human beings have trillions of microorganism cells living in their bodies and contributing to the digestion process. Similarly plants depend on fungi and other microorganisms to deliver nutrients to them. Cows digest grass to produce milk through a process involving many microorganisms.
3. Our agricultural systems also depend on healthy soil , which include microorganisms which support the crop health and growth. In turn it also affects our nutrition and health.
4. Thus, when we talk of long term water security, talking of only human needs would be very short sighted. It has to be for living systems as a whole. Also as the soil content affects water quality in our water sources, soil health management is also integral to water security. Poor soil management over decades has resulted in overuse of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, etc., and has not only further degraded soil, loss of important microorganisms, but also led to water overuse, pollution and contamination.
Mechanisms and processes of water security and Human Resources requirements:
Mechanisms and processes of water security and Human Resources requirements:
The water conservation and related resource management needs encompass:
1. Manage health of water sources, including rivers, ponds, wells, lakes, groundwater etc.
2. Manage soil health to reduce chemical pollutants usage, and increase water retention.
3. Rain water harvesting, water recharge etc., to replenish our water sources with high quality rainwater.
4. Water supply, water recycling, water purification etc. for our current needs.
These activities are highly interdisciplinary and hence require training and skilling to include multiple disciplines, like hydrogeology, geology, water recharge structure engineering, rainwater harvesting, precision agriculture, soil health science, etc.
The above tasks involve centralised as well as highly decentralized activities, across the villages, states, forests, cities etc. In turn this requires a vast number of trained persons with broad basic skills at various levels – in villages, in larger clusters, districts, and more specialized persons at centralized levels in states and Centre.
Apart from people directly involved in water conservation, the larger population also needs to be sensitized to water conservation, soil health, etc., since we need to build such practices in our daily lives at home and work. For this, the ideal place is schools, so that students develop right understanding and form right habits.
For simplicity, we have taken example of water training needs for following groups:
For simplicity, we have taken example of water training needs for following groups:
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