May 19, 2021 07:01 AM
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210...slow-water
EXCERPTS: Today, modern Peruvians are redeploying that ancient knowledge [...] to integrate nature into water management on a national scale. Peru is among the world's most water-insecure countries.
[...] Water scarcity in Peru is getting worse as a result of climate change. Within living memory, mountain glaciers have melted and the rainy season has shrunk to just a couple of months. Already Lima's water utility Sedapal can only supply customers 21 hours a day ... A 2019 World Bank report evaluating drought risk in Peru concluded that the capital's current strategies to manage drought – dams, reservoirs, storage under the city – will be inadequate by as early as 2030.
Several years ago, desperate for water security, the country's leaders did something radical: they passed a series of national laws requiring water utilities to invest a percentage of their customers' bills in "natural infrastructure". These funds [...] go to nature-based water interventions, such as restoring ancient human systems that work with nature, protecting high-altitude wetlands and forests, or introducing rotational grazing to protect grasslands. Before, it was considered a misuse of public funds if utilities invested in the watershed. Now it's required.
As climate change brings water change worldwide, conventional water control structures are increasingly failing. Such human interventions tend to confine water and speed it away, erasing natural phases when water stalls on land. Nature-based solutions, on the other hand, make space and time for these slow phases. In researching my forthcoming book on the subject, I've come to think of them as "slow water"...
For these reasons, conserving wetlands, river floodplains and mountain forests for water management is a growing movement worldwide [...] Peru's national programme, however, has the potential to demonstrate how effective slow water solutions can be when implemented on the scale of watersheds.
Yet despite Peru's forward-thinking policies, putting it into practice has been slow going, due in part to high turnover in government – including five presidents in five years. Another big hurdle, and one that most countries face: overcoming ingrained practices in the water sector to try something new... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: Today, modern Peruvians are redeploying that ancient knowledge [...] to integrate nature into water management on a national scale. Peru is among the world's most water-insecure countries.
[...] Water scarcity in Peru is getting worse as a result of climate change. Within living memory, mountain glaciers have melted and the rainy season has shrunk to just a couple of months. Already Lima's water utility Sedapal can only supply customers 21 hours a day ... A 2019 World Bank report evaluating drought risk in Peru concluded that the capital's current strategies to manage drought – dams, reservoirs, storage under the city – will be inadequate by as early as 2030.
Several years ago, desperate for water security, the country's leaders did something radical: they passed a series of national laws requiring water utilities to invest a percentage of their customers' bills in "natural infrastructure". These funds [...] go to nature-based water interventions, such as restoring ancient human systems that work with nature, protecting high-altitude wetlands and forests, or introducing rotational grazing to protect grasslands. Before, it was considered a misuse of public funds if utilities invested in the watershed. Now it's required.
As climate change brings water change worldwide, conventional water control structures are increasingly failing. Such human interventions tend to confine water and speed it away, erasing natural phases when water stalls on land. Nature-based solutions, on the other hand, make space and time for these slow phases. In researching my forthcoming book on the subject, I've come to think of them as "slow water"...
For these reasons, conserving wetlands, river floodplains and mountain forests for water management is a growing movement worldwide [...] Peru's national programme, however, has the potential to demonstrate how effective slow water solutions can be when implemented on the scale of watersheds.
Yet despite Peru's forward-thinking policies, putting it into practice has been slow going, due in part to high turnover in government – including five presidents in five years. Another big hurdle, and one that most countries face: overcoming ingrained practices in the water sector to try something new... (MORE - details)