Managing Water Managers
08/08/08 21:19
In London in late
July, I met a several people who represent
government and private bodies that “manage”’ the
river Thames. The UK government owns the water, at
least in theory, and this ownership devolves onto
private businesses that manage portions of the
watershed, including treating river water and
sewage and moving water to houses. It’s an old an
complex process, and there are a lot legacy (i.e.,
inherited and old fashioned) components to the
systems. For instance, not many homes or businesses
in the UK have water meters, so usage rates are
often estimated. Many much less developed countries
have much better metering systems simply because
they have newer water distribution systems. Also,
many of the facilities and pipes themselve are well
over a century old, designed for quite different
times and usage levels.
Just as important as legacy infrastructure are legacy ideas — is the body of knowledge and experience that has accrued over the past 150 years still relevant now? How should it adjust to new times? From a climate perspective, the Thames is probably more frequent high flows from intense, sustained precip events, but there is also concern marine upstream tidal floods and higher rates of evapotranspiration from warmer temperatures. Thus, the lower reaches may be more likely to see some salt water incursions. And some of the smaller tributaries (which pass through a unique chalk-stream ecosystem with a lot of habitat specialists) may see much lower summer flows as the water enters the atmosphere at higher rates, at least during normal non-flood years.
And of course London is growing rapidly as one of the world’s great cities, expanding outwards with many new communities. So demands on the Thames seem likely to increase in coming decades.
I have not spoken with water managers before this meeting, and I found this to be frustrating as a means of starting a conversation with them using the climate adaptation talking points I normally employ with some success with conservation and development people. They seemed interested in the potential conflicts between climate mitigation and climate adaptation (for instance, what is the carbon footprint of water management?). They also seemed a bit tired of the discussion of dealing with uncertainty in climate projections and models. The former topic may not be a good starting place for a sustained conversation. The latter topic is sine qua non in moving forward, unfortunately.
Trying to reach this audience will become a more pressing issue in future months, I suspect, as we begin to launch good assessments of freshwater vulnerability on regional scales. Somehow I need to find better ways of convincing water managers and engineers that they need to think forward in time and not just backwards on documented historic variability, that “the bugs” in water are worth counting because they are a good way of showing how well they are managing water, and that increasing efficiency and reducing demand may be the best hedge against future bottlenecks.
Back to the word processor.
