On March 5, the Water Sustainability Program and WRRC hosted international water expert Brian Richter in Tucson. He attended a community water dialogue, toured a water harvesting demonstration, spoke with students and gave a public lecture on campus to more than 150 people. Richter has been a global leader in river science and conservation for more than 25 years. He is Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy’s Global Water Program, where he promotes sustainable water use and management with governments, corporations, and local communities. His new book, Chasing Water: A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability, was published by Island Press in 2014.
How did you become involved in water management?
I grew up in San Diego, and we had mandatory water conservation. That made a real impression that water is precious and we need to be careful about it. In high school, I remember thinking if I were to become knowledgeable about water, I would probably never have trouble finding a job. That certainly turned out to be somewhat prophetic.
Then, I worked as a whitewater river guide after college. A new dam was proposed on the Stanislaus River in California. Like everybody else, I had a lot of questions about it. That influenced what I decided to study in graduate school. I wanted to know more about water resources.
When I was in my early 30s, I realized I had worked for companies and organizations trying to make them more sustainable. I had felt like I was swimming upstream, trying to change the way practices have been applied for a long time. I wondered what it would be like to work for an organization that already believed in conservation and environmental values. That’s what brought me to The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
When I joined TNC, only a handful of people had expertise in water. We started from a tiny group, and we built a water practice there. Now, more than 400 people in TNC would consider themselves water specialists. It’s been really rewarding and exciting to be a part of that growth.
You’ve traveled around the world looking at examples of water management. What is one of the most memorable experiences you’ve had with water abroad?
One that really changed the way that I think about my work was in Africa about seven or eight years ago. I had started to do more international work around dam development in developing regions. Some regions of the world are building a new big dam, 15 meters or higher, every day of the year on average. TNC is doing what it can to make sure the dams are being constructed in the most environmentally, economically, and socially compatible way possible.
I visited two rivers in Africa: the Zambezi, which forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the Tana River in eastern Kenya. I saw the same thing in both of these places, and it had a profound impact on me. I saw what it looks like to see people starving in front of your eyes—starving and lacking access to safe, clean drinking water. In both places, the construction of dams upstream has changed the way water flows into downstream environments where these people live. Hundreds of thousands of people depend on the rivers for fishing and growing crops on the floodplains, which are naturally flooded by the rivers. The people use an ancient practice called flood recession agriculture. Because of the changes in river flows, fish populations declined and the rivers no longer flooded the floodplains.
On the Tana River in Kenya, we talked with a village chief who literally begged for help to try to influence the way the upstream dams were being managed. The crops on the floodplain were the people’s sole source of food, so they were literally starving to death.
Until then, I was focused on environmental conservation, trying to keep rivers healthy to support natural ecosystems. All of a sudden, my whole world opened up to the realization that this is about people too. It’s about access to water and healthy ecosystems that support our lives, livelihoods, and well-being. When water is managed poorly, it affects every single person on the planet. Improper or inadequate management of water supplies is a universal issue, and it’s something that I very intentionally focus on through my work.
How has your new book, “Chasing Water,” been received?
In general, very positive. The formal reviews on it have all been supportive and favorable. One of the things that have fortunately been recognized is that I was trying to write simply and clearly about what can be a very complicated issue and make sure readers were introduced to basic foundational issues about water so they would be better prepared to influence opportunities in their own work.
The one bit of criticism that I have gotten is that I wasn’t strong enough in my advocacy. But I didn’t want to turn anybody off in taking a strong position when I knew that there would be differences of opinion. I wanted it to be an educational book. I wanted readers to finish and understand the book without getting to a point where they would disagree and stop reading.
In the book, you address some of those issues on which people might disagree. Can you talk about your approach to those?
The one thing that is controversial and that I took considerable care in trying to explain is water markets, trade, and privatization. I think there’s confusion and misinterpretation around what people label as water privatization. The basic fear is that wealthy, powerful corporations will gain control over water to serve their private needs to the detriment of the poor sectors of our society and to the environment. I’m oversimplifying, but that’s the basic concern.
I wanted this book to be read around the world so it could be useful in water-scarce regions everywhere, so I wanted to make sure that it was culturally sensitive. Regarding water markets, I start with the concerns first. They have to be dealt with and there has to be adequate governance in place to protect against unintended consequences around the value and price of water. There has to be full and explicit consideration of environmental water needs as part of that.
In commercial water use, markets can have potentially beneficial effects such as greater efficiency of use and more economically productive uses. That productivity leads to more money coming into the local economy and more jobs. But I was very careful about knowing where the criticisms would come from and tried to address them as best I could.
Another part of the privatization arguments is the issue of public water supply systems. Some people take the position that no private entity should ever be allowed to manage and operate a public water supply system. There have been some very well publicized, horrific examples of how that could go wrong, for example, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where the city contracted with a private entity to manage its water supply system. Unfortunately, the rates were raised, and a lot of the residents could no longer afford water. They rioted, a teenage boy was killed in the riot, and terrible things came about. But, I don’t believe that you throw out the opportunity of having private companies involved in managing public water supplies if it’s done properly.
Some city governments don’t have the expertise, capacity or know-how to manage their water supplies and wastewater systems, so there’s a need for that kind of expertise and skill set. Conditions can be placed on contracts that gain the benefits of private investment as well as expertise to manage consequences. The catch is that most places that would look for that kind of help don’t have adequate governance in the first place, and things go wrong over and over again. Even though they could prevent those bad outcomes, their governance isn’t strong enough to be able to put those conditions in place and enforce them. So, there are certainly valid criticisms.
You attended a community water dialogue in Tucson and learned about local initiatives. In your experience, what is the best way to connect community initiatives with decision-making?
I appreciated the opportunity to learn and talk with people there. They have been able to mobilize a grassroots movement here in Tucson, and I don’t know much about grassroots mobilization. What I have thought a lot about is how to open up the doors of the more formal arenas of water management to provide access to community groups.
For example, at the state level, Texas opened up its long range water planning processes to representative stakeholders. The state has organized conversations around its 16 major river basins and has been very deliberate about who gets to be part of the formal dialogue. It’s very representative.
I’m excited about this opening of the doors of what used to be very centralized, technocratic, bureaucratic decision making about water that was engineering-based and took place at the national or state level. I believe in citizen access to water decision-making because, when the decisions take into consideration local values, needs, and perspectives, solutions are put forth that are more appropriate to the local context. They make more sense because the local people have great ideas about ways to resolve their local water problems, and the solutions tend to be more robust and sustainable. They’re economically and culturally appropriate, and the local people have participated, so they’re going to live by the decisions and take ownership of them. I think it’s a huge step forward, and I think there is going to be a sea change in the way that water planning, decision-making, and rule-setting gets done in the future.
The video and slide show of Brian Richter’s lecture at the University of Arizona on March 5, 2015, are available here.