Sunday, January 25, 2009

Water Ethics or Doing it Right.


The water resource world couldn't be more different from the oil industry and yet elements of the oil world occasionally barge into water world with potentially troubling effects on the clients, usually poor third world nations. Oil is an international commodity to be sold on the spot markets for whatever the current price is. Water is a local resource essential to the lives of the local inhabitants.

While there are many attempts to make a commodity of water, it is still plentiful enough in much of the world to lack any real impetus to sell it by a per barrel price. And yet various entities from the water bottlers to struggling oil drillers are fishing for ways to make a questionable buck on it.

I will be working on providing examples of these various ill considered forms of exploitation and foolishness in a consequent post but I thought it would be useful to gather some examples of water ethics aspects from several levels.

This excerpt is from the Water Encyclopedia.

The Challenge of Ethical Decision-Making

"Rational ethical judgment by professional water managers is important because of the significant implications of their decisions to society. They make decisions that affect the environment, allocate water resources, influence public health and safety, distribute public monies, and affect the lives of future generations.

Ethical conduct, or professional decision-making, is a necessary requisite to being called a professional. A professional must be able to properly balance competing values in making decisions that affect both society and the client, especially where personal, societal, and cultural values conflict. The value issues must be properly balanced within the framework of economic, political, and sociological constraints. Mature ethical decision-making is not easy, and the professional often is criticized by those who feel adversely affected by the decisions."
The Example of Sustainable Development.

"Sustainable development, which is development that meets current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, involves numerous value conflicts: namely, the freedom of the current generation to use resources that a future generation may need for survival, and the need for the current generation to practice self-discipline so that the environment will remain healthy for future generations. Freedom, survival, self-discipline, and health are all values. Similarly, clean and safe waterbodies are one concern of water professionals in meeting their ethical responsibilities to sustainable development. Here, the words "clean" and "safe" require value judgements. A water manager who does not respect competing values and does not have the ethical maturity to properly weight them in decision-making cannot be considered a professional."
The Example of Wetland Preservation.

"The preservation of wetland systems is often in value conflict with economic development of the land. Worthwhile values are legitimately associated with both sides of the issue. The difficulty in quantifying the worth of public amenities provided by wet-lands often complicates decision-making. The water professional who supports wetland development may appear unethical. It is difficult to quantify the value of a wetland to fish and waterfowl in terms that can be compared to the economic value of transforming the wetland into a shopping mall that will be used daily by thousands of people. Would a code of ethics lead a water professional to preserve the wetland for reasons of public welfare, or to develop the land and thus serve the client and the public with fidelity?"

Codes of Ethics

"Codes of ethics are the value guidelines that a professional must follow in order to remain registered as a member of the profession. Codes are not a list of do's and don'ts. Therefore, to a young professional, they may appear to be vague statements. For example, a code might state that the professional should hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, or that they should act as faithful agents in professional matters for each employer or client. The emphasis on values is evident through the terms "public safety" and "faithful."

When one is confronted by decisions related to water resources issues, such as sustainable development and wetland systems, interpretation of these guidelines is not always clear-cut. Differences of opinion can lead a professional to blow the whistle. Misinterpreting the codes or ignoring them can result in a person's losing his or her job, or even being expelled from the profession. Thus, understanding value issues and being able to make mature value decisions are just as important to the water resources practitioner as is technical knowledge."

Richard H. McCuen


Then we have this excerpt from UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme.


ETHICS AND WATER RESOURCES
CONFLICTS
J. Martin Trondalen and Mohan Munasinghe
UNESCO International
Hydrological Programme

World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

"Traditionally, the definitional question of the water resources and rights in question are being analysed from either an upstream or a downstream perspective. From an ethical and practical perspective, however, an interest-based perspective is quite different from the conventional upstream-downstream doctrine. This more modern viewpoint subsumes the earlier approach, and is based on the concept of sustainable development. As described, it relies on a balanced application of three of the most important principles dealing with international resources – the principles of:
1. Social equity;
2. Economic efficiency; and
3. Environmental protection.

Social aspects
• Identify all stakeholders as well as the incidence of costs and benefits of water
production and use among them (including externalities).
• Allocate costs and benefits equitably:
- polluter pays and victim is compensated,
- gainers compensate losers to help build the consensus.
• Compromise between two polar extremes for re-allocation of water benefits:
- grandfathering, based on past usage patterns,
- equal right to meet basic human needs (e.g. on a per capita basis).
• Costs of supplying water to be adjusted to make basic water needs affordable to the
poor.

Economic aspects
• Consider all costs and benefits of water production and use from the two rivers
(including shadow costs of externalities) for each individual nation.
• Maximise net present value (NPV) through project and policy interventions in the
three countries concerned (water will tend to be allocated to the highest valueadded
uses in each nation).
• Costs of supplying water to reflect full long run marginal costs (LRMC), including
externalities.

Water and ethics
Environmental aspects
• Water to be treated as a scarce environmental resource – not generally substitutable;
• Both depletion and pollution to be minimised based on dynamic/long term considerations."

And from the American Academy of Water Resource Engineers we find a further perspective.

"Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession
by:
1. using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare and the
environment;
2. being honest and impartial and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and
clients;
3. striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession; and
4. supporting the professional and technical societies of their disciplines.

Fundamental Canons
1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and shall
strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in the performance of
their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful
agents or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest.
5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and
shall not compete unfairly with others.
6. Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity,
and dignity of the engineering profession.
7. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers,
and shall provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers
under their supervision."

The International Institute for Environment and Development offers this summary.

"Freshwater ecosystem services – the benefits obtained by people from rivers, swamps, floodplains and groundwater systems – are central to human well-being. But these ecosystems are being degraded, water problems are increasing, and the poor are being hit hardest. Climate change is likely to worsen these problems."

"Many promising solutions to water ecosystem problems exist. In many cases, these solutions appear to be dependent on governance – the range of issues associated with how decisions are made about water ecosystem services. "


* Establish appropriate and sustainable water delivery and sanitation systems.
* Empower local communities to govern and manage their water resources.
* Strengthen understanding and sustainable management of water resources through environmental protection and conservation.
* Address transboundary issues in water basin management.
* Strengthen integrated water resource management policy and legislation with respect to tenure of land and water resources.
* Build capacity and understanding among the relevant authorities to support participatory and accountable decision making.
* Share information on the successes and failures of water interventions.
* Facilitate inter-governmental coordination and cooperation.


This aggregate of statements from a number of the leaders in the field provides a good overview of the best practices and guiding principles for water resource assistance to many struggling client nations. In a post to follow, I will provide examples of problematic aspects of planetary water needs and the outcomes that result when this array of principles and ethical guidelines are not implemented.