Enhancing Water
Awareness, Stewardship
and Responsibility
The
Water Assembly is implementing
a "Futures Project"
whose long term goal is
to raise significantly the
awareness and sense of responsibility
for our water resources
among the general public
and hence the official decision
makers.
Six
years have passed since
the Middle
Rio Grande Regional Water
Plan for Sandoval, Bernalillo
and Valencia Counties was
accepted. It reported
the region's substantial
annual
deficit consumption
of water relative to its
renewable supply. We currently
lack an adequate means of
assessing how well the Plan
has been implemented or
of measuring its success
against its mission to balance
use with renewable supply.
To
create a sense of stewardship
and responsibility for these
issues, the Water Assembly
is embarking on a campaign
to increase public awareness,
dialogue and engagement
with local officials. The
campaign is intended to
encourage water management
entities in the region to
adopt water accounting mechanisms
to measure how well they
are meeting specific targets,
in accordance with strategies
outlined in the Plan, and
to report on their accomplishments
and shortfalls to each other
and to the public.
As
an overview, we see the
Futures Project partially
emulating the South
Africa "Mont Fleur"
process that stimulated
extensive public involvement
leading to the development
of their constitution. We
envision our project taking
place in three phases (more
detail):
Phase
One - Baseline Description:
Develop a credible,
graphic description of the
region in 2025, assuming
that current implementation
efforts and rates of progress
continue, but that no new
or enhanced interventions
(technical, managerial,
or institutional) are undertaken.
Phase
Two - Alternative Visions:
Develop a set of three
or four alternative visions
of the region in 2025 describing
futures that might result
- either creating the visions
and working back to the
causative interventions,
or selecting interventions
and working forward toward
the resulting visions.
Phase
Three - Publicity Campaign:
Bring the baseline
description and the alternative
visions out to the general
public to stimulate vigorous
debate leading decision
makers to establish well
informed policies relating
to water stewardship and
associated responsibilities.
|
