Wagner Walter, Gawel James, Furuma Hiroak, De Souza Marcelo Pereira, Teixeira Denilson, Rios Leonardo, Ohgaki Shinichiro, Zehnder Alexander J B, Hemond Harold F
Arts and Sciences Program, University of Washington, Tacoma, USA.
Ambio. 2002 Feb;31(1):2-13. doi: 10.1579/0044-7447-31.1.2.
Global freshwater resources are being increasingly polluted and depleted, threatening sustainable development and human and ecosystem health. Utilizing case studies from 4 different watersheds in the United States, Japan, Switzerland, and Brazil, this paper identifies the most relevant sustainability deficits and derives general vectors for more sustainable water management. As a consequence of the demographic and economic developments experienced in the last few decades, each watershed has suffered declines in water quality, streamflow and biotic resources. However, the extent and the cultural perception of these water-related problems vary substantially in the different watersheds, leading to specific water-management strategies. In industrialized countries, exemplified by the US, Switzerland, and Japan, these strategies have primarily consisted of finance- and energy-intensive technologies, allowing these countries to meet water requirements while minimizing human health risks. But, from a sustainability point of view, such strategies, relying on limited natural resources, are not long-term solutions. For newly industrialized countries such as Brazil, expensive technologies for water management are often not economically feasible, thus limiting the extent to which newly industrialized and developing countries can utilize the expertise offered by the industrialized world. Sustainable water management has to be achieved by a common learning process involving industrialized, newly industrialized, and developing countries, following general sustainability guidelines as exemplified in this paper.
全球淡水资源正日益受到污染和枯竭，威胁着可持续发展以及人类和生态系统健康。本文利用美国、日本、瑞士和巴西4个不同流域的案例研究，确定了最相关的可持续性不足问题，并得出了实现更可持续水资源管理的一般方向。由于过去几十年经历的人口和经济发展，每个流域的水质、水流和生物资源都有所下降。然而，这些与水相关问题的程度和文化认知在不同流域有很大差异，从而导致了具体的水资源管理策略。在美国、瑞士和日本等工业化国家，这些策略主要包括资金和能源密集型技术，使这些国家在满足用水需求的同时将人类健康风险降至最低。但是，从可持续性角度来看，这种依赖有限自然资源的策略并非长期解决方案。对于巴西等新兴工业化国家而言，昂贵的水资源管理技术往往在经济上不可行，从而限制了新兴工业化国家和发展中国家利用工业化国家所提供专业知识的程度。可持续水资源管理必须通过一个包括工业化国家、新兴工业化国家和发展中国家的共同学习过程来实现，遵循本文所举例的一般可持续性指导方针。
