Gleick Peter H
Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, Oakland, CA 94612, USA.
Science. 2003 Nov 28;302(5650):1524-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1089967.
Twentieth-century water policies relied on the construction of massive infrastructure in the form of dams, aqueducts, pipelines, and complex centralized treatment plants to meet human demands. These facilities brought tremendous benefits to billions of people, but they also had serious and often unanticipated social, economical, and ecological costs. Many unsolved water problems remain, and past approaches no longer seem sufficient. A transition is under way to a "soft path" that complements centralized physical infrastructure with lower cost community-scale systems, decentralized and open decision-making, water markets and equitable pricing, application of efficient technology, and environmental protection.
20世纪的水资源政策依赖于建设大坝、输水渠道、管道和复杂的集中式处理厂等大规模基础设施，以满足人类需求。这些设施给数十亿人带来了巨大的好处，但它们也产生了严重且往往意想不到的社会、经济和生态成本。许多未解决的水问题依然存在，过去的方法似乎已不再足够。正在向“软路径”过渡，即以低成本的社区规模系统、分散和开放的决策、水市场和公平定价、高效技术的应用以及环境保护来补充集中式物理基础设施。
