Sustainable Water Management Defies Long-term Solutions

The popular and academic media are rife with calls to sustainably manage our water resources and to ‘solve our water problems.’ Yet, evidence suggests that throughout history, our efforts to ‘solve’ water problems have simply generated new problems. Humans have drained swamps to solve problems of disease and land shortage. This subsequently reduced water supply and increased flooding in many areas. Humans dammed rivers to solve problems related to energy and irrigation, thereby reducing ecosystem resiliency. Humans established a water-based sewerage system to solve problems of aesthetics and health and as a result increased water consumption and created a dependency on massive infrastructure. The insistence on solutions may exacerbate rather than alleviate negative conditions, in part, because it discourages decision-makers and citizens from accepting long-term responsibility for managing water to sustain ourselves. The authors argue that addressing water problems requires a cognitive shift to recognize the concept of ‘wicked problems’ and to subsequently change discourse about water to resist the idea of solutions.