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Explore the concepts of water, analyze long-term water management, and understand global water issues. Learn about classic and modern drinking water systems, trends in water access and sanitation, and the relationship between water and biodiversity.
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Master in Water EngineeringWater Supply and Drainage Systems
Water Supplyin a historical approach Professor in charge: Alberte Martínez
Aims • To analyse the different concepts of water and think about their implications • To analyse the water management in the long run and their economic, institutional and technological constraints • To know the global issue of water nowadays, its trends and debates
PROGRAMME (I) • What is Water? A comprehensive approach • Different concepts of water • Water, a perfect capitalist commodity • The Water Debate • A New Water Paradigm: The Soft Path for Water • From the Clasic to the Modern System of Drinking Water • Clasic System (preindustrial times) • Transition to the Modern System (first industrialization, XIX) • Modern System (second industrialization, XX)
PROGRAMME (II) • Waternowadaysworldwide • Supply and demand • Trends on drinking water access and sanitation, 1990-2010 • Water and biodiversity
What is Water? A comprehensive approach • For a chemist: H2O • For a phisycist: a liquid • For a engineer: a fluid • For a politician: power (votes) • For a tourist: leisure, health • For urban people: comfort • For peasants: harvest • For an energy company: electricity • For a businessman: an input • For a “primitive”: life and religion
Water: a perfect capitalist product • Rare and scarce • 70% of the earth´s surface • But only 1% is avaliable water (2% in polar ice-caps) • Indispensable for life • Human bodies are 45-75% water • The supply can´t be increased • No substitutes
Consequences • Increasing demand • Population growth • Urbanization • Irrigation • Industrial development • Tourism and leisure • Increasing prices
Water: a natural monopoly • Similar to other network services • No real choice for competition because economies of scale and efficiency • Public management: more equity but problems of efficiency • Private management: problems of monopoly-> ^prices and <supply ->public regulation (information)
The Water Debate • Debate not only academic but also social • A commodity/production factor (Neoclasics) • Economic features • Assignment by the market: competition and price • Private Property rights • Search for efficency • Focused on expanding the offer
The Water Debate • Social asset (institutionalist economists) • Symbolic, cultural, emotional values • Universal public good • Universal access • Government and citizens´ control • Not free but political prices • Collective property rights/management • Assignement by the community • Market limits to distribute it in different uses • Public regulation • Cooperation, equality • Focused in controlling the demand • Scarcity, Sustainability
A New Water Paradigm: The Soft Path for Water • Focusing on ensuring water for human needs • Focusing on ensuring water for ecological needs • Matching the quality of water needed with the quality of water used • Matching the scale of the infrastructure to the scale of the need • Ensuring public participation in decisions over water • Using the power of smart economics
From the Clasic to the Modern System of Drinking Water • Clasic System (preindustrial times) • Transition to the Modern System (first industrialization, XIX) • Modern System (second industrialization, XX)
The Clasic System • Preindustrial times • Predominance of agricultural use (irrigation): Ancient High Cultures • And for small cities: renaissance of commerce • Diversification of supplies • Individuals: wells • Colective: aqueducts, fountains
The Clasic System (2) • Constraints • Economic: lack of capital • Organizational: no experience • Technological: prescientific stage • Materials • Machines • Projets design
The Clasic System (3) • Not general accessibility: linear nature of aqueducts (simple nets) • Scarce, biological, consumption (10 l/d) • Lack of control on quality
Transition to the Modern System • First industrialization, XIX century • The standstill of the Clasic System • Stagnancy/fall and deterioration of drinking water supply • New industrial uses • Pollution • The rise of the demand • Demographic growth • Strong urbanization • Industrialization • Changes in body cleanliness habits
Transition to the Modern System • Public financial, organizational and technological inability->resort to private companies • Slow process • Coexistence of supplies • Fountains and water-carriers (photo) • Networked home supply • Users´ resistance: from a free good to a fare
Changes in the institutional framework • From the Feudalism • Undefined, confused and complex property rights: shared, comunal, “imperfect” property • Immobilized good • To the Capitalism • Privatization: individual property • Definition of property rights • “Perfect” (private) property • Liberalization: water as a commodity • Aim: to promote the productive uses of water
Water, hygiene and mortality • Higher mortality in cities (overcrowding) • Higher mortality in popular neighborhoods (low areas, more unhealthy) • Reinforcement of social segregation, also in water access (low and high areas) • Persistence of epidemies, some of them related to the water quality: typhoid fever, malaria, cholera • Close relation between mortality fall and quality water supply and drainage (graphic)
Mortality by typhoid fever in Spain (1900-1955), in so much for thousand, five-year average
Water, hygiene and mortality (2) • High price of water, with risen tendency, both absolutely and relatively • Lack of drainage • Reluctance of houses and pieces of land owners to their modernization (water supply and drainage) due to the taxes • Rivalry and emulation among cities
Water, hygiene and mortality (3) • Progressive concern for public health in XIXth century • Importance of the reformist and hygienist movement: air, water and sun • Initial concern only for the quantity of water • Concern for the quality from the middle of XIXth century, and for the drainage from the end of that century • Scientific discoveries (bacteriology, Koch, Pasteur) in the late XIXth and legal and technical developments in the early XXth • Different approaches from doctors, engineers, urbanists and chemists, who took time to agree
Modern System • Second industrialization, XXth • Linked to industrialization and urbanization • Specialized in home supply • Predominance of colective networks • Public service • High consumption (250 l/d)
Modern System (2) • More financial resources: mixed banks • Organizational improvements: managerial revolution • New technological resources: the Second Industrial Revolution