ROUNDTABLES

THE FUTURE OF WATER FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

The roundtable called “The Future of Water for Future Generations” opened with the comment that human actions have caused drastic environmental changes in recent times, to the point that many scientists suggest a new official geological time interval called anthropocene, beginning between the late eighteenth century and the 1950s. In this new period of the unofficial geological scale, water is one of the most used natural resources and the one that suffers most from human actions.

Given this introduction, the discussions and debates were based on three questions: For you, what is the future of water? What are we doing today to change the future of water? What is the deadline for this change?

For panelists, social and economic activities lead to water scarcity, as in many countries water demand is greater than supply. Therefore, the future of good quality water is based on planning for its use, partnerships and/or negotiation among water users and focusing on youth and adult education, for the rational and conscious use of this resource that is everyone’s right.

Regarding changes to the future of water, discussions with the public have shown that changes must take place through young people and social media, as it is necessary to raise awareness, educate and develop actions to make people act in order to reduce water demand.

These actions begin in social, cultural and economic everyday activities and when they become good practices they need to be multiplied in different media and social media, in order to be vehicles of change for other sectors.

These practices will encourage social actors and public managers to implement public policies to encourage water demand reduction in different social sectors. Everyone emphasized that dialogue with young people is extremely important.

It was unanimous for those present that the future of water for future generations and the changes to the conscious use of water have already begun in most countries, and will expand even further with young people and future generations through planned and effective actions of society. And that the idea that adults do not take action to change the reality of water scarcity and quality is a misperception.