Document 2714678

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United Nations
Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization
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CULTURE
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water and culture
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In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March as World Water Day
(WWD) in a worldwide celebration of this vital resource. Each year, UN-Water, the United
Nations system-wide coordinating mechanism for freshwater issues, selects a different
UN agency to coordinate events surrounding WWD around the world, and a different
theme is chosen to reflect the many facets of freshwater resources.
World Water Day 2006 will be guided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) under the theme Water and Culture.
The theme “Water and Culture” draws attention to the fact that there are as many
ways of viewing, using, and celebrating water as there are cultural traditions around the
world. Each region recognizes the value and central place of water in human life. Cultural
traditions, indigenous practices and societal values determine how people perceive and
manage water.
AND
WORLDVIEWS
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Modern science confirms that water is the source of all life on earth and that all living species
are largely made of water. Early cultures already understood this and numerous creation
myths represent the world emerging from a primordial ocean.
In many religions and beliefs, water plays a central role: as a source of life, water
represents birth and regeneration. Water cleanses the body and, by extension, purifies
it. These two qualities confer a highly symbolic – even sacred – value to water, which is a
key element in many ceremonies and religious rites. The occurrence of water in nature is
often of striking beauty. But humanity also frequently experiences the destructive powers
of water. Awareness of its dual nature has influenced cultures around the world, placing
water prominently in all the major mythologies and cosmologies, and affecting the role of
water in traditions and rituals.
In Latin America, for example, according to an ancient worldview still prevalent in
many Andean communities, water originated from Wirakocha, the God who created
the universe, who impregnated Pachamama (Mother Earth) and made it possible for life
to reproduce. Water is therefore considered to be a divinity that is present in streams,
rivers, lakes, lagoons, the sea etc. In many communities with similar cosmologies, water is
considered holistically: its physical and spiritual aspects forming a whole.
“[…] We recognize, honour and respect water as sacred […]. Our traditional
knowledge, laws and ways of life teach us to be responsible in caring for this sacred
gift that connects all life.
Our relationship with our lands, territories and water is the fundamental physical
cultural and spiritual basis for our existence. This relationship to our Mother Earth
requires us to conserve our freshwaters and oceans for the survival of present and
future generations. We assert our role as caretakers with rights and responsibilities to
defend and ensure the protection, availability and purity of water. We stand united
to follow and implement our knowledge and traditional laws and exercise our right
of self-determination to preserve water, and to preserve life. […]”
Indigenous Peoples Kyoto Declaration
March 2003 - Third World Water Forum, Kyoto, Japan
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water and culture
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INTANGIBLE
HERITAGE
AND ARTS
Cultural perceptions and practices are a part of a population’s identity. Language,
rituals, and feasts may testify to a society’s interaction with water. This is the case, for
instance, for the large variety of rain dances performed throughout the world and
rituals like the Japanese tea ceremony. In some cultures, the significance of water has
become an inextricable part of everyday life, like in Chinese Feng Shui (“wind and
water”). Water is an essential element of Feng Shui, where, when appropriately taken
into account, it brings good luck, prosperity, and positive energies.
There are also many water festivals through the world such as the Thingyan
Water Festival, also known as Myanmar’s Traditional New Years Festival. It has been
celebrated for over 500 years on the second week of April, when residents throw water
on each other to wash away their sins. The annual shift of the flow of the Mekong River
is celebrated in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) with boat races and a great popular feast.
In recent years, a drought period coinciding with a religious celebration gave rise to a
water festival in Vilagarcia de Arousa (Spain), in the middle of August.
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Water is a recurrent subject in painting, sculpture, photography and film, music and
literature. Artistic representations of water can be found in most cultures. The forms,
colours and reflections of water have inspired patterns that are recurrent in arts and in
crafts since times immemorial, often associated with symbols of fertility. Interestingly,
water often blurs the limit between art and sciences. An example is the work, of Leonardo
da Vinci, who was fascinated by water. He studied it both as an artist, a scientist and as
a hydrological engineer. Da Vinci described water as “the vehicle of nature” (vetturale
di natura) believing it to be to the world what blood is to our bodies.
Many songs have been written about water and great composers of all times have
been inspired and influenced by the sounds of moving water. Modern art is still very
much inspired by water.
Numerous films treat of water as a subject or use it in various, often highly symbolic
ways. The First International Water and Film Event will celebrate this relationship on
the occasion of the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico.
CIVILIZATIONS
All the ancient civilizations of the world evolved around water, which provided the
indispensable conditions for the development of agriculture, trade, transport and
defence. The Roman Empire, the Khmer, Indus and Nile civilizations, for example,
were all founded on their access to, and control of, water. They developed political
and administrative systems, and the cohesion of their societies, while developing the
management of their water resources. The decline of some of those civilizations can
be attributed to their loss of control over the resource.
Many water management systems found in ancient times are still used and
remain the basis of modern societies. For example, some of the 3000-year old
Persian quanats, sub-terranean canals transporting water over long distances are
still in use today. The principle of the Roman sewage system, invented some 2000
years ago, remains the basis for the development of large modern cities.
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Water
UNESCO’s World Heritage List features properties forming part of the natural and
cultural heritage which considered to be of outstanding universal value.
Numerous natural sites all over the world have been shaped by water, among
them, to name but a few, are: Los Glaciares National Park, in the southern Argentine
Andes, the 3rd largest ice field in the world after Antarctica and Greenland; Lake
Baikal, 3.15 million ha in south-east Siberia (Russia), is the oldest (25 million years)
and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world and contains 20% of the world’s total surface
freshwater reserve; the spectacular gorge of the Grand Canyon (U.S.A.), nearly 1,500
m deep, was carved out by the Colorado River; the Mosi-oa-Tunya water falls, Victoria
Falls, between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, are among the
most impressive “waterscapes” in the world.
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in the World Heritage
Examples of the many water-related cultural sites are: Xochimilco, 28 km south of
Mexico City (Mexico), featuring a network of canals and artificial islands which testify
to the efforts of the Aztec people to build a habitat in the midst of an unfavourable
environment. This site is the only reminder of the lacustrine (i.e. lake) landscape of
the Aztec capital, “the Venice of the New World.” The Rice Terraces of the Philippine
Cordilleras (Philippines) were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1995. For 2,000
years, the high rice fields of the Ifugao have followed the contours of the mountains,
creating a beautiful landscape that testifies to a harmonious relationship between
humanity and the environment. Around the Mediterranean, among the various elements
of urban infrastructure introduced by the Romans, were the water distribution systems
and thermae (grand public baths). They illustrate some of the earliest developments in
water management technology. The Caracalla bath in Djémila (Cuicul, in Algeria) was as
large as 2,600 square metres and a fountain distributed water to the town’s inhabitants.
Built by Emperor Trajan, Timgad, (also in modern-day Algeria) had public bath with a
toilet system, running water, and basins.
CULTURE AND
SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
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Water shapes our daily lives, our collective memory and our identities. Water is the
only natural resource that is central to all aspects of civilization – from agriculture
and industry to cultural practices and religious values. While the socio-cultural
interaction with water varies as much as the distribution of the resource on our
planet, our vital dependence on water is a common denominator and a driving force
of development.
Today’s water problems cannot be solved by technical fixes alone. We must
better understand and fully take into account the diversity of the cultural dimension
of water to find sustainable solutions.
Water
challenges for the 21st century
Over the last century, the global population has tripled and water consumption has
increased six fold. The ever-growing demand of people, industry and agriculture
make managing water one of the planet’s biggest challenges for the 21st century.
• 1.1 billion people lack sufficient access to safe drinking water.
• 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation.
• 6,000 children die every day from lack of safe water or poor hygiene.
• On average, African and Asian women have to cover 8 kilometers a to get fresh
water.
• The average African lives with less than 20 litres per day while the average European
consumes more than 150 litres daily and the average North American more than 300
litres.
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• 4 billion hectares, representing 1/3 of the emerged lands of the globe, are threatened
by desertification.
Unevenly distributed, wasted, polluted, a source of conflict, water is no longer a free
and unlimited resource. According to some projections, if nothing is done, 7 billion
people in 60 countries will face moderate to severe water scarcity (2 billion people in 48
countries according to the most optimistic projections). This imminent crisis is one of
the greatest causes of concern this century.
SCARCITY Although 70% of the world’s surface is covered by water, only 2.5% of this is freshwater.
0.3% of this freshwater is to be found in rivers, lakes and reservoirs, 30% in groundwater,
while the rest is stored in distant glaciers, ice sheets and mountainous areas.
Various factors need to be taken into account to raise awareness of water issues:
Population growth: The six billion inhabitants of the world are already appropriating
54% of all accessible freshwater. By 2025 humankind’s share will increase to 70%.
If per capita consumption of water resources continues to rise at its current rate,
humankind could be using over 90% of all available freshwater within 25 years,
leaving 10% only for all other living beings.
Uneven distribution: The Asian continent supports 60% of the world’s population
with only 36% of the world’s water resources. Europe has 13% of the world’s
population and 7% of world’s water resources; Africa has 13% of the population
and 11% of the water; North and Central America have 8% of the population and
15% of the water; Oceania has less than 1% of the world’s population but 5% of
the world’s water; and South America has 6% of the world’s population and 26%
of the world’s water resources.
Increased use in agriculture and industry: Seventy percent of all water tapped
for human use goes to agriculture, mostly for irrigation; industry accounts for
22%, and domestic use (household, drinking and sanitation) accounts for 8%.
Increase in energy needs: Hydropower is the most widely-used renewable
source of energy; it represents 19% of total electricity production. There are now
about 45,000 large dams worldwide. Somewhere between 40 and 80 million
people have been displaced by dam construction, forced to relocate to other,
often less productive, land.
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Urbanization: By 2030, over 60% (nearly 5 billion people) of the world’s population
will be living in urban areas. Competing demands from domestic, commercial,
industrial and peri-urban agriculture are putting enormous pressure on freshwater
resources.
Climate change: Floods, droughts, desertification… According to many forecasts,
global warming will lead to a 1° C to 2° C increase in air temperature by 2050. In arid
regions this could result in a 10% drop in rainfall and a 40 to 70% reduction in the
water available in rivers and lakes. In cooler regions at high latitudes, winter thaws
could be more intense, causing flooding, while river levels would run low in summer.
Poverty: People living on less than US$1 a day are the same people who have no
access to safe drinking water; people living on less than US$2 a day have no access to
safe sanitation. Women and children have to contend with long walks to fetch water
and high prices to buy it. Insufficient and unclean water supplies furthermore lead to
food insecurity and diseases.
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QUALITY Industrialization and urbanization produce large volumes of effluent wastewater.Each
DETERIORATION year, industry generates 300 to 500 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic waste
and other refuse. More than 80% of the world’s hazardous waste is produced in the
industrialized countries. In developing countries, 70% of all industrial waste is dumped
untreated, polluting water supplies. Intensification of agriculture has also resulted in
massive increases in agrochemicals, whose residues are discharged into rivers, lakes and
groundwater.
Poor water quality has dramatic impacts on human health, natural habitats and
biodiversity. Eighty percent of all diseases are water-related (schistosomiasis, intestinal
helminthes, hepatitis A, diarrhoea, malaria, chikungunya, etc.) and 5 million people,
mostly children, die from water-borne diseases every year.
CONFLICTS Water scarcity and deteriorating water quality risk intensifying tensions at the national
and international levels.
Over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. To date, the UNESCO’s
International Shared Aquifer Resource Management project (ISARM) has inventoried
over 150 shared aquifer systems with boundaries that do not correspond to those of
surface basins. UNESCO, through its From Potential Conflict to Co-operation Potential
project (PC-CP) has also supported research at Oregon State University (U.S.A.) that
counted 263 international river basins (surface water). Approximately one third of those
basins are shared by more than two countries, and 19 involve five or more sovereign
states. Of these, one basin – the Danube – has 18 riparian nations. Five basins – the
Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine and Zambezi – are shared by nine to 11 countries. The
remaining 13 basins – the Amazon, Aral Sea, Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Jordan,
Kura-Araks, Lake Chad, Mekong, Neman, La Plata, Tarim, Tigris-Euphrates and Vistula
(Wista) – have five to eight riparian countries.
Progress has been made, but the issue of sharing water has never been more
pressing, and there is an increasing urgency to develop sustainable and equitable
means for the peaceful sharing of water resources. In this context, the sound
understanding of the environmental, socio-economic and cultural water issues is a
prerequisite.
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Although water is a renewable resource, it is only renewable within certain limits.
Water is a common good of humanity. Access to sufficient quantities of clean water
is a fundamental human right and a UN Millennium Development Goal.
If we want to avoid the global social and environmental crisis, we must implement
an ethical approach to water management at a global level.
Water
and the UN system
In its 2000 Millennium Declaration, the General Assembly of the United Nations set
eight goals for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a blueprint
for sustainable development, which was approved by all the world’s countries and all the
world’s leading development institutions.
Improving the management of water resources is a key to attaining the MDGs. One
objective is to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation.
The primary goal of the Water for Life Decade (2005-2015) is to promote efforts to fulfill
the international commitments made on water and water-related issues by 2015. Among
the central themes of the Decade are: scarcity, access to sanitation and health, water and
gender, capacity-building, financing, valuation, integrated water resources management,
trans-boundary water issues, environment and biodiversity, disaster prevention, food and
agriculture, pollution and energy.
UN-Water, the official United Nations inter-agency mechanism for follow-up of the waterrelated decisions reached at the World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002 and
the Millennium Development Goals, coordinates the Water for Life Decade. UN-Water brings
together 24 UN entities involved in water.
WORLD WATER
ASSESSMENT
PROGRAMME
(WWAP)
WATER AND
UNESCO
WWAP builds on the achievements of many previous endeavors and focuses on assessing
the evolving situation concerning freshwater throughout the world. It is hosted and led by
UNESCO. Its primary output is the World Water Development Report, which is published every
three years and provides the most comprehensive up-to-date overview of the state of this
resource. The 2nd UN World Water Development Report (WWDR2) will be officially launched
on 22 March, World Water Day 2006 at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City (Mexico).
The report was compiled on the basis of contributions of numerous UN agencies.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is currently celebrating
its 60th anniversary. As early as 1956, the Organization started developing international
projects and programmes to improve our understanding and management of the earth’s
resources. UNESCO has taken an interdisciplinary approach to help provide the scientific
knowledge, technological training and policy advice required to manage the world’s
water resources, sustainably, efficiently and fairly.
INTERNATIONAL Following the International Hydrological Decade, which began in 1965, the IHP was
HYDROLOGICAL established in 1975 as the only intergovernmental programme of the UN system
devoted to the scientific study of the hydrological cycle and to formulating strategies
PROGRAMME (IHP) and policies for the sustainable management of water resources.
IHP runs projects on hydrological sciences and water management, including:
transboundary aquifers; international river basin monitoring and management;
groundwater studies, particularly in arid zones; ecohydrology; urban water
management; water governance, especially gender-related; studies concerning water
history and civilization; the ethics of non-renewable water mining; and the prevention
and resolution of water conflicts between and within countries.
UNESCO-IHE UNESCO IHE is the largest postgraduate education institute in the world for water,
Institute for Water environment and infrastructure. Since its creation in 1957, UNESCO-IHE has provided
Education education, training and research to more than 12,000 water sector professionals from
120 different countries. The mission of UNESCO-IHE is to contribute to the education
and training of professionals and to build the capacity of sector organizations,
knowledge centres and other institutions working on water, the environment and
infrastructure, in developing countries and countries in transition.
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Culture
“The set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual
and emotional features of society or a social group,
[...] it encompasses, in addition to art and literature,
lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems,
traditions and beliefs.”
Source: UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity
World Water Day celebrates the importance of water in our daily lives
and in the life of our planet; it is a global event, and one that welcomes
each and every attempt at participation. A special session is organized on
22 March 2006 to celebrate World Water Day during the 4th World Water
Forum, held in in Mexico City, Mexico.
Printing: Graph2000
Photos: UNESCO
International Hydrological Programme
Division of water sciences
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Fax +33 (0)1 45 68 5811
e-mail: [email protected]
www.unesco.org/water/wwd2006
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