Welcome to the next steps in the world of tomorrow.
The tone is set by the next generation of designers who have worked
on beautiful visionary fictions aimed at helping to save the Earth.
This exercise of planetary imagination includes the need to guarantee
a good and sufficient water supply.
Water has become increasingly fascinating to me. It is one of the
most elementary resources for humans. Up to 60 per cent of the
adult human body consists of water, and we need to replenish daily;
80 per cent of the global population lives within 65 miles of the coast;
humans and water need to unite into one symbiosis, merging anthropogenic
and natural cycles. In other words, we need H O to survive.
While in the past, water conflicts were mostly related to
desertification processes and their impact in dramatic famines
that could eventually be fought by irrigation plans, today water has
become the canary in the goldmine. It is the obvious symptom of
climate change that dominates the news in often unexpected ways.
The Netherlands is a territory created by man, and would be flooded
without the technology and engineering implemented throughout the
centuries to protect it from the invasion of water. It is for this reason that
there is great expertise about water in this country. Henk Ovink is the
first Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of
the Netherlands. Such a title highlights the importance of the matter.
For this issue, we asked Henk Ovink to talk about water at a global
scale. Ovink can address like no other the issues related to water
and their implications. Following his Twitter account (@henkovink)
is fascinating. There we learn in just a few tweets about the global
water situation, the drying Colorado River, the sinking Mekong
Delta, the droughts in Germany and the Andes, and about the
global conflicts associated with water scarcity.
Ban Ki-moon stated that “climate change is not just an issue for the
future — it is an urgent issue for today”. So, what can we do now? How do
we store water better? Not only along our rivers, but also in the highlands
of, for instance, Berner Oberland? Can we put it under our houses?
Can we develop acceptance and insurance systems for that? And
how do we stop evaporation on a global level? By planting trees on a
massive scale? And how do we make mountains colder? How do
we encourage snow? And how do we make freshwater basins in
and around the deserts?
All these ideas can lead to fascinating new places, to new landscapes.
Let’s make them!
A true agenda for design!Water, please!
Winy Maas