Tag: watersustainability

It’s Time to Get Dirty

Trash as art — a concept. And Dirty Watercolor embraces that concept. The 22-piece art project uses the medium of water to raise awareness for environmental degradation. Riverbed soil samples collected from a variety of waterways in the Philippines served as the basis of the pigments used in the watercolor paintings. Falling on the darker end of the color spectrum, the pigments reflect the silt, crude oil, heavy metals, and biological waste that have increasingly contaminated the rivers. Some artists have described the painting process as “dirty” and “stinky,” indicating that the sterilization of the pigments was not quite enough to full mask their toxicity.

But for countless families in the Philippines, toxic water is a part of everyday reality. With limited access to running water or sewage facilities, the slums that emerge along these rivers have no way of acquiring safe water sources. So they rely on what they have in front of them. Dirty Watercolor took inspiration from the daily scenes along the Pasig river — children splashing around, people bathing, men boating with the hopes of catching a meal. In 2004, five of Manila’s rivers were declared biologically dead, including the Pasig.

The contamination of these waterways not only poses a public health threat to the people in these communities, but it also partially destroys the history and culture on which their lives (and their ancestors’ lives) were built. Dirty Watercolor aims to counteract the implications of this environmental catastrophe. The revenue from the art pieces has been allocated toward rehabilitation efforts in the communities that have been directly afflicted. But perhaps more importantly, this project has raised the bar of social consciousness. In order to effectively halt the disasters of climate change, society as whole must recognize the issue first. And then act ambitiously.

Sustainable Water Management in Ethiopia as a Key to Socio-Economic (and Green) Expansion

Ethiopia is hovering on the cusp of socio-economic transformation. But despite the government’s ambitious targets for the country, the practicality and achievability of its agenda will revolve around the availability of freshwater sources. Water, and freshwater specifically, fuels nearly all aspects of life. Thus, figuring out a way to increase water efficiency and conservation has become of paramount importance to the country, and has surfaced as a recurring theme in the national dialogue. Sustainable water management will require the collective participation and cooperation of a variety of actors, including the government, the private sector, and civil society. Ethiopians will need to mobilize and act as a joint unit to provide widespread access to reliable data, to foster awareness on all levels, and to encourage sustainable financial investments. Another critical aspect in the transition to sustainable water practices is coherent policymaking that responds to evidence-based information and reflects a willingness to negotiate beyond partisan divides.