1. INTRODUCTION
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Environment and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) recently sponsored a workshop on ‘The Global Water Crisis—Engineering the Solution’. The workshop, which took place on November 16–17, was held at ASCE Headquarters at Reston, Virginia and drew over 90 participants involved in water resources engineering. The Workshop was chaired by Curt Barrett of the US National Weather Service and organised by Mike Goode (Telford Consulting). The UK contingent comprised Chris Binnie (Binnie Black and Veatch), Brian Connorton (Thames Water) and Paul Jowitt (Heriot-Watt University).
Experts from water utilities, consultancies, the US Senate Committee on Water Resources, government agencies, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, academia and other areas of the private sector discussed the world water crisis and how the civil engineer's role needs to change in the future to assist countries, regions and communities in more effective management of that increasingly scarce and precious resource—water.
Four major river basins (the Thames, Potomac, Yellow and Nile) were highlighted to demonstrate the complexity and potential conflict for water usage, and the increased risk of droughts, floods and polluted water on the planet. Specialists in integrated water resources management (IWRM) presented the emerging remedies being applied to river basins in crisis. These new solutions place greater emphasis on non-structural solutions to water supply problems and involve a multi-disciplinary and stakeholder-centred approach to more effective water and flood management.
Three breakout groups were formed to examine globalisation issues, integrated water resources management issues, and career development and continuing education. When they returned for the final plenary session they had arrived at a common conclusion, namely that the role of the civil engineer must change in the future when it comes to solving water problems. Generally the engineer must grasp the bigger picture in assessing water solutions, must be broad-minded and part of a multi-disciplinary team.
The primary workshop recommendations were that ASCE/EWRI should
establish a committee to address civil engineering's contribution to integrated water resources management
write a ‘white paper’ to serve as a framework for action for engineering and EWRI
continue similar workshops annually.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE GLOBALISATION ISSUES WORKGROUP
2.1. Objectives
The goals are to
enhance and facilitate community
identify key issues
expand the solution space
understand the problem and open up solutions.
The strategy for achieving this is to
establish a road map or framework to provide civil engineers with a template for IWRM in a multi-sectoral environment
develop a community of practitioners.
These strategies are to be implemented through
World Water Forum
CISET (Committee for International Science Engineering and Technology)
other domestic groups
international groups such as IWRA—to engage the larger community
tying into scheduled events
making it an open, dynamic process
establishing an ASCE committee to interact with appropriate groups/activities.
2.2. ‘Demand side’ and ‘supply side’ water management
Engineers are traditionally used to dealing with supply side management. However, there is an increasing need to deal with demand side factors too, including
leakage reduction
management by pricing, regulation and education across all sectors (agricultural, municipal, industrial/commercial)
building awareness in sustainability across the spectrum of users, providers, political leaders
public sector capacity building in planning issues (cross-sectoral management of rural/urban water systems, development of appropriate technical tools and models)
building awareness through education and models, consideration of cultural and political attitudes to water management, the extent and range of the impacts of IWRM and the need to consider a wide range of distinct alternatives.
3. RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE IWRM ISSUES WORKGROUP
The session objectives are to
articulate the changing role of the engineer with respect to IWRM
identify key issues for ASCE/ICE to focus on
identify important follow-up actions.
The group identified 35 IWRM issues in the following categories.
Non-structural versus structural approaches.
Competing water uses.
Environmental and water quality issues.
Institutional and trans-boundary issues.
Economics and pricing issues.
Establishing policy.
Processes, tools, technologies.
Stakeholders' involvement and inclusion.
Professional development and communications.
The following four issues were identified as most important.
How to integrate analytical with political processes.
Provide best guidance/political answers when constrained by time.
Encourage more lessons learned/case studies.
Establish clear objectives—purpose integrated with stakeholder needs.
Identify and promote economic benefits.
Define role of government.
Encourage ASCE members to be involved in the political process.
Hire political scientists on IWRM team.
Understanding of stakeholders.
How to develop a watershed council.
Develop a model to identify stakeholders—inter-jurisdictional.
Generate starting list of stakeholder types.
Identify state of the art.
Task force to assemble state-of-the-art.
Conduct more ASCE-sponsored workshop events.
Establish sister relationships with professional societies in related fields.
Sponsor student theses comparing international literature.
Conduct workshops.
Include other disciplines.
Spread state-of-the-art best practices to mitigate problems/negatives.
Develop guidelines for implementation.
Educate ourselves (ASCE/ICE).
Translate abstracts from international literature.
Link information on the web.
Public education.
Following completion of the session, the group observed that the results tended to reflect primarily the perspective of the developed world and may not be entirely applicable for implementing IWRM in the developing world, itself an acknowledgement that engineers were operating in a changing world with changing priorities and circumstances.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION ISSUES WORKGROUP
Educational requirements for twenty-first century civil engineers can be summarised as follows
technical knowledge and firm understanding of systems laws
communications skills and team working skills (transmission and reception)
ethical understanding/cultural awareness
broad general knowledge
multi-interdisciplinary skills and awareness
understanding of system functions
creativity
ability to deal/cope with uncertainty
ability to discriminate and assess quality/performance
an organising principle/paradigm to bring it all together.
Possible risks include the following
Within this broad curriculum, can we guarantee enough ‘technical grunt’?
Constraints and barriers envisaged are
organisational
institutional
individual.
Historically, innovation in engineering was essentially technological in which universities and university academics—both through their research and teaching—have played a leading role, providing fresh ideas and fresh graduates to the profession. Increasingly, the priorities and accents in engineering practice are in non-technical innovation and the management of technology within a multi-stakeholder environment. In many cases these initiatives have been led by industry, especially where the emphasis in civil engineering—and especially in water resources—has shifted towards operational and management solutions rather than capital works and construction. There is therefore a need to rethink engineering education, with profound implications not simply in the curriculum but for enhancing the expertise and skills of those academics for its delivery. This process could be hampered by the tenure/promotion procedures of the academic careers structure, which tends to focus more on research (the cynic might say ‘knowing more and more about less and less’) and less on teaching (and which often comes down to getting good student evaluations which are often synonymous with ‘good pass rates’—a process which does not necessarily encourage innovative learning of complex and multi-disciplinary issues).
5. SUMMARY
The ICE/ASCE workshop was the second in a series initiated by the ICE Local Association in the Mid-Atlantic States (Washington) as a part of the ramping up of collaboration between the two oldest CE learned societies in the world. The Mid-Atlantic States LA linked up first with the ASCE National Capital Section and together they brought in the two national ‘parent’ organisations to make these happen. They are looking at a transport theme for the next workshop.
