GEF

Unit 1  |  Why Water Matters 31 ■■ Environmentally sustainable use Water use must be in balance with the Earth’s water cycle, water reserves, and natural systems. Used in this way, water is a renewable resource that can sustain human populations and ecosystems indefinitely. If water is not used sustainably, it essentially becomes a non-renewable resource that is depleted over time. ■■ Equitable use At present, water use is extremely inequitable, with use in developed countries vastly greater than in the world’s poor- est nations. While increasing water consumption should not be a goal in and of itself, sustainability requires that sufficient water be available to meet the basic health and sanitation needs of all people. ■■ Efficient use Global water consumption should be reduced by eliminating waste and matching demand to available supply. There is tremendous room for improvement in using water more effi- ciently for agriculture, energy production, and domestic use. Beyond these three E’s, there are a range of key components to water sustainability. An emerging approach is the soft path of water use, which contrasts to the hard path of the man- made water infrastructure. The soft path emphasizes water conservation, decentralized infrastructure, and integrated management in which water supply is matched with end use. A central concept of the soft path is that it does not seek to increase water supply as a goal in and of itself, but rather aims to provide sufficient clean, reliable water in order to allow for good health, sanitation, and reliable services. In this way a primary goal of the soft approach is to determine and provide the proper amount of water to meet these needs without waste or excess. ECOSYSTEMS Biological communities of plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and other organisms in combination with their environment. SOFT PATH An approach to sustainable water use which emphasizes intelligent resource man- agement, conservation, stakeholder participation, and distributed infrastructure over centralized infrastruc- ture and management.