Skip to content
October 26, 2025
Trending Tags
wordpress humanrights justice activism climatechange socialjustice democracy Crackdown

Rights To All

  • news
  • United Nations
  • health
  • Arms
  • Free Speech
  • Women’s Rights
  • Torture
  • support us

Breaking News

Landmark Legal Victory: Indigenous Peoples in Brazil Achieve a Historic Win

Global Analysis: X’s Controversial Policy Raises Concerns over Privacy Violations for Millions

“Mozambique’s Pre-Election Crackdown: A Step Backward for Democracy”

The Escalating Crisis in Haiti: A Surge in Violent Abuses

Ethnic Targeting in DR Congo’s Elections Raises Concerns of Violence and Disenfranchisement

Greenpeace Demands Climate Reparations as Typhoon Mawar Menaces the Philippines.

Tiananmen anniversary arrests in Hong Kong: A worsening crackdown on dissent

The Implications of Saudi Arabia’s Execution of Two Shi’a Bahrainis

The Crucial Imperative: Putting Human Rights at the Forefront of the EU-CELAC Summit

Assad’s Victory Lap Sends Syrians into Passport Limbo

 
  • Home
  • 2023
  • May
  • 14
  • The Ripple Effect: Tracing The Journey Of Water From Source To Multi-Valued Resource
  • Torture

The Ripple Effect: Tracing The Journey Of Water From Source To Multi-Valued Resource

On 2 years Ago
Liu David
The United Nations held its first Conference on Water in New York last March, with discussions on how to ensure that every individual has access to clean water and sanitation. A key point that emerged from the conference is an evolution in thought on what water is, what it provides, and how it should be managed. There is a growing recognition that resilient living systems are the actual source of clean water, and managing for resilient systems can provide a diverse range of benefits and services.

New York City’s water system is a marvel of engineering, with 19 reservoirs and hundreds of kilometers of tunnels that provide clean drinking water to nearly 10 million people. However, the foundation of this system is hundreds of thousands of acres of forests, wetlands, rivers, streams, and carefully managed farms in the Catskills Mountains north of the city. New York City had long understood the relationship between healthy land and clean water, but in the 1990s faced a choice when new drinking water standards required all municipal drinking water systems to have physical filtration. Rather than build a filtration plant and incur the significant expense, the city invested in the Catskills Mountains to ensure that the source of water was even more clean and secure. Today, New York City has the largest unfiltered water system in the country, as the forests and wetlands of the Catskills act as a giant filtration plant.

This investment in forests and wetlands to provide clean water is a “Nature-based Solution” (NbS). An NbS is a solution to a societal challenge, such as maintaining clean water, that nature provides. The NbS that is the Catskills underscores a critical reality: water comes from nature. If we want that water to be clean, then we need to maintain healthy and resilient ecosystems that underpin the water source.

Nature-based solutions for stormwater management have another benefit: they are green spaces in an urban environment. These projects for managing stormwater can take the form of parks, wetlands, “daylighted” creeks, and wildlife habitat, and these investments can be prioritized for communities and neighborhoods that have historically lacked access to nature. The world is rapidly urbanizing, and cities will confront a range of challenges. Well-planned and managed nature-based solutions can contribute to both challenges, providing cost efficiencies to strained city budgets.

Despite growing recognition of the benefits and multiple values that NbS ecosystems provide, investment in these projects, from both the public and private sectors, still lags far behind their potential. There is a need to acknowledge the diverse values from resilient freshwater systems and invest in them. With the Freshwater Challenge, the largest wetland and river restoration project in history, championed by the governments of Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Mexico, and Zambia, investment in healthy, resilient ecosystems can provide diverse benefits to people.

Water will always remain an essential resource, but the living systems, the rivers and headwaters that underpin that resource, have always been more than that. They are recognized as a source of food, connection and inspiration across cultures. Water management that focuses on valuing water only as a resource overlooks a far wider range of opportunities and benefits that flow from management that values the resilient systems that produce, and then take back, the water we use. Ultimately, water management should prioritize investments in nature-based solutions that are capable of providing not just clean water, but also numerous other benefits and services.

Water Sustainability–watermanagement,waterconservation,watercycle,waterresources,sustainability


The Ripple Effect: Tracing The Journey Of Water From Source To Multi-Valued Resource
<< photo by Boxed Water Is Better >>

You might want to read !

  • “Saving the Great Pollinators: The Endangered Monarch Butterflies”
  • “Shining a Light on Environmental Concerns: Earth Hour Returns”
  • How Our Food Choices Affect the Climate Crisis
In TortureIn sustainability , waterconservation , watercycle , watermanagement , waterresources

Post navigation

“Saving the Great Pollinators: The Endangered Monarch Butterflies”
“How To Witness Botswana’s Historic Zebra Migration And Unveil The Mystery Of Their Secret Lives”

You May Like

  • Torture
Samantha Chen
On 2 years Ago

The Power of Social Movements: Unveiling Solutions for a World at a Crossroads

  • Torture
Lee Olivia
On 2 years Ago

Addressing the Closure of Civic Space in the Americas: Urgency for OAS States

  • Torture
Samantha Chen
On 2 years Ago

Breaking Cycles of Impunity: The Importance of Positive Votes on Sudan and Russia by the UN Human Rights Council

  • Torture
Samantha Chen
On 2 years Ago

Hong Kong’s detention of Uyghur student demands transparency

  • Torture
Lee Olivia
On 2 years Ago

The Role of the UN Rights Body in Addressing Impunity in Sudan

  • Torture
Lee Olivia
On 2 years Ago

Deported man’s safety and fair trial rights should be upheld by UAE authorities

Rights To All @ Copyright All right reserved