What is Sustainable Water Use?
There has been plenty of rhetoric recently around the terms “sustainability” and “sustainable development.” What is sustainability in the context of freshwater resources and why do we use the term here? We define sustainable water use as: “the use of water that supports the ability of human society to endure and flourish into the indefinite future without undermining the integrity of the hydrological cycle or the ecological systems that depend on it.” California’s water resources should be managed so that today’s human and environmental needs are met and so that the resource base is maintained for the future. Current water management practices are unsustainable because they produce groundwater overdraft, water-supply contamination by chemicals, loss of aquatic species and unique habitats, and other problems that directly diminish the state’s natural resources. To continue these practices is to squander an inherited fortune, leaving nothing for our children. Is sustainability a scientif
