Representatives from Jordan, Sudan, Botswana, Pakistan, Yemen and Romania spent a couple of days in Santa Fe, part of a three-week tour they are taking to explore water management and policies. They started their tour, hosted by the U.S. State Department, in Washington, D.C., and go next to San Francisco and Chicago. Officials from six countries visited with Santa Fe water managers this week, hoping to learn how the City Different protects and manages that precious natural resource.
Communities in their countries are dealing with some water challenges similar to those in Santa Fe. Residents in some of their countries use a lot less water than all but the most droplet-pinching Santa Feans.
In Jordan, where each person lives on about 25 gallons of water a day, the government is still concerned about depleting water supplies. "We're hoping to learn more about ways to manage our limited water resources and avoid environmental problems," said Abeer Albalawneh, a water and environmental researcher with the National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension in Jordan.
Yemen is totally dependent on groundwater, and 90 percent is used for agriculture. In Botswana, the concern is how to balance human needs with the health of rivers and their watersheds, according to Geofrey Michael Khwarae, water component manager at the University of Botswana. It is a subject familiar to Santa Fe, which is struggling to ensure future water supplies to residents while trying to revive a dying river.
Sudan has plenty of water in the rainy season, but no good way to capture and conserve it during the dry months, according to Eisa Osman Sharief, director general of the Ministry of Social Development for the South Kardofan State. His interest was learning how to help communities organize to develop their water resources and construct more reservoirs.
And in Pakistan, where people live with a devastating cycle of floods and droughts, water managers want to figure better ways to protect and enhance water supplies. "Pakistan is very vulnerable to climate change," said Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, head of the Climate Change Study Center of Pakistan's Sustainable Development Policy Institute.
After a couple of days in Santa Fe, Ramay said he was interested in the idea of "community ownership" as part of water management and said that he learned more about ways of resolving disputes at the community level. Like Santa Fe and many other places in the U.S., he said, his country is "struggling to handle the wastage of water."
Romania has water resources. The Danube flows through the country. But officials are grappling with water pollution and the protection of ecologically diverse wetlands in a country that has little understanding of environmental issues, said Livia Cimpoeru, editor in chief of the Green Report, an environmental magazine in Bucharest.
The group toured the Buckman Direct Diversion Project, acequias, and Cochiti Pueblo during its visit. Claudia Borchert, Santa Fe's water-resource coordinator, gave the group a primer on water rights and water use in New Mexico. Their trip in Santa Fe was coordinated by the Council on International Relations.
BY THE NUMBERS
Water usage per capita per day
Santa Fe: 100 gallons
Jordan: 25 gallons
Yemen: 33 gallons
Sudan: 15 gallons
Updated at 2:49 p.m. Sept. 22.
Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/local%20news/Flow-of-ideas
Photo caption: Mark Ryan, second from right, board engineer with CDM, a national environmental engineering firm, takes a group of water managers and climate officials from the drought-prone countries of Yemen, Jordan, Romania, Sudan, Botswana and Pakistan on a tour Tuesday of the new treatment plant for the Buckman Direct Diversion Project. - Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
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