If we really mean what the title of this event says - that water is as a strategic commodity and a possible major foreign-political problem of the future - our water related policies should change. They should be aimed to increase radically the amount of water on territories of all relevant countries. Our activities do just the opposite. Deforestation, traditional agriculture and urbanization increase the rainwater run-off. Less water is seeped into the soil and groundwater due to these activities. More water flows through canalization and regulated rivers into the sea and leaves the countries without doing much benefit for people and ecosystems. The results are: progressing desertification, soil erosion, falling of groundwater tables, heat spells, change of local/regional/continental climates, decrease of precipitation, forest fires, poor harvests, etc.
If we really mean what the title of this event says our policies should reflect the advice of the Sri Lankan king Parakramabahu the Great (1153-1186): ""not even a raindrop should be allowed to flow into the ocean without first having been used for the benefit of the people." Does this encouragement to keep water in the country mean to build new huge dams? Not necessary. Many small reservoirs do more good to people and ecosystems than one large dam of the same volume. Measures aimed at recharging falling groundwater resources are a great way to conserve water as well. But there are other ways as well. Next to "blue water" - i.e. water in rivers, reservoirs and groundwater - there is a concept of "green water" defined by a group of Swedish and German scientists. Green water is represented by a soil moisture, water contained in vegetation and air moisture. Green water is overlooked so far because - as somebody remarked with humor - engineers are unable to tap it, economists are unable to sell it and governments are unable to tax it. Though, majority of the farmers in the world produce due to this type of water. By the way, volume of water in soil (soil moisture) is exceeding volume of water in all rivers of the world combined several times. There are many laws protecting water in rivers but hardly any protecting soil moisture. This water which feeds billions of people needs care and management also.
A great part of water management is about storing and redistribution of water between periods when it is affluent and periods when it is scarce. Groundwater recharge and green water recharge represent insufficiently utilized possibilities to store water for dry periods. Measures supported by government to increase this retention volume by 10 million cubic meters were implemented in last two years in Slovakia by local unemployed pleople - waterholdings, small wooden dams, infiltration ditches, etc. These measures next to above mentioned effects contributed to decrease of flood threats and revitalization of the ecosystems. There are cases when semi-deserts were changed into green oasis with sufficient water even in dry periods. Policies aimed to recycle raindrops between blue water and green water and to keep them within countries systems before they are allowed to flow into the ocean are needed on national, international and supranational level. More background and details from projects in my country can be found in available publications.
