World Water Day 2010 – Clean Water for a Healthy World

884 million people live without access to safe drinking water. 2.6 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation facilities. Think about it (sources of data: UN Water Progress Report 2010).

When I first started working (even before I had completed my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering), I was hired as a Project Assistant in a research and development centre, in Mexico. I collaborated with a number of colleagues in various research projects, primarily associated with aerobic wastewater treatment (bench scale). I learned about a variety of processes to treat domestic (municipal/urban) wastewater. I went to the municipal sewerage systems and sampled wastewater for our chemical/biochemical analyses quite frequently and learned a number of equations from the Metcalf and Eddy handbook of wastewater.

I *love* formal modelling, and thus I wrote my honors thesis on the use of multiple regressions to test a mathematical model that allowed me to determine how long would it take for bacteria to degrade the organic waste present in the wastewater I had just sampled. I learned the chemical engineering of wastewater treatment, and I loved it. After a few years, while completing my PhD degree, I fell in love with the social science of wastewater. Having studied the engineering side, I wanted to now be able to understand why people polluted the vital liquid, and what could governments do to reduce this pollution.

I have completed a couple of research projects in the field of water governance and policy in Mexico, primarily focused on the management of wastewater in central Mexico, and the governance of groundwater in adjacent aquifers. I am also starting a couple of projects on drinking water in the Metro Vancouver area and adaptation to climate change and water in Canada.

I am passionate about protecting water resources and ensuring that we have enough clean water worldwide. Water is a HUGE part of my research agenda now. That is the reason why I am so excited about March 22nd, 2010, World Water Day, with the theme “Clean Water for a Healthy World“. In 2008, the theme for World Water Day was sanitation (a topic that I have done substantial research on), and in 2009, it was Transboundary Waters (a topic I find incredibly exciting).

International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

In celebration of World Water Day 2010, I will be giving a public lecture on Friday, March 26th, on my water governance research. I’ll be posting more details on my blog (on both of them, my research one and this one) shortly.

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