Could advances in information, communication technologies be part of the solution?
Published by XPrize Manager
Could advances in information, communication technologies be part of the solution?
Tags
- Water
- IT
- IT
- Telecommunications
Published by XPrize Manager
Could advances in information, communication technologies be part of the solution?
Yes but only when these IT practices are understandable by those stakeholders who are facing the water scarcity on daily basis, who are poverty stricken! They should not be so fancy and hi-tech that it is not understood by users!
The other group of rich consumers should be encouraged in the similar manner knowing the level of understanding the group has like mobile apps to conserve water.
Various means of communications like radio, television can produce the program related to water, facilitating the knowledge sharing!
Mobiles can be a strong tool to dissipate information!
Published by Sabina Khatri, Ms.
The short answer is, absolutely yes. However, at the same time we need to be exceptionally cautious. The people who do not have access to safe drinking water are the most vulnerable in society. What kind of access would they have to advances in information and communication technologies? Advances in information and communication technologies should be seen as enablers rather than a technological fix. It is about getting a message across, but somebody has to still fix the problem.
Published by Ashantha Goonetilleke, Professor, Water/Environmental Engineering at Queensland University of Technology
Smart water lies at the heart of sustainable water management.
It is not an end in itself, rather it is a means of carrying out good intentions.
It enables good policy to be enacted.
It needs water to be apropriately priced and for utilities and users to appreciate how demand management can work in their favour.
Smart water can be seen as a tool for mobilising data towards the efficient management and use of water across the water cycle.
But on its own, it is a chimera.
David Lloyd Owen
Published by David Lloyd Owen, Envisager - Managing Director
Yes - but only if it is recognized that technology is not the solution in itself. Nearly all the problems around safe water access are human ones, around education, management, wealth, power relations and political economy, societal and cultural values and norms. Trust is the biggest issue: countries like Switzerland work so well because they are high trust societies where explicit regulation and enforcement is rarely needed; people can rely on services to work when they need them and there is a great degree of predictability. In fragile countries, particularly in conflict or post-conflict situations, levels of interpersonal trust, and trust in services and institutions is very low and this leads to multiple problems - for example, during the Ebola crisis in West Africa, many people did not trust that the government was telling the truth, even when friends and family were dying in their hundreds and thousands. If ICT can be part of building trust then it has a role to play - however, what is clear in the current political turmoil in the US, in the UK and in much of Europe is that social media and ICTs can destroy trust; it allows people to retreat into little online groups that mutually reinforce their beliefs and closes their ears and eyes to other opinions and value systems.
Published by Sean Furey, Water & Sanitation Specialist at Skat Consulting