REHYDRATING THE EARTH: NEW PARADIGM FOR WATER

Abstract

The development and adoption of a new holistic water management paradigm, a paradigm that acknowledges, seeks to understand, and in some instances to reverse, humanity’s impact on the ‘small water cycle’, could be one of the most important challenges we face. The good news is that at its most fundamental level, the change in approach can be summarised in one short sentence: a shift from the current paradigm, where evaporation is viewed as a loss to the system to be avoided at all costs, to a new paradigm, where evaporation is understood and respected as the source of all precipitation and managed accordingly.