Rainwater Interest in Urban Areas of
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            urope, the State of Art (1980–2016)

Seguido, Álvaro Francisco Morote; Hernández, María Hernández; Eslamian, Saeid

doi:10.1002/9781119776017.ch28

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…At the same time, Germany is concerned about maintaining high water quality and coverage without realizing its people do not trust government supplied water. Both these countries could explore indigenous knowledge for water conservation (Masika et al, 2022;Linton and Pahl-Wostl, 2023), supplementing rainwater for drinking water production (Hofman-Caris et al, 2019;Morote et al, 2021), educating children, and creating awareness on the quality and safety of public water supply for a sustainable lifestyle. The poverty of sustainability also arises from the inability of development agencies to regulate the unsustainable practices of private companies.…”

Section: A Flood Of Alternativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The poverty of sustainability: behavioral choices of drinking water in Kenya and Germany

Saravanan

2024

Front. Sustain.

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Worldwide countries are engaged in technological improvements, changes in legislation, economic incentives, strengthened administrative structures, and political strategies to allocate and distribute water among different sections of the population. These macro measures treat water as an object of social, cultural, and environmental production unit for distribution and allocation, distancing it from the micro behavioral practices of drinking water. The poverty of sustainability stems from the gap between macro instrumental measures and the inner human dimensions that determine the micro practices. This paper explores the disconnect between macro sustainability measures and the micro practice of drinking water choice among individuals and their motives in the city of Nakuru in Kenya and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. Both Kenya and Germany have developed top-down policies with a fix-it mindset. Kenya aims to provide drinking water to its population through piped network technology despite being a water-scarce region with inadequate housing and governance. In contrast, Germany, which is rich in water resources with highly regulated governance arrangements, spends billions treating water to attain drinking water quality only for most citizens to buy bottled water to drink. Despite water resources being finite, both of these nations source additional water through instrumental approaches to satisfy the demands of the materialistic world. In this context, the challenge of overcoming the poverty of sustainability remains a topic of debate that can be ameliorated by complementing scientific approaches with nonscientific knowledge and practices.

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