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Environ Sci Eur. 2018; 30(1): 12.

The scientist, the politician, the creative person and the denizen: how water united them

Bernd Manfred Gawlik

^aneWater and Marine Resource Unit, Directorate Sustainable Resources, European Commission, Articulation Research Middle, Via Enrico Fermi 2749, 21027 Ispra, Va Italy

Natalia Głowacka

ⁱⁱSection of Regional Bioenergy, Faculty of European Studies and Regional Development, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 94976 Nitra, Slovakia

³Ecology Institute, Okruzna 784/42, 97241 Koš, Slovakia

David L. Feldman

^ivSchool of Social Ecology, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy, University of California, Irvine, 226F Social Ecology I, Irvine, CA 92697-7075 USA

Richard Elelman

^vFundació CTM Centre Tecnològic, Plaça de la Ciènca two, 08243 Manresa, BCN Spain

Received 2018 Jan eleven; Accepted 2018 Apr seven.

Abstruse

The Urban H2o Atlas for Europe constitutes an original overview of Urban Water Management in Europe, explaining and illustrating water in an unprecedented manner and reflecting how water, the essence of life, flows through the arteries of our cities. Leading experts in h2o sciences and technologies, together with climatic change researchers, accept joined artists and children in guild to show how thirsty our cities really are and how we tin can cope with their growing demand for the most precious resource of our planet. The upshot is the offset major publication of the Science and Knowledge Service of the European Committee, the JRC, which within a movement stemming from its Sci-Art Programme seeks to explore the important opportunities arising from the cross-fertilisation between science and art. The Atlas itself establishes the benchmark for over 40 cities, both European and from further afield, in 30 unlike countries, in a manner which permits a vast range of municipalities to confront 1 of the greatest global challenges by employing local solutions in gild to ensure a supply of water for all. It contains 95 scientific indicators and parameters, over 700 graphs, original illustrations and never seen before photographs and combines the work of forty contributors from 22 organisations. All the same, the truthful value of this publication lies in the process of ensuring that the underlying scientific cognition is available for societal uptake. The resolving of conflicts which stem from an exclusive cocky-understanding of traditional natural sciences, the difficulty to communicate the purpose of technological solutions and the challenge to engage in peer-to-peer word betwixt the sciences, politics and the citizen establish worthy lessons for both environmental experts and their social science counterparts.

Keywords: Urban water management, Sci-Fine art, Participatory approach, Social environmental, H2o governance, Innovation uptake

Book details

Championship:

Urban Water Atlas for Europe. European Commission.

ISBN:

978-92-79-63051-4,

doi:

10.2788/114518,

Number of pages:

160,

Edited by:

Gawlik BM, Easton P, Koop South,Van Leeuwen K, Elelman R, Glowacka Due north, Silva R,

Published by:

Luxembourg: Publications Role of the European Union; 2017.

Introduction

When it comes to water in detail, most people have a very profound and emotional connection with their place of birth and the regions in which they live. The ties often range from extremely personal memories and sentiments to a strong sense of belonging to the community in question and cultural identity [1]. However, when discussing science or, as is the instance in this paper, urban h2o management, the emotional link and civilization related to livelihood and well-existence is all too often fix aside [2, 3]. Emotions and science are not traditionally expected to interconnect and yet, nosotros have in Europe, numerous examples where such human weather condition and study areas have combined, in many cases considering of water and accept later contributed to the prosperous development of cities [e.g. 4, 5].

Addressing the consequence of the part of water in its local dimension, only with a global perspective regarding sustainability is central to the exploration of future opportunities and society's capacity to overcome the obstacles facing cities who seek to implement constructive urban policies which will guarantee sustainable direction, constructive governance and a stable supply of water in municipalities [vi, 7]. A number of international environmental and water platforms accost the topic of h2o with various initiatives, international project proposals, collaboration and improved transversal synergies such as the UN-Water, the Global Water Partnership, the Global Water Research Coalition or the International Water Association, to name but a few.

Nevertheless, at a social level, the consequence of h2o has still not established itself in the consciousness of the man in the street, despite it beingness the principal environmental and probably socio-political event of the 21st Century. This paradox is recognised and considered past the Sustainable Development Goals formulated within the United nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [8]. It is a state of affairs, which demands that society learns to communicate the complexities of such bug in a clear, transparent way which is comprehensible to all. This responsibility pertains to all relevant actors every bit including scientists, politicians and municipal administrations.

Cities are the closest administrative entities to the citizen. Their proximity and capacity to collaborate with the uninitiated layman demands that they undertake the function and, indeed, accept the obligation to present water as the vital environmental issue that it is. This exceeds the mere institution of specific Sustainable Development Goals such as SDG half-dozen (water) and SDG 11 (cities) [eight]. If municipalities are capable of creating a profound social awareness as well equally implementing true denizen engagement, a social consensus is then possible and as a event a cross-political party, political unity. This would lead to the political continuity at municipal, regional, national and supranational levels, which is required to allow environmental policies to demonstrate their true worth [9]. Opposite to what is sustained in the Smart-City approach, sustainable urban living cannot get a reality past attending exclusively to bug of public transport, free energy and ICT [ten]. Water, waste and urban biodiversity, every bit expressed by the Urban Water Calendar 2030 [11], must be considered equally and additionally in the group of sectoral interests that will determine the time to come and quality of urban life.

Having understood that smart cities and sustainable urban areas and communities are fundamental research and demonstration areas to be examined throughout the earth, the European Commission's Joint Inquiry Heart, the Network for Water in European Regions and Cities (NETWERC Water) and the partners of the H2020 Projection: BLUESCITIES created the Urban Water Atlas for Europe [12] every bit an original tool with which to span the gap between scientific understanding and societal knowledge, with the ultimate goal to promote, back up and improve the application of sustainable practices in the employ of water at a regional and municipal level.

The Atlas, which was launched at the Ministerial Meeting of the Matrimony for the Mediterranean in Malta in conjunction with the UfM Ministerial H2o Declaration [13], constitutes a remarkable interdisciplinary effort. Notwithstanding, the purely editorial effort aside, it is worthwhile to examine the processes and dynamics behind the making of the Urban Water Atlas for Europe. The Atlas was the upshot of a unique feel that deserves dissemination to the scientific community represented by the readers of Environmental Sciences Europe and this backside the scenes, making of report is intended as an invitation to consider how cognition of environmental sciences tin can be made attainable to a broader audition, thus overcoming the substantial gap between full general perception and reality.

The invisible urban water challenge

Despite being irreplaceable, water is only renewable if conscientiously managed. Society must exist open to h2o direction innovation, specially in cities and towns—the urban areas, which are habitation to an ever-increasing majority of the world'southward population.

Municipalities (or cities as they tend to be generically and erroneously named) accept historically had little or no say in the on-going international dialogue apropos h2o affairs despite being identified by the majority of the leading international organisations such as the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European union every bit primal figures in the move towards an environmentally sustainable society [14–16].

Supranational entities bereft of the opportunity to appoint to such an intimate degree with citizens openly recognise that local administrations are the nigh important interlocutors with the general public and are, thus, essential actors in the creation of public awareness, social consensus and the political continuity required so as to be capable of ensuring that long-term water policies may achieve their full potential [11, 17].

Municipalities are centres of economic growth, employment, creativity, culture and innovation, but they are simultaneously producers, consumers and sources of a host of global ecology bug. The initiatives to safeguard water resources often omit to underline the importance of municipalities, whilst the challenges and solutions regarding sustainable water use, energy and resource recovery will predominantly reside in cities [11, 18]. Therefore, 1 can country that there is a real and urgent demand to ensure that the acceptable conditions in order to ensure that our municipalities become the goad for improved urban management of our water resource exist. Municipalities could and should provide local solutions to global issues if and when they develop a coherent, long-term integrated strategy and implementation programme that encompasses transport, energy, ICT, solid waste, climate adaptation (estrus islands, urban flooding, and water scarcity), water supply, wastewater treatment, air pollution, and urban design.

While urban residents require green and blue infinite, to date, many cities have failed to provide adequate remedies to their citizens, or to prioritise this issue on urban agendas [5].

The causes of the socio-political invisibility of urban water issues cannot be explained from one perspective solitary. What is clear, however, is that an unprecedented effort on the part of all engaged stakeholders to abandon traditional approaches in favour of more courageous and open strategies is a necessity.

The disharmonize betwixt water sciences and urban politics

Not unlike other environmental problems for which ideological preconceptions sometimes pre-empt scientific fact—such as climate change or even renewable energy [19]—h2o scientific discipline and politics is sometimes characterised by deep distrust and a lack of consensus, e.g. as illustrated by the Flint H2o Crunch [20, 21], the Salton Sea Project [22] or the on-going debate in Europe regarding the minimum criteria for h2o reuse. This has as well contributed considerably to the erosion of trust between citizens and environmental policy makers at an European union level. Trust requires dialogue and dialogue can only advance with trust [23]. The topic of water comes to the attention of the public in a negative form, indeed as a threat: drinking water (despite the affluence, high quality and the pregnant and objectively measurable improvements achieved through the European H2o Framework) is perceived as being contaminated and as an object of speculation, manipulated by the fiscal sector [24]. Meanwhile, the scientific community often barely conceals its contempt for politics or political processes which are viewed by the former as a class of "evil force" or a grade of hostile species who deed in a manner that is completely detached from the society they are supposed to represent (run into e.g. [25, 26]).

This reaction is symptomatic of a more profound and serious situation, the cause of which must be identified and understood if information technology is to exist overcome. In 2015, Green published a rather unusual scientific paper, which investigated this difficult relationship betwixt science (in this example marine science) and political processes, employing the case of the definition of fishery quotas [27]. Light-green correctly stated that "the function of fisheries science is not to promote the 'side' of fish, but to ensure that fishermen are able to catch fish sustainably". In this remarkable analysis, Green identified the mismatch between the political need for scientific certainty versus the notion of probability, which dominates the earth of scientific thinking as the principal cause of this conflict. The same confrontation is further exasperated by the very manner in which scientific discipline produces cognition, i.e. a closed arroyo by which recognition is sought exclusively from peers and not from the public nor their elected political representatives.

Therefore, one can state with some confidence that with regard especially to environmental and sustainability bug, science cannot be left solely to the scientists and that society as a whole must be engaged. Confusion is all too often generated by populist scientific discipline, such as that observed in the mass media, expressed by environmentalists who oftentimes present themselves equally an say-so on the upshot in question and obtain the recognition from high-level political actors that would not be forthcoming from their scientific peers [25]. Meanwhile, more than orthodox researchers prove to be overly concerned with the relative values of the measurement of dubiety rather than with translating their knowledge into understandable advice [28].

The result in relation to urban water management is that scientific discipline is failing to communicate clearly with regard to the advisable priorities for the local policy agenda. Thus, ane finds oneself confronted with grave anomalies. For case, the occurrence of compounds of emerging concern in tap water (e.g. [29]) or connected water resources [xxx] has received a lot of attention whilst the fact that most European cities loose considerable amounts of pure drinking h2o due to leakage and antiquated infrastructures hardly raises an eyebrow—on average 25% exceeding even 40% in some cases [31]. Despite the fact that renewable water is abundant in Europe, signals from long-term climate and hydrological assessments, including population dynamics, point that there was a 24% decrease in renewable water resources per capita across Europe between 1960 and 2010, specially in southern Europe [32]. Droughts and their outcome on vegetation are still perceived as a specific trouble for the Mediterranean region whilst the systematic reuse of treated wastewater or rainwater in an urban setting is regarded as an outlandish practice in a number of not-European locations [33]. The perceived affluence of freshwater resources means that such strategies are considered as being politically dangerous and thus to be avoided.

Still, positive examples of local, broad sectorial engagement do exist (Table1) and interestingly, they are not confined to traditionally trend-setting municipalities such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Berlin.

Tabular array i

Lesser-known examples of urban water management practices establishing a link between scientific discipline and engineering science and the citizen

City	Country	Example
Malmø	Sweden	Nature-based solutions every bit a political and social construction or drove of actions rather than but a technical problem [34]
Slupsk	Poland	Water democracy and Pomeranian Mural Park Complex in Slupsk [35]
Lodz	Poland	Innovative Urban Water Governance to reconcile urban growth and integrated urban water management [36]
Milan	Italy	Wastewater Treatment Plant Nosedo used for local arts exhibition "arte da mangiare—mangiare arte" [37]
El Port de la Selva	Spain	Using water recycling for aquifer recharge for indirect drinkable reuse in coastal areas [38]

The altitude between h2o science and the citizen

Traditional difficult sciences take been of paramount importance in raising public awareness of sustainability equally an issue, but the same sciences fail to provide adequate solutions—in other words, 20th Century solutions will not help social club to face the challenges of the 21st Century. Unlike whatever other environmental domain, water is a topic in which it is proving especially complicated to create a link between climatic change processes and the necessary accommodation measures needed. It would appear that people believe that the planet must be saved whilst ignoring the fact that this also entails saving the human being race. Why is this so? Why are simple notions such as the fact that people cannot survive without water or that i does not build houses most to a water course not leading to a broad social consensus that action at a local level is imperative? The respond is frustratingly simple. Such basic premises but do not reach large sectors of club and i of the key reasons for this is that scientists oftentimes practise not possess the necessary democratic awareness that their cognition is influenced by and influential to policy [25]. Autonomous awareness does not mean that scientific truth should be subject area to public approval. It ways that the power derived from noesis is not accessible to the vast majority of citizens. Thus, the extraction of science from the grip of academia appears every bit urgent a chore now as extracting knowledge from the religious institution was in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The chance for controlling is that in a post-factual world, if scientific truth is not reaching social club, society creates its ain truth based on perception and interestingly, emotions [39]. To understand this link, one must bear in listen that sustainability issues such as water get more socially relevant the closer they appear to human being habitats, i.e. the urban settlement [40]. Studies have deduced that to address such challenges with the required sensibility and urgency, modern (natural) science must construct bridges to social problems that ascend from income and power inequality [41–44].

The urban water dilemma

The Urban Water Agenda 2030 [11] acknowledges that sustainable urban water management is fundamental to ensuring the quality of h2o for human use and preventing pollution of h2o in cities. This includes reducing water abstraction to a sustainable level and achieving proficient ecological condition of water bodies, ensuring efficiency of the urban water system, sustainability of urban h2o infrastructures, flood prevention and raising citizens' sensation of water every bit an essential, precious resource.

Still, at a local level, h2o management is mostly relegated to that of a elementary matter of infrastructure, combined with other municipal facets, many of which evidence to exist of greater political interest, particularly within the Eu. H2o services and water sanitation are taken for granted and just succeed in attracting attention when bug or service failure appear. It is what can be described as the catastrophe effect. The 2017 droughts that hitting the Mediterranean expanse provide a typical example whereby a h2o supply shortage in the city of Rome was, for a few short weeks, the reason why h2o became an important news particular, but to render to oblivion once normal service was resumed. The reasons and causes for the aforementioned shortage have their origin way back in time. The reactive prevails over the proactive. Water is not a political priority until information technology ceases to exist readily available. This is the urban water dilemma. Proper direction requires a long-term, strategic approach that reaches far beyond any mandate of a city administration and this arroyo needs to exist based on an undisputed consensus regarding the municipality'south water priorities.

The role of science is to assist the city in defining the priorities and presenting them to society, but, in general, this does not happen. The private water sector solitary is non in a position to undertake the type of assessment required. Indeed, all urban water assessment tools (Table2) ultimately are orientated towards (a) commercial interest or (b) the establishment of comparative municipal rankings instead of seeking to assist urban administrations in recognising and tackling the underlying urban water challenges.

Table 2

Selection of urban h2o assessment tools

Proper noun of indicator	Clarification
City Design	Aims at overall sustainability of Integrated Water Resource Direction (IWRM) in municipalities and regions. A main focus is on the integration of water, waste material and climate adaptation in cities. Uses mostly data from International organisations [45–47]
Urban H2o Blueprint	Defines the watershed conservation potential for 534 cities evaluating five conservation activities: reforestation, agricultural best management practices; Riparian restoration, Forest protection, Forest fuel reduction [48]
Water Sensitive Cities Index	The WSCI is designed to benchmark and rank cities based on water sensitivity operation. It also set targets and inform management responses to improve water-sensitive practices. It is supported by a web platform to enable visualisations of benchmarking results for a range of audiences, including policy makers and service providers [49]
Sustainability alphabetize for Urban Water Direction System	The sustainability alphabetize tin exist seen as a precursor to the same City Blueish Print. It addresses 74 criteria of urban water direction: social, economic, environs and engineering [50]
Sustainable Cities H2o Alphabetize	The index focuses solely on water through three main factors, each with their own sub-indices: resiliency, efficiency and quality. Each metropolis has been ranked based on these three tenants in order to heighten awareness of the role of h2o management in defining a city. The tools are intended to guide future improvements, investment and water sustainability [51]
Urban Water Utility Sustainability Framework	Initial results of U.South. urban h2o utility sustainability indicate that many of the preliminary indicators are closely continued to energy. Further study will finalize the ready of recommended indicators, but it is clear that energy will play a central part in the "snapshot" cess of urban water utility sustainability [52]
Water Employ and Climate Index (WUCI)	The WUCI analyses and presents data of 142 cities and the re-group of them using a hierarchical cluster analyses [53]
Sustainable Development of Energy, Water, and Surround Systems (SDEWES) Index	This tool addresses the sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems through an integrated approach with the goal to foster policy learning, activity and cooperation for sustainable development in cities beyond the globe. The index rates cities based on seven dimensions, 35 indicators and twenty sub-indicators. It is currently used for 58 cities [54, 55]
Swedish Sustainability Alphabetize for Municipal Water and Wastewater Services	Developed by the Swedish Water and Wastewater Clan (SWWA), this index is a tool for assay and conclusion-making over the short and long term. It aims to prioritise actions and investments, monitor improvements, create a basis for strategic planning, and to analyse the needs of municipalities. It does not rank municipalities but aims to provide the municipalities with their own results to build a strong and context-based solution to water and wastewater management [no citable reference]

The fundamental to overcoming such obstacles lies in the creation of synergies. If the urban h2o upshot is not only understood as an environmental claiming but as well as a social threat, the appropriate solutions must also address the social issues in question, thus increasing the impact of envisaged measures likewise every bit enhancing the societal acceptance and endorsement of the proposed (technical) solution.

The opportunity: understanding the part of art and culture

Science and technology are considered in Europe (and across) equally primary sources of nation-country and religious competitiveness and sustainable potential [56]. To optimally exploit this potential is in the efficacy of transforming advances of science and technology into pecuniary benefits through entrepreneurship-enabled innovation. This, however, depends crucially on the speed with which innovation is adopted by the lodge in question. In other words, information technology is essential to connect ideas and solutions with markets and investors. This link between basic and applied research with the market, employing technology transfer and commercial mechanisms has become the bailiwick of increasing attention, the launch of the digital economy existence the latest of a long list of such developments. Yet, when information technology comes to sustainability-related problems and in particular with regard to water, this axiomatic interaction encounters difficulties in the form of cultural, psychological or social resistance [1]. Thus, for instance, despite the evident advantages of a directly potable reuse of treated wastewater in water scarce regions, social credence is proving elusive to say the least due to a perception of risk [33].

Although comparatively few in number, at that place do exist positive examples of drinkable reuse practices and all of them can demonstrate true and honest citizen interest in the corresponding water reuse projects [57]. Analysing these examples, one understands the need to go across a pure science-based approach and to admit that non only scientific discipline, but also art and culture are reason-based and demand to exist used to reconnect the ecology role of water with its cultural dimension [1]. From this, one can derive the necessity for a more than integrated approach to knowledge, an avant-garde cognition system, which includes science, arts and broad social culture.

The original objective in the creation of the Urban Water Atlas for Europe was to describe a collection of urban water management practices and to scientifically analyse a option of cities with regard to the identified urban water direction practices and needs. The goal was to disseminate lessons from these experiences to municipalities elsewhere. While primarily dependent on science for its investigation and reliant on political affairs for connecting cities—the attempt also represented an important foray into another form of interaction, the relationship between science, politics and fine art. The utilise and dissemination of youth-generated art became in this attempt a means of uniting diverse municipal authorities from very different regions and countries in their mutual ambition to establish audio h2o direction at a global scale. It proved to exist a venture that demonstrated its capacity to help address the cardinal aspirations of people everywhere for clean water. Information technology also demonstrated that it could lead to the creation of a futurity group of socio-political leaders armed with the necessary sensitivity so as to be able to achieve such aspirations.

The Dubrovnik process

As a stepping-stone towards a more integrated and collaborative approach involving medium-sized municipalities interested in improving water resilience, a multi-stakeholder workshop was organised in Dubrovnik (Sept 2015) facilitating the encounter between mayors or other representatives of municipal administrations. The focus was placed on Eastern Europe, the Danube Basin and the Near East. The participants combined their respective forces and know-how in club to investigate the importance of the function of local administrations in resolving common urban environmental bug, to ensure improved synergies between cities and to employ tools for integration and implementation, stakeholder appointment and international networking. The substance of the Dubrovnik procedure was concern over inequality, diverseness and appointment.

Inequality is an ecology issue just as environmental deposition is a social issue (forming a socio-ecological nexus), and solutions must address them jointly through principals and institutions rooted in justice [twoscore].

Communities with the greatest and virtually diverse citizen participation are frequently resilient and strong. Engaging citizens to address mutual issues is essential for educated controlling. No other field of urban infrastructure intervention benefits as much as water infrastructure and to a bottom extent waste management from active citizen participation and appointment [9]. In this context, the successful deployment at a municipal level of innovative and novel solutions, exist they technology-based or concerned with governance, is of vital importance to establish the EU as a world leader in such technologies and in its attempts to create dark-green jobs, healthier societies and improved economies.

Public engagement is key to ensuring the necessary political continuity beyond a unmarried mandate in a local administration. To attain this, it is besides vital that a collective knowledge concerning the solutions to be selected and implemented is cultivated and at the footing of whatever consensus-building process [i, 9, 44].

At Dubrovnik, information technology was agreed that the commutation of best-practices in urban water management tin virtually effectively be achieved by establishing a straight contact between cities of like profiles and needs. This mechanism was successfully employed in an approach dubbed Winning-by-Twinning [12].

This mutual desire was channelled into and expressed through the Dubrovnik declaration of Intent, presented at the finish of the workshop and subsequently signed by representatives of the participating cities together with the procedure's social and scientific contributors [12].

The Dubrovnik announcement and the Dubrovnik process captured the attention of many supranational and national entities, and a number of important cities and regions take signed, or are in the process of adhering to it. The workshop participants and signatories of the Dubrovnik proclamation declare their intention to collaborate with other cities, to involve the local administrations and stakeholders in a participatory context and to codify the regulatory framework that volition promote the successful pattern and implementation of novel and smart urban water direction solutions leading to more resilient cities. In collaboration with experienced experts and academics from a broad range of disciplines, the participating municipalities are committed to designing and monitoring climate modify stress and sustainable water resource direction.

During the workshop, the participants were shown how to utilize tools for integration and implementation, stakeholder appointment and international networking whilst emphasising the importance of multi-level public administration and multi-sectoral dialogue. The cardinal aim is to support municipal integration and inter-municipal cooperation.

The science and art result

The Dubrovnik procedure too led to a series of initiatives involving schools, thus creating an elegant style to engage not only with children merely besides their families and ultimately local order in general. The writing of the Urban Water Atlas witnessed the evolution of this approach into a tool to stimulate inter-city collaboration through what is usually known every bit the Scientific discipline-and-Art Movement (SciArt). The idea of SciArt is actually very simple yet ground breaking. Bold that the creation of art too as the discovery of noesis in enquiry involves the same process of homo reasoning, SciArt tries to stimulate a cantankerous-fertilisation betwixt the two domains with the objective of remodelling perspectives and paradigms regarding the traditional manner of working in, and using scientific discipline. Successful examples of such a transformative movement are, for case, the ARTS-AT-CERN Programme or the Science Gallery pioneered by Trinity College, Dublin.

To unlock this potential for the creation of the ATLAS, the emerging Smooth artist Natalia Głowacka, who simultaneously works as a biotechnologist, created vii paintings known as The Water Cycle. This is a series of paintings which illustrate various dimensions of h2o: the political challenge, equality, the water-energy nexus, the connecting attribute of water, its force as an element of nature, its attributes within a divine trinity of h2o, vapour and ice and hence its role as a common element to the spiritual reality of mankind. The paintings of Głowacka were used to inspire school pupils aged from 8 to 12 years for an international school competition on water. The competition was organised simultaneously in the cities of Amman, Jerusalem, London, Manresa, Sfantu Gheorghe and Istanbul and the children, motivated by the aforementioned art were encouraged to visually limited their own views and feelings on water.

Efforts to straight link art, education, and water science are becoming increasingly popular. An instance, straight sponsored by a city, is the New York Urban center Department of Ecology Protection's Annual Water Resources Art and Poesy Competition which is open to 2nd to twelfth class students attending either public, independent, lease or parochial schools or tutored at home. The participants are invited to create original art and compose poetry that reflects an appreciation for the region's shared water resources, and student participants are annually honoured at a city-wide event. The contest is closely aligned with both New York State Learning Standards and New York City Performance Standards for simple, middle and high schoolhouse students in the so-called Stalk (science, technology, applied science, and maths) fields, equally well equally the Common Core Country Standards for English language Language, Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Scientific discipline and Technical Subjects.

Efforts to understand the global water crunch through arts instruction are being pursued by many universities. Pennsylvania State University'south African Diaspora Water Crunch Curriculum Project, funded in function by a grant from Pennsylvania State's Africana Enquiry Centre, is only one of the number of notable instances. The project aims to develop and implement arts-based high school curriculum and instructional resources in response to the sufferings of some 345 million people in Africa and 32 meg in Latin America and the Caribbean area who lack acceptable access to potable water. Curriculum and instructional resource are developed in collaboration with teachers in schools with predominantly African-American student populations for use in international programmes. Students from throughout the land visit Pennsylvania Land and attend classes in art education, studio art, and fine art history, in addition to learning how to make ceramic water filters. A key aim of the projection is "to enable African American students, their classmates, and their teachers to situate themselves critically within the African Diaspora through direct exploration of the global water crisis through artistic, scholarly and socially engaged practices".

Art is capable of conveying complex principles related to water in a visually compelling way that connects imagination, emotion and reason (the latter, exemplified past scientific discipline). At the same time, the arts—visual likewise every bit performing—communicate these principles on a person-to-person, individual level. Every bit a consequence, the function of the arts in disseminating powerful ideas and principles regarding water, to various groups of people, and across national boundaries, may in some cases be more than constructive than that of more conventional forms of political advice.

Neri Oxman tried to explicate the Science-Art effect by comparing it to the Krebs Bicycle in Biology and postulating an illustration to an event of creation of creative energy, when science and fine art run across [58]. Indeed, post-obit this reasoning one understands that the relationship between fine art and scientific discipline is more complex than it appears at first sight and that for instance, engineering science and design are related disciplines in the transition from pure science to art. Some aspects also reveal a hierarchy within this human relationship:

• Art as propaganda for science: Certainly, the most commonly used (and misused) part where the illustrative function of fine art is used to communicate science. In this everyman class of interaction, fine art serves science.

• Science can be employed to provide innovative tools of creative expression or merely to obtain access to funding: artists exploiting scientific discipline funding schemes.

• A more interesting and novel aspect in this relationship from a societal perspective is the fact that art can act as an early alarm system for science, as information technology addresses, describes and channels concerns, fears and other reactive social perceptions which regard scientific developments as a threat. Indeed, modern science fiction and dystopias may be considered as illustrations of this precautionary function.

• The noblest form of interaction is co-creation based on an equal exploratory partnership, where art catalyses new scientific cognition and scientific discipline is converted into original, ground-breaking artistic expression.

The feel of producing the Atlas featured all the above mentioned modes of interaction, and to the surprise of the authors, a further, unexpected aspect leading to what the authors have named SciArt Water Diplomacy—a peace-building dialogue between alien parties based on the topic of water, supported by both scientific and technological input, simply catalysed within a cultural and creative context. In other words, the dialogue was the Dubrovnik procedure in its practical application. To understand this issue, 1 has to wait first at the issue of water from the perspective of both a scientist and an artist (Tabular array3).

Table 3

Water: the scientific perspective and the artistic perspective

Scientific perspective

Artistic perspective

Human being life begins in an aqueous environment. Water provides a safe environment for the developing organism, ensures the freedom of movement, protects against as well much stimulation from the exterior earth. Water is involved in all systems of all living creatures. Our claret and our tears, all come from water. From a chemical point of view, nosotros can consider the issue of h2o from many perspectives. Among all molecules, water is ane of the most unique, which is perfectly known to man. It is one of the most important molecules to our biological systems. Water is a crucial component of the human body, it regulates trunk temperature, and, keeps our peel soft and our organs hydrated. H2o is the principal elective of a trunk's cells. However, there are all the same many questions to exist answered, about the importance of this almost significant element of the torso and one's everyday diets

Water. Majestic beauty. The topic of water is deeply inspirational. The procedure of capturing and painting h2o is quite complicated. One of the most beautiful and magical elements in the art of water is light, which passes through and creates the reflection of h2o. From the artistic point of view, capturing h2o is non easy at all, due to its irregular construction and unpredictable behaviour. To reach the desired effect, an creative person needs to deal with sparkles, reflections and light to capture and pigment the color, flow and rhythm of water. Forms and shapes which can exist created by water are countless. Water is mysterious, wild and uncontrolled. At first, water seems to exist transparent, merely this is just a superficial first impression. In fact, we can identify a broad colour calibration, in the move of the surface of water. The experience of h2o develops new artistic expressions. Returning to a homo'due south initial experiences of being in h2o, feeling the softness and warmth of h2o, brings a sense of security, which 1 instinctively feels reflects the feel of a female parent'south womb. This feeling touches all human being beings. It is impossible for one to not recall from where one has originated

It should be noted that Oxman'south Krebs Circle of Creativity contains a meaning flaw in reasoning, because it actually omits that art and science, despite beingness both connected by reason, are two key opposites or pathways. In more simple terms, the circumvolve is rather to be seen as a sphere, where three planes collide (Fig.1).

Creativity equally a 3D model between art and science

Applying this concept with regard to the social uptake of innovation related to sustainable development—and this is what was contemplated in the ATLAS—ane obtains the Quintuple Helix Approach [40]. The traditional Triple and Quadruple Helix structure between enquiry (Science), the private sector (Economy) and Governance, cannot be conveyed to the citizen without art and culture (Fig.2). Social acceptance of sustainability-orientated innovation, despite a common understanding regarding its propriety, does not take place and the behaviour of the denizen does not modify. Merely if and when the Quintuple Helix mechanism functions is an understanding betwixt stakeholders created and a mutual trust constructed. These are the fundamental conditions for any peace-building procedure.

Cantankerous section through the quintuple helix approach for sustainable evolution and innovation uptake

Carrying the message—the ATLAS

The Urban H2o Atlas for Europe provides a visually compelling overview on how water is managed in European Cities. Information technology explains and illustrates in an unprecedented mode, employing the aforementioned Quintuple Helix Approach, how water flows through the arteries of contemporary cities. The remarkable feature of the ATLAS is that together with its highly interdisciplinary grapheme that encompasses fourteen professional perspectives, it succeeds by the inclusion of art and a strong regard for denizen-date to make the topic of urban water management not but interesting but besides emotional and hence more compelling to the layman, stimulating an interest in the reader to discover and farther investigate the problems described.

Outlook and perspectives

Europe has a long tradition of inter-municipal cooperation, which in contempo years has become even more essential to the public due to growing aspirations or accountability and representativeness. Urban areas, which take been in the vanguard of the development and implementation of environmental policies, have a vital function to play as leading examples to more than sceptical or less experienced counterparts. A single municipality benefits from the support and mutual collaboration of others, with no single community having all the answers to its problems. The combined learning of different communities tin can guarantee admission to tried and tested methods to achieve sustainable urban water cycle services.

While national and international institutions are effective at identifying the broad global trends to be addressed, peculiarly in addressing access and management of such a vital resource such as water, local administrations are principally responsible for the implementation of policies, whilst engaging citizens. The municipality is the level at which administrations can interact about effectively with citizens and ensure they are informed. An informed citizen has greater involvement and is better able to express whatsoever concerns. If their concerns are not alleviated, this may provoke fear. Knowledge and in particular noesis virtually a more sustainable management of water must therefore be accessible in order to ensure that citizens together are capable of creating an informed social and political consensus (as opposed to a popular consensus based on ignorance), without which even the nigh ambitious political, economic, and social measures are doomed to failure. Many of the aspects of a successful urban transition crave time and money. Public opinion, a culmination of individual expressions of preference, becomes votes and votes are converted into executive power, which is accountable to the full general public. Agile borough participation at the municipal level in alliance with technical expertise, becomes the foundation stone of a new, environmentally sustainable customs.

Admission to clean h2o is one of the master bug the world faces. Humans prospered for thousands of years without electricity, motorised transport and many other examples of what we at present consider to be basic ingredients of our existence. Just without water, in that location is no life. Europe in general enjoys an ample supply of water, only forms part of a global reality which if not addressed now may atomic number 82 to the most catastrophic of scenarios in a not-so-distant future. Climatic change, country use modifications and demographic evolution have already demonstrated their devastating results. Whilst Europe has witnessed damaging floods and water scarcity in some regions, other regions in the world have faced astringent drought and famine.

Europe has an important role in the mitigation of the threats to our planet. In the same way, every city and municipality must recognise its own contribution to the problems whilst assuming a responsibility to promote a more sustainable global environment. The way forrad is through successful urban governance combined with stakeholder sensation and participation, and systematic collaboration betwixt cities of all regions. The evidence cannot be ignored any longer but the future need not be bleak.

As shown in this paper, water, potentially a cause of inter-regional conflicts and migration on an unimaginable scale, could prove to exist one of the elements for peace and stable communities through mutual knowledge substitution and back up. The concept of Science Diplomacy is a powerful ane, uniting the pol, the diplomat, the scientist and the technician in a common cause, reducing inter-regional tensions and avoiding potential armed conflicts. Indeed, at that place is no one who cannot or should not be involved in this most noble of enterprises.

The relationship between scientific discipline and policy is an old i, and often closely related to the globe of civilisation, which in turn serves as a neutral element capable of reinforcing coalition. It is no coincidence that the Urban Water Atlas for Europe has been created not only past scientists and researchers, but likewise artists, politicians, municipal stakeholders and children who have provided the power of their imagination to produce many of the illustrations in this book. The atlas' production proves that a new approach to integrating science, policy and appointment is possible.

Authors' contributions

BG, NG, DF and RE contributed to the conception, discussion, and conclusions, and the writing of manuscript. BG, NG and DF contributed to the collection of the examples of SciArt used for water sustainability issues. DF and RE supplied the background information on political sciences aspects and water governance. BG compiled and analysed the urban water indicators besides equally related literature. NG elaborated the scientific discipline and fine art perception and the visualisation part of the concept. All authors read and approved the terminal manuscript.

Authors' information

BG is projection officeholder at the European Commission's Science and Knowledge Service, the Joint Inquiry Centre with a stiff focus on water sciences to policy back up under the umbrella of the Water Framework Directive with special focus on the urban h2o management framework and water reuse.

NG is both, professional artist and biotechnologist preparing a PhD on aspects of the round economy using algae for an optimised biogas production. NG has been involved in the SciArt Programme of Articulation Research Centre and has co-organised the art exhibitions accompanying the Urban H2o Atlas.

DF is a globally known author on water politics, social ecology and sustainable development. DF has a leading office in the Water UCI initiative, which tin be defined every bit one of the forerunners in the field of addressing integrated water management and involving a close collaboration betwixt the University of California and Orange County H2o Commune.

RE, sometime Deputy-Mayor of Figueres Spain, he is Head of Public Administration of EURECAT-CTM and Managing director-General of the Network for Water in European Cities and Regions (NETWERC H2o). He is also Member of the Steering Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Water and Chair of the Water Sanitation and Supply Platform's working group "Water and Cities".

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Availability of data and materials

Non applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicative.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Bernd Manfred Gawlik, Email: ue.aporue.ce@kilwag.dnreb.

Natalia Głowacka, Email: ks.ie@akcawolg.

David L. Feldman, Email: ude.icu@dnamdlef.

Richard Elelman, Email: se.moc.mtc@namlele.drahcir.

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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5902515/