When people talk about water scarcity and availability and helping communities get access to clean water, they often envision people in developing countries having to walk miles to get clean water. They don’t usually think about the problems we in the U.S. and Western Europe have (on a much different scale, of course) maintaining access to clean water. At the Milwaukee Water Summit last fall, Mark Vezina of Syndicat des Eaux d’Ile-de-France (SEDIF) presented on a program in France to marry those two. Suburbs around Paris are collaborating on water management, much like groups like the Northwest Water Planning Alliance here in the Chicago region, and they’re using the money saved from their collaborative efforts to help set up effective water management systems in developing countries. This means more than just digging wells for them, but helping them set up physical and human infrastructure to manage the systems well into the future, something even we in the U.S. could use help with. See the video below for more information about their efforts.
If you’re not able to view the video above, watch it on YouTube.
Video courtesy of Syndicat des Eaux d’ile-de-France (SEDIF). The original version in French can be viewed here.
