Water: thirst for justice
BarcelonaIt is summer. It is very hot. We don't stop drinking liquids and we would spend the day in the water, whether at sea, in a river, in the pool, under the shower. We would like to live soaking wet. Are we clear about the privilege of opening the tap and always getting a good gush? Millions of people suffer water scarcity in urban environments. And at the same time they feel the recurrent threat of cold drops (Danas). Viewed globally, water is not a scarce commodity: it is simply poorly distributed. Technology helps a lot, but it is not everything. Everywhere, agriculture-livestock-fishing, tourism and urban planning generate needs that are difficult to balance. AI has just been added to the intensive demand for water.
Ariadna Romans i Torrent (Girona, 1997) is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam. In Sweet or Salty. An Ethics of Water (Edicions Enoanda) she immerses us in a new liquid culture. She approaches it in search of solutions, without hiding contradictions and gaps. Along with food, water is essential for human survival, as much or more than education and healthcare services. On the other hand, it is spoken of much less. We take it for granted. It is difficult to get a clear picture of its management and governance. One fact: the price in Barcelona, where private management has a history of more than a century, is the highest in the State.
The extreme drought of 2023 and the Valencian DANA of 2024 brought us face to face with the harsh reality of the planetary climate crisis. Water was placed at the heart of our laments. We thought we had mastered it. Historically, we have wanted to subject it to human whims, to colonize it, to control it. But it does not allow it, it escapes. Always. Since time immemorial. Until today.
The Value of Water, from Heraclitus to the Present
Behind the concept of panta rei –flow as the condition of all existence–, Heraclitus uttered his famous phrase: "You will never step into the same river twice". The water is always different and you are also different. Everything changes. In an adult body, 60% is water. We are liquid. For Thales, water is the arkhé, the principle of all things: flow, relationship, and power. Persistent and mutable. Symbolically, we relate it to the ideas of purity, cleanliness, fertility, and life. Religions grant it an essential role. It is not just matter, it is also energy and consciousness of our interdependence with nature. If there is a universal deity, it is Nature, always thirsty.
From the ecosophy of Raimon Panikkar or the ecofeminism of Vandana Shiva, through the examples of Honduran Berta Cáceres (murdered in 2026 for defending the Gualcarque River) and South African Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize 2004), the author reviews the trajectory of many women fighters who have valued the role of women in the daily management of water in scarcity environments and cites good initiatives, including Waterspace, a platform promoted by the Barcelona-based Enric Miralles Foundation.
Stijn Neuteleers, a Dutch philosopher and engineer, and one of the most influential voices in water ethics, advocates a simple idea: technical decisions about water are always moral decisions. Our water footprint is also an ethical footprint. When we build a dam, purify an aquifer, or set the price of water, whom do we benefit and whom do we harm? Water should make us thirsty for justice.
It is a common good and a source of quality of life: health, well-being, joy, intimacy, peace. It cannot be just a source of wealth. Though it can be. In South Africa, a few years ago, poo protests proliferated due to the lamentable sanitation of water after cases of infants drowning in latrines occurred. Having clean and safe water should be a planetary priority. From microplastics to more crude and aggressive actions, the polluting pressure is intense. So is the need: 16,000 liters are needed to produce one kilogram of beef and 160 liters for a cup of coffee.
Oceans produce more oxygen than forests. Indonesia, straddling the Indian and Pacific Oceans, is a country of 275 million inhabitants surrounded by water, made up of more than 17,500 islands. The sea – fishing, corals, the fabulous underwater biodiversity – is its future. So is the world's. A sea that is deteriorating before our curious and helpless eyes. Sweet or salty, a universal ethic of water is urgent for us. It's obvious, isn't it? But at home we often say: you wouldn't find water at sea!