People and Water, Non-governmental non-profit organization.

The mission of the organization “People And Water” is to provide services to municipal and rural communities, mostly within the Carpathian Euroregion. The goals are to solve the economic, social, cultural and environmental problems on a grassroots level by encouraging citizens to be proactive through development, renewal and promotion of the traditional culture and diversity of this region.

We Are Here for the People

Five years ago we started the new local organization , “The Slovak Association for Protection of Nature” at the Regional Co-ordinating Committee in Kosice-vidiek. Our goal was to prepare an alternative water management concept, “Water for the 3rd Millennium”. We did not anticipate what we were going to face in our quest for attaining this sustainable development. Today, when we are evaluating five years of our existence, there is no doubt that our decision was correct. For the first time in Slovakia, the environmental NGO sector has produced alternative programs that offer our society more economical, socially productive and ecologically more acceptable solutions to relevant problems related to the environment. During the preparation of our proactive programs (”Water for the 3rd Millennium”, “Blue Alternative”, “An Alternative Water Management Conception for Eastern Slovakia”, “Village of the 3rd Millennium in the Carpathian Euroregion”), based on grassroots principles, we have personally felt that this is the best and most effective way towards the solution of the problems facing Slovak society today. These are, unfortunately, tossed about in serious economic, social, cultural and environmental problems. It is even more important from the point of view of a society that has suffered the trauma of communist ideology, which had been preventing a free competition of independent ideas and alternative solutions of problems for decades.

We are here for the people, have strived, and will continue to strive to help people to understand that there are more economical, socially more righteous, culturally more valuable and environmentally more acceptable solutions, which will satisfy the needs of public. At the same time, it will enrich us by providing a more tolerant and humanistic relationship with the whole living and non-living nature, including man. This is what we, leaders and volunteers, friends and supporters of our non-profit organization , “People And Water”, strive for. We are here, and we specifically want to participate in solving the problems of Slovak society and of the whole BLUE PLANET.

Michal Kravcik
Chairman of the NGO People And Water

Contact:
MVO Ludia a voda
Cermelska cesta 24
040 01 Kosice
Slovakia
Europe
tel/fax: 00421-55-7998806,
ludiaavoda@ludiaavoda.sk

The circulation of water in nature takes place through the large and small water cycles. Humanity, through its activities and systematic transformation of natural land into cultured land, accelerates the runoff of rainwater from land. Limiting evaporation and the infiltration of water into the soil decreases the supply of water to the small water cycle. The equilibrium of the water balance in the small water cycle is thus disturbed and it gradually starts to break down over land.

If there is insufficient water in the soil, on its surface and in plants, immense flows of solar energy cannot be transformed into the latent heat of water evaporation but are instead changed into sensible heat. The surface of the ground soon overheats, and as a result, a breakdown in the supply of water from the large water cycle arises over the affected land. Local processes over huge areas inhabited and exploited by human beings are changed into global processes and with processes that occur without the assistance of human beings; together they create the phenomenon known as global climate change. The part of global climate change caused by human activities then is largely based on the drainage of water from the land, the consequent rise in temperature differences triggering off mechanisms which cause a rise in climatic extremes. The disruption of the small water cycle is accompanied by growing extremes in the weather, a gradual drop in groundwater reserves, more frequent flooding, longer periods of drought and an increase in the water shortage in the region.

The part of climatic change which is the result of human activities (draining of a region), can be reversed through systematic human activity (the watering of a region). The watering of land can be achieved through saturation of the small water cycle over land by ensuring comprehensive conservation of rainwater and enabling its infiltration and evaporation. This can help achieve the renewal of the small water cycle over a region and fundamentally change the trend of changing climatic conditions: it can—to reverse the trend of regional warming—temper extreme weather events and ensure a growth in water reserves in the territory.

The renewal of the small water cycle over an area, however, depends not only on the extent to which the area has been damaged but also on a number of other factors. In the case of Slovakia, we can expect visible results relatively soon (10 to 20 years) after implementation of these measures. The financial costs of these specific measures are moderate sums which can be allocated from state, public and private budgets. Support for the implementation of far-reaching measures should be linked pro rata to each 1 m³ of reservoir volume built in the ground or to anti-erosion measures carried out. The implementation of water conservation measures should, until the renewal of the small water cycle and the maximalization of a stable water balance in a region, replace previous investment measures, which only served to accelerate the runoff of water from a region.

The conservation of rainwater on land "in situ" and the conducting away only of the natural surplus of water in a region is "condicio sine qua non"—a condition essential for ensuring environmental security, global stability and the sustenance of economic growth. Fulfilling these conditions should be of interest to each individual and each community. This is the first time in the history of human civilization when the impact of mankind's activities on the water cycle and the decrease of amount of water in it will have to be evaluated. The statement of the Srí Lankan king, Parakramabahu the Great—"Not even a single raindrop should be allowed to flow into the sea without it first having been used for the benefit of the people..." —is the best summing up of the new water paradigm, a statement which, in the coming decades, should become a slogan for mankind calling for the preservation of civilization.