The Water Sciences: Present and Future
The water sciences are now entering a process of accelerated development. Numerous factors can explain this rapid evolution : a) the important investments in measuring systems that now allowed the characterization of water properties, b) the considerable expansion of mathematical and systemic approaches to the interpretation of data, c) the recent progress in interface tolls for computer modeling and the subsequent diversification of simulation models and the remarkable development in water chemistry, biology and toxicology that followed, have all largely contributed to the actual broadening of the theoretical and applied knowledge base on water. Furthermore, the scientific and technical efforts unfolded in order to explain social problems related to water shortages and to find sustainable solutions have also contributed to the diversification and deepening of this wide knowledge base. In this article, taking into consideration the deepening and diversification of the related knowledge base, we question ourselves on the evolution of water sciences in the future. We first underlined the socioeconomic problems that can be solved either by the application of actual knowledge, its refinement by learning from applications, or by the development of new technical ability for the interpretation of hydrological phenomena. We then distinguished between the activities undertake to solve scientific problems justified by long term social benefits (the science push) from those that aim to find solutions to important socioeconomic problems (the social needs for scientific knowledge). We then look at the different factors that help the achievement of research enterprises and explain the effect of those factors on the orientation of scientific projects. Doing this, we formulate the hypothesis that it is the search for solutions of socioeconomic problems that, on the basis of actual scientific ability, that will be the prime factor for the evolution of water sciences in the future, its dynamic and orientation. Finally, we propose a general approach that can help the understanding of the evolution of water sciences. This model represent the dynamic of scientific initiatives as affected by two attracting poles : the first pole is related to the needs for scientific knowledge for water management problems (i.e. the rational and engineering approach to water problems), and the second being the needs for the specific knowledge required for public administration of water (i.e. the policy and political approach to water problems). In general, we may conclude that the water sciences can be conceived as the scientific constructs generated by the application of particular scientific basic knowledge to water and its relations with natural and human systems. Those scientific constructs on water and its systemic interactions with terrestrial and human systems develop from this process are not as well structured as the sub-domains that emerge under traditional domains like biophysics, biochemistry, basic hydrology, political economy, or so. They are coherent sets of inter-disciplinary constructs elaborated to explain or predict complex natural processes or systems of relations between human and nature, mostly in response to real or perceived social needs. Is this to say that the scientific works on water will not succeed in the establishment of well-structured scientific subdomains like hydrology for example ? In spite of the evident progress, natural water and its relation with nature and human systems will remain for a long time applications domains of the fundamental knowledge that have been developed in the basic or applied sciences. Those applications will certainly produced new theories or original basic knowledge with high explicative or predictive values. In this manner, the object of the applications (water) and its context (natural and human systems) are the prime determinant of knowledge development, while in comparison, in basic sciences, it is the knowledge per se and its related instrumental capacities that mostly determine its own evolution. The development rhythm of technical and scientific knowledge on water is strongly influenced by the attention that society brings upon the resource. In the future, social preoccupations about water should increase considerably in light of its growing scarcity and the collective obligations to cope with higher probabilities of related extreme events. The type of knowledge that should developed will depend upon the specific approaches to social problem solving retained by political and administrative authorities, while in turn, those approaches will be influenced by research and development done in the field of management and public administration of water.