{"id":5040,"date":"2014-08-11T08:58:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T13:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:30:39","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:30:39","slug":"urban-planners-in-zaragoza-test-the-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2014\/08\/11\/urban-planners-in-zaragoza-test-the-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Planners in Zaragoza Test the Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The aqueducts in Segovia were one solution to Spain’s need for water. But they’re not the only one. Photo by Paulo Guerra<\/a> via Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spain has always gone to great lengths to meet its high demand for water, but when faced with a shortage, the town of Zaragoza took a different approach. When severe droughts in the early 1990s caused reservoirs to dry up, forest fires to rage, and crops to wither, it became clear that the inland city would not be able to meet their high demand. V\u00edctor Vi\u00f1uales, the director and co-founder of the Spanish NGO Fundaci\u00f3n Ecolog\u00eda y Desarrollo (Ecology and Development Foundation), used his understanding of sociology to devise an innovative solution. He tells The Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cTrained as a sociologist, Vi\u00f1uales wondered what would happen if municipalities focused less on making sure residents had access to all the water they wanted and more on reducing demand. From that thought began a 15-year experiment in Zaragoza that has revolutionised how many in Spain \u2013 from locals to public officials \u2013 think about water management.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vi\u00f1uales lead an ambitious project that began with a challenge to the city’s citizens to save 1 billion liters of water in a year. He used a widespread media and social outreach campaign, offered free audits to help find water saving opportunities, gave discounts on water saving products, and even changed the city’s water bills so citizens could track their changes in usage. Zaragoza stepped up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday Vi\u00f1uales rattles off statistic after statistic to show how this city of 700,000 has transformed itself. Between 1997 and 2012, per capita use of water in Zaragoza dropped from 150 litres\/day to 99 litres\/day. The drop even sustained an increase in population; between 1997 and 2008, the city\u2019s population grew by 12% but daily water use dropped by 27%.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vi\u00f1uales was able to use both social and economic factors to effect the lives of the people of Zaragoza and make a huge stride forward in sustainability. While he acknowledges the success he has seen, he reminds us that \u201cTo achieve profound change \u2013 whether it be environmental, social or cultural \u2013 you have to be prepared to take it on for the long haul. Here in Zaragoza we\u2019ve had that profound change. The population grew, but we use fewer resources than before. It\u2019s really what needs to be achieved on a global level.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spain has always gone to great lengths to meet its high demand for water, but when faced with a shortage, the town of Zaragoza took a different approach. When severe droughts in the early 1990s caused reservoirs to dry up, forest fires to rage, and crops to wither, it became clear that the inland city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1889,"featured_media":5041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,33],"tags":[3862,3866,3644],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-health","tag-natural-resources","tag-sustainability","tag-urban-planning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2014\/08\/aqueductos.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5044,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions\/5044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}