Water Ethics Lecture for Myanmar Young Water Professionals on 15 May 2020. Myanmar Water Sector Reform Activity, Myanmar Water Academy.

1. Ethics for Water Professionals Lecture
by Prof. Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein
15 May 2020, Myanmar Water Academy
(YWP 5th Batch)
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2. Science, Values, and Ecological Vision
Thinking (1)
• In 1958, just five years after Watson and Crick revealed the
molecular structure of DNA, the philosopher Hannah Arendt
warned presciently of the growing alienation that science was
causing between humankind and the natural world.
• This warning came in her book The Human Condition at a time
when the “biological revolution” was still nascent, and well before
the dawn of contemporary genetic engineering and
biotechnology.
• “The human artifice of the world,” Arendt writes, “separates
human existence from all mere animal environment, but life itself
is outside this artificial world, and through life man remains
related to all other living organisms.
2
Bruce Jennings
Reference Source: Minding Nature Journal
August 2009, Volume 2, Number 2

3. Thinking (2)
• For some time now, a great many scientific endeavors
have been directed toward making life also ‘artificial,’
toward cutting the last tie through which even man
belongs among the children of nature.”
• And she concludes, “The question is only whether we
wish to use our new scientific and technical knowledge in
this direction, and this question cannot be decided by
scientific means; it is a political question of the first order
and therefore can hardly be left to the decision of
professional scientists or professional politicians” (p. 2-3).
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Bruce Jennings
Reference Source: Minding Nature Journal
August 2009, Volume 2, Number 2

4. What is water ethic?
• A water ethic -- a guide to right conduct in the face of complex decisions
about natural systems that we do not and cannot fully understand. (Ref.
WEN https://waterethics.org/)
• The essence of such an ethic is to make the protection of freshwater
ecosystems a central goal in all that we do. (Ref. WEN)
• The values and principles — the ethics — should be stored in our value
system that underlying the way we use water, share water, and care for
water ecosystems. (Ref. WEN)
• Water Ethics: Many of today’s water challenges are not merely
technological in nature, but also ethical. They are about the trade-off
between different functions of water, about the division of
responsibilities, and about collective versus individual interests.
Prof.dr.mr.ir. Neelke Doorn https://www.tudelft.nl/ethics/ethics/teaching-
activities/ethics-teaching/ethics-20/water-ethics
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5. Many Questions confront the World
• How can we ensure that an adequate supply of clean water is available,
both for today and for coming generations?
• How equitable will access to it be? How should it be managed, and by
whom?
• What will the implications of climate change be on the quality and
quantity of fresh water?
• Is clean water destined to become for the twenty-first century what
petroleum was for the twentieth, a source of geopolitical power and
conflict?
• Will social change concerning water use come through technological
innovation or through cultural and value change, or some combination of
both?
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Reference source: https://www.humansandnature.org/principles-of-water-ethics

6. Diseases, Pandemics (COVID-19)
and Water Ethics
• Concurrent with the ecological dimensions of the water crisis are public
health dimensions, including, but not limited to, the spread of water-
borne diseases, particularly in the developing world.
• Existing systems need to be modified, or new systems need to be created,
so as to achieve more just access to clean drinking water, as well as to
provide for effective societal responses to public health concerns.
• Existing systems consisted of hardware and software.
1. Water technologies, water management systems as hardware and
2. water ethics as software.
• Water Professionals are Key to success. They need to know not only
interdisciplinary but also transdisciplinary!
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7. Why do we need water ethics?
• We need an environmental ethic which will
safeguard the integrity of water ecosystems in
the face of unprecedented human pressures
and climate change. Water ecosystems have
inherent rights, and intrinsic value over and
above their utilitarian value to people.
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Reference source: https://www.humansandnature.org/principles-of-water-ethics

8. Environmental Ethics
• Environmental ethics is the philosophical
discipline that considers the moral and ethical
relationship of human beings to the
environment.
• Human values become a factor when looking
at environmental ethics because they are the
things that are important to individuals that
they then use to evaluate actions or events.
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9. Water Ethics
• Water is not so much a “resource” as it is a
lynchpin in the entire web of planetary life.
• The focus of ethics is therefore not on water
in isolation, but on the water cycle and how
the cycle connects the land and the
atmosphere.
• The notion of a “watershed” has this
connotation, connecting water, the soil, and
the biotic community.
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Reference source: https://www.humansandnature.org/principles-of-water-ethics

10. Water Ethics (Contd.)
• The ethical values of efficiency, equity, and stewardship can form a basis of a set
of ethical principles that can normatively guide water management and public
health policy.
• Additional principles of water ethics will be based on procedural and decision-
making process values, such as democratic governance rights, active
participation, transparency, accountability, and public-private collaboration and
partnership.
• Implementing these ethical ideals and obligations in practice is shaped by a
number of factors:
1. Who participates in the decision-making process?
2. Is participation active and involved in formulating options or is it
passive and reactive to proposals that are already well-developed?
3. What kind of information is open to the public?
4. How do professionals interact with non-professionals?
5. Is there respect for cultural diversity and traditional beliefs and
practices?
6. And finally, how is a balance determined between the needs of human
development and the need to preserve our natural resources?
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11. Ethic and Sustainable Development
• https://slideplayer.com/slide/9574451/
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12. Water Ethics – Orientation for Water Conflicts as Part
of Inter- and Transdisciplinary Deliberation
• The notion of a water ethics has only emerged over the past 10
years.
• It is mainly motivated by environmental concerns and the
observation of water conflicts.
• This chapter focuses on the ethical aspects of human interventions
into water systems.
• It describes cultural, moral and religious attitudes towards water
and reviews the state of the art in this field.
• Its main objective is to conceptualise water ethics on the basis of
the philosophical approach of discourse ethics and to draw
conclusions for ethically responsible interventions into water
systems and for dealing reasonably with water conflicts.
• Far from promising “miracles” from water ethics, the specific added
value of ethical considerations lies in providing the orientation for
ongoing debates on water challenges by not only applying
substantial principles, but by offering suitable procedures as well.
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Ref. Source: Armin Grunwald

13. Principles of Water Ethics
by: Bruce Jennings, Kathryn Gwiazdon, Paul Heltne
• The significance of water for life and health is fundamental and
can scarcely be overstated, and hence the pertinence of ethics to
water utilization and management is clear in a general sense.
• It is important for everyone involved in water resource
management and in public health to have a well-reasoned
understanding of the moral values and obligations that
correspond to that significance.
• In the domain of ethics, questions of scientific knowledge come
together with aspects of cultural meaning and perception;
➢ questions of conservation, sanitation, and health promotion come
together with questions of justice, equity, and human rights;
➢ questions of sustainability and biodiversity come together with
questions of democratic governance, law, and policy.
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14. WASH, DRR, IWRM
• National Water Resources Committee and its mandate
• WASH
• DRR
• IWRM
• Access to clean water and adequate sanitation is a growing
problem for many parts of the world. More than one billion
people are in need of clean water, and 2.6 billion lack
access to basic sanitation.
• Water-related Disasters and Risk Reduction
• Water intensive agricultural, manufacturing, and land use
practices throughout much of the world are drawing down
or contaminating groundwater at an alarming rate.
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15. Participatory Water Management
• Stakeholder Roles in Rio Grande Basin Management, by
David Groenfeldt; Report to Audubon New Mexico, 2011.
•
• A Watershed Perspective for Water User Associations,
training module by David Groenfeldt, prepared for the
International Network on Participatory Irrigation
Management, 2006.
•
• Case Studies in Participatory Irrigation Management, report
by David Groenfeldt and Mark Svendsen (eds), World Bank
Institute Learning Resources Series, 2000.
•
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16. Literature
• Water Ethics
• Water Ethics, book chapter by David Groenfeldt, in Springer Handbook of Water Resources Management, Edited by Bogardi J.J., et. al.
•
• Why We Need Water Ethics, article by David Groenfeldt in American Scientist, Sept-Oct 2019
• Imagining an Ethical Future for the Mekong River, article by David Groenfeldt in Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs, 4(2), 2018
•
• Water Ethics Network Newsletter (monthly, 2011 to 2018)
•
• Water Ethics Conceptual Framework, by David Groenfeldt in Water Resources Impact, March 2018
•
• Overview of Water Ethics, by David Groenfeldt in Water Resources Impact, March 2018
•
• Introduction to Water Ethics, essay by David Groenfeldt in The Leopold Outlook, 16(1), 2016
•
• Why Cultural Diversity Matters for Healthy Rivers, article by David Groenfedt in Langscape, 4(1), 2015
• Toward an Ethical Response to the Water Crisis, Talk by David Groenfeldt at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Maryland, 24 March 2014
• Ethics and Water Governance, article by David Groenfeldt and Jeremy Schmidt, in Ecology and Society, 2013
• The Next Nexus? Environmental Ethics, Water Policies, and Climate Change, article by David Groenfeldt, in Water Alternatives, 2010
• When Good People Do Bad Things: Confronting Western Water Culture, article by David Groenfeldt, in Anthropology News, January
2010. 16

17. Water Ethic Charter/ Water Ethic Network
• https://waterethics.org/the-water-ethics-charter/
• https://kalliopeia.org/
• The Water Ethics Network offers a forum for water professionals, business
leaders, indigenous representatives, academics, civil servants, artists,
philosophers, and everyone interested in water to reflect on the values
and principles — the ethics — underlying the way we use water, share
water, and care for water ecosystems. The Water Ethics Network provides
a on open space where ethics can be explored, reported, and
debated. You are cordially invited to participate! Click on the Get Involved
page for links to our social media sites; subscribe to (and contribute news
for) the monthly e-newsletter; send in suggestions for the Resources page,
or write a guest post for the Blog. Send your news, views, or questions
to network@waterculture.org.
• The Water Ethics Network is an initiative of the Water-Culture Institute
and is made possible through a generous grant from the Kalliopeia
Foundation, plus contributions from individual supporters.
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18. Purpose and Background of the WEC
• The purpose of a Water Ethics Charter is to provide a moral
basis for water management decisions which cannot be
accurately valued in financial terms, and are not mandated
legally. In partnership with the Académie de l’Eau,
UNESCO, and other organizations, and in consultation with
key water stakeholders (companies, cities, government
agencies, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, etc.) we will develop
consensus around a clear set of ethical principles for
governing water use and management. The Charter will be
presented at the World Water Forum in South Korea in
April 2015, followed by a campaign to build awareness
about the Charter and invite endorsements.
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19. The Water Ethics Charter
• The Water Ethics Charter will serve as a tool for
better decision-making through crystalizing
ethical concepts that make intuitive sense to a
broad range of stakeholders, cutting across
cultural boundaries and gender, age and class
distinctions. The Charter will articulate a
common set of principles about how water and
water ecosystems should be utilized and
protected for the benefit of present and future
generations.
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20. Some provisional objectives of the Water Ethics Charter
(subject to revision)
• Some provisional objectives of the Water Ethics Charter (subject to
revision) are the following:
• . . .
Articulate clear principles and guidelines of what constitutes ethical water
practices in particular situations;
• Recognize inherent rights of water ecosystems to exist in a healthy state,
and the right of people to enjoy clean water and healthy water
ecosystems;
• Raise awareness about the ethical implications of water policies and water
decisions at multiple scales;
• Elicit endorsement by companies, agencies, cities, indigenous groups and
NGOs to uphold and disseminate the Charter;
• Promote social and legal reconciliation among diverse stakeholders
through values-based deliberation and consensus around a shared water
ethic.
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21. Water ethics and water resource
management
• Ethics and Climate Change in Asia and the
Pacific Project (Working Group (14) Report)
• Will be given (Text Book)
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Reference Source: Minding Nature Journal
August 2009, Volume 2, Number 2

22. Reimagining Water . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . in Agriculture
• Perspectives on Global Food Ethics (Blog post
by David Groenfeldt, Jan. 30, 2015)
•
• Multifunctional Agricultural Policies and
Practices in Europe and Relevance for
Monsoon Asia, report by David Groenfeldt,
December 200
22

23. Reimagining Water . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . in Agriculture (contd.)
• How the multifunctionality concept can restore meaning to
agriculture; by David Groenfeldt, In, Bertus Haverkort and
Coen Reijntjes (eds), Moving Worldviews: Reshaping
sciences, policies and practices for endogenous sustainable
development. Leusden (Netherlands): ETC/Compas
• Managing Water for Happiness (Paper by David Groenfeldt
presented at the International Seminar on Operationalizing
Gross National Happiness, Thimpu, Bhutan, 18-20 February
2004.
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24. In Oceans
• ...in Oceans
• Applying Ethics to the Challenges of Oceans
Governance, by David Groenfeldt, presented
at the workshop on Oceans Governance at
The Hague Institute, The Netherlands, 31
March, 2016.
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25. In Culture
• Engaging with Communities on Freshwater Protected Area
Establishment and Management. Report by David Groenfeldt,
commissioned by The Nature Conservancy, 2019.
• Ethics as a Bridge between Traditional and Contemporary Water
Governance, by David Groenfeldt, presented to the Symposium on
"Governance of Water Resources: Values, Traditions and
Contemporary Policies," Rabat, Morocco, March 12-13, 2015.
• Water development and spiritual values in western and indigenous
societies. Book chapter by David Groenfeldt, In M. Chibba, D.
Nakashima, and R. Boelens (eds) Water and Cultural Values. Paris:
UNESCO, 2006.
25

26. Code of Ethics and Standards of
Practice for Water Works Professionals
• Code of Ethics and Std. of Practices for Water
Works Professionals.docx
• Four Pillars
• See the handout Text / paper
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27. အရှင်ဘုရရ ...
ုရရ တပညဘ့်တတ ဘ၊ ဆရတတ င်ဘ တ ဘ၍
ပူတ ဘပါရ၊ ကက ပနဘ လှကရ
ုရရ ့်ကျွနဘအ ၊ တ တတ ထ ၍
သန သဖြင်ဘ့်၊ လှ ဘ လင်ဘ့်တတ ဘ ှု
ခံယူတလပါ၊ ကရရဏ သခင်ဘ
တရွှေြရနဘ ရှင်ဘုရရ ။
တပညဘ့်တတ ဘသညဘ
အတလ ဘအသင်ဘ့်၊ တရှ ကံပင်ဘ့်၍
ဖ င်ဘ့်ဖ တဘသ စညဘ၊ ဖ နဘ ဖပညဘ၌
သတဓေတညဘက ၊ ြ ဖ င်ဘလ သညဘ
စ ဂရဏဘယူ ပါသညဘ။
ြ ရ ၊ ဖပညဘဖ နဘ ၏
သကခ အကင်ဘ့်၊ ဖ င်ဘ့်ထကဘ ဖ င်ဘ့်တအ င်ဘ
ပင်ဘ့်သညဘပည ၊ ဖြ ထကဘဖြ တအ င်ဘ
ဝ ဇ တတဘ ၊ တရ ထကဘတရ တအ င်ဘ
27
ကရယဘက ကဘစ၊ တြကဘတညဘ ကကညဘ့်၍
ကရယဘက ၊ ရဓရ ဓရ ဖြင်ဘ့်
လပဘ စဉဘလ ၊ သ ယရတဘ ဟရ
ရံွံ့ရှ ြယဘလ၊ တလ ုရှတသ
ကဘစကင်ဘ ရပါလရ၏။
တင်မိုး ၏ နှင်ိုးီပွငင်ေါ်ွ အွ်ေါ်ွ ်ခြင်ိုး ကဗ စ အွ်မှ
ကက ွန်ိုးွူေါ် ် ၊ ၃၀၊ ၄၊ ၁၉၇၂
စကဘ ရ စကဘ တဖ ၊ စကဘကက တစလ ကဘ
တလှ ှသတုဘ ၊ တတ ှမ ွံ့ဖပ
လှညဘ ှဂကဘယ ဉဘ၊ ကညင်ဘဆမ ှ လ ပဘစစဘ
တတခတဘထကဘ တတခတဘ
သစဘထကဘသစဘတအ င်ဘ
တခတဘတဟ င်ဘ ကရလှနဘ၊ တခတဘသစဘြနဘြရို့
ဓရင်ဘင်ံ၏သ ၊ တ ၀နဘ ဟရ
သန လညဘပါသညဘ အရှင်ဘ။
ကက ပနဘ ဒါနံ၊ တက င်ဘ ှုကံတကက င်ဘ့်
ဓရင်ဘင်ံအက ၊ ဆထ ဘ ပရ ဖြင်ဘ့်
သယဘပရ ပါရ၊ ဖ တဘု၀ကရ
တတ င်ဘ့်တဆရပနဘလရပါသညဘ။

28. တင်မိုး ၏ နှင်ိုးီပွငင်ေါ်ွ အွ်ေါ်ွ ်ခြင်ိုး ကဗ စ အွ်မှ
ကက ွန်ိုးွူေါ် ် ၊ ၃၀၊ ၄၊ ၁၉၇၂ (အီက်)
အတကဘ၊ တရင်ဘ ဖပညဘရှကဘ ညဘ့်
ကဘဓှ လှ၊ ှုကစစကရ
တရှ င်ဘရရှ ရ ပါလရ၏။
ကရယဘက ကဘ၍
ြ ကဘခ့်သစစ ၊ အကက ကဘရှ က
ကဘဓှ ရတကက င်ဘ ၊ လ ကရတရ င်ဘ ၍
တက င်ဘ သညဘကရ၊ အတက င်ဘ ဆရလ ကဘ
ယရသူ ရှကဘ၊ ဖ င်ဘသူရှကဘ
အထကဘကရပင်ဘ ၊ တအ ကဘကရနင်ဘ သညဘ့်
သ ဘြ င်ဘ ူရ ၊ စတဘဓံရခ ကရ
တအ င်ဘပါလရ၏၊ တအ င်ဘလရ၏။
28
တန င်ဘအခါ
ရ ၀င်ဘတင်ဘ၊ စ တင်ဘရ ညဘ
ရှသညဘ ှနဘစ ၊ ထရတရ ခါ၌
ရ ၀င်ဘတရ ၊ ဥ ဏဘပတဂ တရို့
သ ဘ တသ ဆံရ ၊ သတရ ဘပပံ ှ
လံရ လံရ လတဘရပါလရ၏။
တပညဘ့်တတ ဘသညဘ
တက ဘ ကက ၊ ထင်ဘရှ သညဘ့်
လူသ ညဘက ၊ ဖြစဘရပါတစ
တတဘပါသ ၊ စ ဘ အစဖြင်ဘ့်
န ြကဘ၊ အ ကဘ ရှ
သတတကရတ ၊ ကရတကျွ လ ကဘ
တက ူ သတတဘ၊ သ နဘဖ တဘဟရ
သ ှတဘကကညဘဖြြူ၊ ဓှုတဘပ ံွံ့ကကြူဖြင်ဘ့်
ဂရဏဘယူ၀ ဘ သ ၊ ဖ နဘ ၏
ကဘဓှ ပနဘ ကရ ဖ င်ဘလရ၏။
---

29. Thank You!
Contact: Prof. Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein
aiweb.lead@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/khinninithein
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