International Cooperation and Urban Development | Sustainable Emergency Architecture
guarantee a holistic development and longer life over the watersheds and its ecosystem. According to PNUD (2011) watersheds fulfill four main functions: hydrological, ecosystem, environmental and socio economic. Hydrological because is a natural water manager catching, storing and running off the water; ecosystemic because sustain all the species that conforms it; environmental because maintain the soil, regulate the water´s cycle and preserve the biodiversity helping also to absorb the CO2; and socioeconomic because provides it water needed for life and for producing energy, production and economic activities (PNUD, 2010) 10. 1.2.
Sustainable development A
basic
definition
says
that
sustainable
means
“capable
of
being sustained 11 ” but why is important to go beyond that meaning? During many decades the international community has been passive observer of the levels of degradation of the planet in pursuit of “development”. The international policies that “supported” cities development in developing countries in detriment of rural areas had as result, apart from economic or technological development sometimes, degradation of environments, exhaustion of resources and increase of urban poverty. In that context United Nations decided to evaluate the consequences of that development and its future consequences. Thus in 1983 the
Brundtland
Commission
12
defined
sustainable
development
as
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In this respect this definition implies the direct relation between human, economic and environmental development. But despite the efforts to conciliate all the dimensions, direct conflicts between themselves make difficult to reach that goal, especially in “developing” countries where global pressures, in order to reach “development”, have contributed to increase inequalities.
10
PNUD (2010, 12) Cartilla II: Agua para beber, agua para vivir
11
Merriam Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustainable
12
Formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), known by the
name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, was convened by the United Nations in 1983.
APPROACH TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF WATERSHED AREAS IN DRY CLIMATIC ONDITIONS
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