Global%20Issues%20Project%20Water%20Issues%20Expert%20Roundtable%20WATER%20FOREsight

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Global Issues ProjectWater Issues Expert
RoundtableWATER FOREsight

• David Harries, PhD, P Eng
• Royal Military College
• Foresight Canada

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Outline

• Water
• Futures
• Foresight
• Water Foresight
• Water Facts

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WATER

• Security
• Safety
• Sufficiency So many
• Shares challenging factors
• Science with complex relationships
• Substitutes
• Settings

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WATER SECURITY

• Security of source
• systems
• infrastructure
• access
• people
• funding

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WATER SCIENCE

• Science (and technology)
• for Production gtgtgt
• for Performance gtgtgt
• for Preservation gtgtgt

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WATER SETTINGS

• Water in changing
• - Climates
• - Seasons
• - Politics
• - Demands
• -

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FUTURES

• 1988 (-20) !
• 2008 (now) !
• 2028 (20) ?
• Predictions
• Accidents

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1988

• USSR, Cold War, Berlin Wall
• search engines ?
• personal computers ?
• Magnetic resonance?
• Global warming ?
• brick phones
• Human Genome project?
• Nano- ? Cyber- ?
• Oil at US 10-20 per barrel

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2008

• The world is getting better and better, worse
  and worse, faster and faster.
• The problem with life is there are no rehearsals
  life is live.

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GREAT PREDICTIONS

• Heavier than air flying machines are impossible -
  Lord Kelvin, President Royal Society 1882
• The horse is here to stay, the automobile is a
  novelty - Bank Manager to Henry Ford 1908
• There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power
  of the atom - Robert Milliken, Nobel Prize in
  Physics 1923
• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? - Henry
  Warner, Film Producer 1927
• There is a world market for about five computers
  - Thomas Watson IBM 1943
• We dont like their sound, and guitar music is on
  the way out - President Decca Records, rejecting
  the Beatles 1962

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ACCIDENTS - Serendipity

• Viagra
• ATMs
• Frisbee
• Gelatin
• Microwave
• Post-it
• Slinky
• Superglue

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FORESIGHT

• What it is
• Definition, description and elements
• What it offers
• Why it is needed
• A way it is done

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FORESIGHT IS

• Definition
• - process and ability to prepare better, sooner
  for the (uncertain) future
• Description
• - process and ability to anticipate to create
  and maintain a high-quality, coherent and
  functional forward view..
• Elements
• - three dozen one dozen key ones

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Foresight is

• NOT
• futures studies
• not in a/the future

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2028

• ?

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FORESIGHT OFFERS

• HELP
• -examining developments out 5-25 years
• -understanding ranges of factors and drivers
• -accommodating risk, diversity
• -anticipating multiple plausible futures
• -highlighting emerging opportunities, threats
• -designing rehearsals
• -creating transition strategies for preferred
  outcomes

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FORESIGHT IS NEEDED BECAUSE

• assumptions, biases, organizational structures,
  the rewards paradigm, and the urgency of the
  present fog the fact that the future WILL NOT
  be what, today, we prefer it will be.
• S.W.O.T. in 2008 WILL NOT be S.W.O.T in 2028

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A FORESIGHT PROCESS

• 1. Define project topic
• 2. Review current situation
• 3. Identify key lenses
• 4. Answer challenge questions
• 5. Identify change drivers
• 6. Select critical drivers
• 7. Design scenarios
• 8. Populate each scenario
• 9. Back-cast to today
• 10. Synthesize and recommend (action)

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a Foresight process for WATER

• Define project topic safe water
• Review current situation ltthis workshopgt
• Identify key lenses security
• Answer challenge questions trends?
• Identify change drivers climate
• Select critical drivers technology
• Design scenarios not 3, not too many
• Populate each scenario write the 2028 story
• Back-cast to today 2028gt ?? gt 2008
• Synthesize and recommend action now

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WATER FORESIGHT

• Water issues
• Now
• 2028?
• Water Competence
• Now?
• 2028?
• 2028 Water Scenarios

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WATER ISSUES

• Now !

• 2028 ?

Security Safety Sufficiency Shares Science
Substitutes Settings
The same list? The same order of
importance/magnitude? The same relationships?
WHAT DO WE PLAN FOR, AND, THEREFORE WHAT DO WE
HAVE TO BE COMPETENT AT IN 2028?
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plus Innovation Adaptability
always a f(t)
Responsiveness
Sustainability
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WATER COMPETENCE

• Now ?

• 2028 ?????

IN TERMS OF WATER ISSUES, DO WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE
COMPETENT IN TODAY? DO WE KNOW THE COMPETENCES
WE HAVE NOW THAT WE SHOULD BUILD ON, AND
THOSE WE CAN LET GO?
WHAT STRENGTHS WILL WE NEED TO COMPETENTLY DEAL
WITH THE THREATS TO AND EXPLOIT THE OPPORTUNITIES
FOR WATER IN 2028 ? AND WHAT WEAKNESSES MUST WE
AVOID ?
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2028 WATER SCENARIOS

• Water Wars
• UCC
• Pipeliners
• Bottle Borders
• OWEC
• Leisure Caps
• PWGSC
• Sovereign Waters
• Happy Humanity

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WATER FACTS

• Water is today a strategic material in every
  sense of that term. It is impossible to imagine
  it being less so in 2028.
• Some of each of all the water scenarios will have
  happened by, be happening in, or be about to
  happen in 2028.
• We can neither predict which or when some will
  happen, nor the relationships and consequences of
  them, in 2028 or thereafter.

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Water Foresight Facts

• Foresight on water is a process that, done well,
  offers
• a means to focus on to explore - the most
  important plausible water scenarios the worst
  case one and the best case one and those between
• support for development of options for the future
• a foundation for more confident, better decisions
  (and not) to shape water realities future.