Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Corporate Hydrologist and the Communications Gap

2007; Wiley; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1745-6584.2007.00368.x

1745-6584

Todd Jarvis,

Transboundary Water Resource Management

Guest editorials by Stephen Ragone (Ground Water, September to October 2002) followed by T.N. Narasimhan (Ground Water, January to February 2003) offered challenges to the ground water profession to seek consilience by acquiring knowledge beyond the traditional areas of the earth sciences, including economics, policy and regulatory analysis, social science, demographics, history, culture, moral reasoning, comparative religion, and the like. After working as a “corporate hydrologist” for 20 years, I found their challenges most compelling, so much so that I left Corporate to acquire skills in these very disciplines. But what field of study weaves the earth sciences with the tools in the social sciences that Ragone and Narasimhan identify as providing a “seat at the table where decisions will be made about the future of the world”—one of the metrics of Corporate “profit”? Surprisingly, the nexus between these disciplines and the earth sciences actually serves as the historical foundation of ground water hydrology—geography. Yes, careful examination of the history of ground water science finds that even the ancients who observed and developed the earliest theories about the sources and movement of ground water were geographers. I think many in Corporate today view geography much in the way geographer George D. Hubbard described the discipline in a 1951 edition of the Journal of Higher Education—“a borderline subject with links to many departments, useful to all but lacking definite outlines and disciplines of its own.” Like many in Corporate, I wondered how one could make a living memorizing the locations of the different countries and their respective capitals—an important skill if one truly is searching for a “seat at the table where decisions will be made about the future of the world.” But I also learned that geography fostered training in another aspect important to Corporate but rarely offered in the technical curriculum of the earth sciences—skills in communication. George Bernard Shaw, playwright and 1925 Nobel Laureate in Literature, once said that “the problem with communication . . . is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” I recall an adage heard in the 1980s that went something like “Geologists and engineers make wonderful company—to other geologists and engineers.” If one wonders why no one is listening to earth scientists, we have ourselves to blame. Communication in the earth sciences has to extend beyond just publishing articles in technical journals. So, what makes geographers skilled communicators? Geographers taught me that skilled communication extends beyond the gambit of public speaking and technical writing and extends to developing “listening” and “visioning” skills commonly associated with the fields of conflict management, negotiation, mediation, and fostering community collaboratives through public participation. To underscore their passion for this mission, consider how many technical fields in the earth sciences are actively involved in designing stakeholder friendly tools like public participation geographic information systems? Looking ahead to the future of remedying future water management failures, Swedish water experts Ronny Berndtsson, Malin Falkenmark, and their colleagues conclude that university curricula for water experts must establish strong links with the socioeconomic and human sciences (Hydrologic Sciences, 50(1), February 2005). They echo Ragone’s and Narasimhan’s advice on expanding the “toolbox” of Corporate and argue that water experts must receive training in communication skills. These include how to approach interest groups and decision makers, meeting opposition and negotiation, acting as educators and trainers, and explaining methods and visualizing techniques in a “pedagogical manner” to transfer knowledge. Skilled communicators who also serve as international water experts are trained to recognize not only that they may bring solutions to conflict but also that they may be sources of conflict. The conflict management skills that I acquired acknowledge that disputes over water resources are not only interest based, which typify the conflicts that Corporate regularly addresses, but also value based and are closely tied to place and identity—and the study of space, place, and cultural identity are the “bread and butter” of geography. Skilled communicators also recognize that “relationships matter” when it comes to resolving conflicts over water resources—spatial and cultural relationships within political boundaries and beyond transboundary situations are clearly geographic in focus. Disciplined-based solutions in hydrology are still important but must be tempered by the problem-based approach used by geographers by including the human dimension within future water management. Irish dramatist and poet William Butler Yeats succinctly summarized the new paradigm—“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”