Cultural Interpretation and the Implementation of Water Conservation Policy

Dr. Erin H. Addison, MLA Candidate
Dr. Margaret Livingston, Assistant Professor
School of Landscape Architecture

Abstract
Water use is ultimately determined by a set of socio-economic practices within a given cultural context. While an enormous amount of technical expertise must be applied to the matrix of issues involved in water conservation, this effort will be fruitless without attention to social context. In the following paper we address the importance of cultural research in the implementation of water conservation, wastewater re-use, and xeriscape principles in Jordan. 
Every cultural system entails long traditions of water use and waste management which are important to understand in order to adapt appropriate conservation practices. Three important facets of water conservation are (1) appropriate and affordable water harvesting (catchment and storage), (2) wastewater re-use; and (3) xeriscape – the planting of low-water-use landscapes and crops. The implementation of all three of these practices require public education, however: re-settled bedouin culture does not have a long tradition of water harvesting; wastewater re-use sometimes seems to offend religio-cultural sensibilities regarding purity; xeriscape may not at first appeal to cultural landscape ideals (e.g., the "paradise garden"). All of these water conservation practices show great promise in Jordan, but they require broad-scale, culturally appropriate education of the water-using public if they are to be implemented successfully.