Episode 5- Water: How do we care for Water?
Agua es vida. The Spanish expression, ‘water is life’ is simple and direct. Yet in western civilization we use water with little understanding of its source or value; rather, we use it to flush away our waste, treating it as a waste product. With .7% of the world’s water in potable form, we can no longer afford to take it for granted. Planning our buildings and communities around a continuous source of clean water is a matter of survival and health. By understanding the water cycle and living systems, though, we can easily achieve a nearly unlimited source of water in our built environment.
Our guest, Michael Ogden, is the founder of Natural Systems International, an internationally recognized engineer focused on using the ecologies of pond, marsh, river, prairie, and woodland for the treatment and reuse of wastewater and stormwater. With his experience on over 500 projects involving such natural systems, he co-authored the book Constructed Wetlands in the Sustainable Landscape.
