The gift of water

Published in 2005

Since being named an Associate Laureate in 2002, Makoto Murase has kept his global campaign to recycle rainwater overflowing with new ideas. His concepts have brought a healthier and more prosperous life to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the developing world. But despite Murase’s efforts, nearly 600 million people in the developing world use less clean water a day than people in rich countries use to flush toilets.

Under his now well-worn banner of “Replace Battle Tanks for War with Water Tanks for Peace”, Japanese civil servant and urban planner Makoto Murase organised the Tokyo Asia Pacific (TAP) Sky Water Forum. His ambitious purpose was to show the United Nations and its member states, as well as non-governmental organisations, that one of the world’s most valuable natural resources — “sky water” in his picturesque vocabulary — is a viable alternative to water piped from reservoirs.

Murase, who has a doctorate in pharmacology, began his attempts to save water in Tokyo, where he had a rainwater-recycling system built into a new sports arena. This pilot project gave him data demonstrating that such systems can easily pay for themselves while unburdening the city’s utilities.

This success encouraged him to devise a city-wide plan to reduce water consumption by 25 per cent. Besides the new construction techniques concocted for large structures, he proposed creating a network of localised catch basins — mini-dams in his parlance — to collect rainwater for gardening, washing cars and flushing toilets. This, in turn, led him to less prosperous places overseas, mainly rural areas, where he adapted the concept for local use, a move made possible by funds from his Rolex Award.

Within 25 years, Murase points out six out of every ten people will be living in cities, most without adequate water supplies to meet their current needs. Coping with demand for water will devastate the surrounding agricultural infrastructure, exiling more rural people to the cities. “Who then,” he asks, “will be left to grow the food?” Murase points out that the need for urban drinking water – which needs to be purer than water used for many other purposes – is minuscule in relation to overall demand. He believes that rainwater could fill much of this enormous need.

Replacing reliance on distant reservoirs and expensive pipelines with the use of Murase’s mini-dams could at least buy enough time to devise lasting, more multifaceted solutions. As for drinking water, there can be problems removing airborne contaminants from rainwater falling in polluted cities, but there are also solutions. Murase, however, feels more comfortable leaving the technological ways and means to expert scientists while he concentrates on the supply side. The efficacy of recycling rainwater has already been shown in Bermuda, and Murase himself has perfected and proven the concept in Japan and south-east Asia. “We don’t need more research or prototypes,” he claims, “rather, we need a greater long-term commitment toward the application of existing technologies and making them less expensive and easier to maintain.” He explains that the world is not looking closely enough at “downstream” rainwater, and this is potentially dangerous, fraught with possibilities of future water wars.

Meanwhile, Murase concentrates on rural areas, especially in countries like Bangladesh whose traditional sources are poisoned by arsenic. After developing a self-sanitising container for storing rainwater, Murase installed dozens of 2,000-litre tanks, making them available to Bangladeshi communities for less than US$75, along with a “micro-credit” scheme to pay for them. He has also introduced more than 100 rainwater collection systems made from bamboo and costing less than two dollars each.

Funds from his Rolex Award have also paid for the translation of Murase’s groundbreaking “Sky Water— Rain in Japan and Around the World” into English. This book is now a standard reference for recycling rainwater. Its overriding message is that harvested rainwater can be as important as surface sources and groundwater, but successful recycling must involve decentralisation and the empowerment of local communities.

Murase refuses to categorise himself as a dreamer. “I am simply a very practical man,” he says, who has enjoyed some success in turning theoretical dreams into life-sustaining realities. In evaluating his work, he takes an equally modest approach, explaining that it, along with conservation at large, is merely a matter of mutual concern and understanding about a subject of interest common to all the world’s people, whatever their economic or social standing. “I believe my salary is paid not just by today’s taxpayers, but also the people of the future,” he says, adding that he thinks of himself simply as a resident of this planet. His ultimate goal is to give everyone in the future the gift of clean “sky water”.

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