**1.3 Experiences with actual soft path analyses**

Soft path analysis as a detailed and rigorous method was initially developed around energy alternatives. Soft path analysis as a methodology was initially developed in the 1970s in a search for alternatives to conventional energy policy by Lovins. Its normative base was clear from the start. The early work was done within Friends of the Earth USA, partly as a way to counter the then-growing drive to build nuclear power plants (Brooks, 2005).

By the end of the 1970s, articles on soft energy paths were appearing in professional journals, and several books had been published. By the middle of the 1980s, the methodology could be considered proven; some 35 soft energy path studies had been published for various nations or regions of the world. Canadians were among the leaders in seeing the potential for soft energy paths, and Friends of the Earth Canada provided the base for some of the developmental work and later for four iterations of soft energy path analysis on Canada, including a 12 volume report by Brooks, Robinson and Torrie in 1983, and a more popular book by Bott, Brooks and Robinson in 1983. Methodological guides were also made available (Brooks, 2004).

Though no nation or state whole heartedly accepted soft path conclusions as guiding principles, their impact was quite evident in policies that began to lean toward soft technologies and in results that showed more "new" energy coming from gains in energy efficiency than from all new sources of supply together (Brooks, 2005).

In comparing and contrasting energy and water we can notice water and energy exhibit many analogies, not just as physical substances, but also in the ways in which human beings have developed them as resources. The gradual shift from simple to combined to highly complex technologies, and from individual to local to highly centralized systems, has typified these two key resources for human development. However, the shift has proceeded much further for energy than it has for water. In many respects, water systems and water policies are not so far from the soft alternative today as energy policies and systems already were 25 years ago. Water supply is, for example, typically municipal or at most national in scope, and much of it is publicly owned; energy supply is commonly global in scope, and much of it is privately owned (Brooks, 2003). But looking at water or energy as a bundle of services, rather than as a commodity, many more options can be conceived to satisfy demands (Brooks, 2005).

### **1.4 Water soft path analyses**

From the first, analysts agreed that the soft path methodology could be applied to other natural resources, but analytical models have only appeared for energy, and, more recently

Water Soft Path Analysis – Jordan Case 291

The soft path can be defined in terms of its differences from the hard path. The two paths

1. The soft path redirects government agencies, private companies, and individuals to work to meet the water-related needs of people and businesses, rather than merely to supply water. For example, people want to be clean or to clean their clothes or produce certain goods and services using convenient, cost-effective, and socially acceptable means. They do not fundamentally care how much water is used, and may not care whether water is used at all. Water utilities on the soft path work to identify and satisfy their customers' demands for water-based services. Since they are not concerned with selling water per se, promoting water-use efficiency becomes an essential task rather than a way of responding to pressure from environmentalists. The hard path, in contrast, fosters organizations and solutions that make a profit or fulfill their public

2. The soft path leads to water systems that supply water of various qualities, with higher quality water reserved for those uses that require higher quality. For example, storm runoff, gray water, and reclaimed wastewater are explicitly recognized as water supplies suited for landscape irrigation and other non potable uses. This is almost never the case in traditional water planning: all future water demand in urban areas is implicitly assumed to require potable water. This practice exaggerates the amount of water actually needed and inflates the overall cost of providing it. The soft path recognizes that single-pipe distribution networks and once-through consumptive-use appliances are no longer the only cost-effective and practical technologies. The hard path, in contrast, discounts new technology, and over-emphasizes the importance of economies of scale and the behavioral simplicity of one-pipe, one-quality-of-water,

3. The soft path recognizes that investments in decentralized solutions can be just as costeffective as investments in large, centralized options. For example, there is nothing inherently more reliable or cost-effective about providing irrigation water from centralized rather than decentralized rainwater capture and storage facilities, despite claims by hard-path advocates to the contrary. Decentralized investments are highly reliable when they include adequate investment in human capital, that is, in the people who use the facilities. And they can be cost-effective when the easiest opportunities for centralized rainwater capture and storage have been exhausted. In contrast, the hard path assumes that water users— even with extensive training and ongoing public education—are unable or unwilling to participate effectively in water-system

differ in at least six ways according to Wolff, Gary and Peter H. Gleick (2002):

objectives by delivering water—and the more the better.

changes.

**1.6 Differences between soft and hard paths** 

once-through patterns of use.

management, operations, and maintenance.

backwards to find a feasible and desirable way ("a soft path") between that future and the present. The main objective of planning is not to see where current directions will take us, but to see how we can achieve desired goals. This step is called "backcasting" (to make an obvious contrast with forecasting). It is at this stage that appropriate transition technologies must be identified to bridge the time between full implementation of soft technologies. Finally, at the end of the process politically and socially acceptable policies and programs must be defined to bring about the desired

and more partially, for water. Still today, it is fair to say that, to date, there has been no full water soft path study – at least not if by "full" we mean a semi-quantitative model of water scenarios based on soft path methods and relying on soft technologies.

The early proposals for and experiments with water soft path studies published prior to 2000 are described by Brooks (2003). Since that report, there have been further publications. By far the most important is another report from Peter Gleick and his colleagues at the Pacific Institute (Gleick et al., 2003). This report provides a review of urban water use in California, and of cost-effective methods to reduce consumption. This report is both more detailed and more rigorous than anything else to date. Happily, its conclusions are equally impressive: Without any change in water end-uses, economic structure or expected growth, at least one-third of all water use could be saved by the application of technologies that are cheaper than the costs of new supply. Should these technologies be adopted (at reasonable rates of implementation), projected economic and population growth in California could be accommodated without a single additional water supply project.

In Canada, The POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the University of Victoria has created an Urban Water Demand Management group. Since 2003, this group has published a series of reports (Brandes, 2003; Maas, 2003; Brandes and Ferguson, 2004). The first report used information in the Statistics Canada Municipal (Water) Use Database (nicknamed MUD) to identify wide variation in both total and domestic per capita water use in Canadian municipalities. With some exceptions, it also identified an association of lower rates of use with the presence of water metres and with higher water prices. This report notes the opportunity to reduce water use in Canadian cities just by bringing the higher water consuming cities down to best practices elsewhere in Canada, and the latest report suggests the policies that would be effective at achieving this goal (Brooks et al, 2004).
