Ethical and Moral Issues Relative to Groundwater

Abstract

Groundwater is the major freshwater continental resource and reserve. Its quantity and quality are characterized by the delayed and damped response to external action and the large storage with slow renovation rate. This is not known to everybody and is difficult to be experienced personally, as groundwater cannot be directly observed. Therefore, specific knowledge is needed to address correctly the ethical and moral issues related to aquifer use and management. Poor consideration cause deviated policies, social disturbance, inefficiencies and negative impact on the environment and the services it provides. The subject of ethics is humans, but not Nature and the environment as such. This is something that some powerful organizations and minorities try to reverse, by subverting the principles of ethics and trying to erase the God-related fundamentals of moral. Groundwater ethics deal with present circumstances, as well as with the future, represented by scenarios that, to be ethically acceptable, should be non-biased, scientifically feasible and free of pre-set orientations aimed at other objectives. Ethics play an important role in water policy making, especially for groundwater. Science and technology cannot produce unique solutions to existing human and environmental problems if conditions are not previously set by a well-informed society and administrative, legal, social and economic agreements bound the objectives. This involves deep ethical and moral implications. Science and technology contribute the means to convert objectives into assessments that help in decision making at a higher level.