Newsletter and Technical Publications
<Sourcebook
of Alternative Technologies for Freshwater Augumentation
in East and
Central Europe>
2. DEFINITIONS
In this Source Book, technology is broadly defined, including
technologies that range from the reintroduction of beaver to the use of
water-saving products and ecological information campaigns. While a more
narrow definition of technology limits the use of the term to the use of
technological equipment, in the sense of machinery, it fails to perceive
or include the sense of relationship between nature and society as being
affected by the technology and ignores the greater framework within which
the technology is developed and selected. Technology, in the broadest
sense, encompasses both its forms (as knowledge and know-how, or as
embodied in equipment and products) and use as a key factor in all human
activities and walks of life. Technologies that maximize the efficiency of
use of existing freshwater resources or augment existing sources of water,
in this broader sense, are a vitally important element of development in
all countries. However, such technologies are especially important in
Eastern and Central European countries because, during the era of
ideological and economic domination by the Soviet Union in this region,
urbanization and industrial development were performed without regard for
the proper measures of water management that this broader definition of
technology implies.
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