Groundwater-Related Risk Assessment - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 760

example, one can claim that the groundwater is a precious part of pristine nature
and is essential for peace of mind, and must be respected and protected. Even more
extreme, it is known that humans have brought to bear supernatural or religious
arguments in the discussion of the intrinsic value of groundwater. According to
Islam all water is a gift of God. In Christianity and the western world, identical
traditions evolved with regard to springs such as the one at Lourdes. The words
'water' and 'wells' are often mentioned in religious readings such as the Chronicles
and the Exodus. Wells are mentioned many times in the Old and New Testaments,
for example, in relation to the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan women.
Water from the Zamzam well close to the Kaaba is considered holy, as it is related
to the water that saved Ismail, the ancestor of the Arabs and his mother Hagar
(Ezsoftech 2009 ). 'Living water' often gets a double meaning: as real water from
a well, it is needed for any living creature to survive, and likewise the Holy Books
refer to believing as the drinking of the 'living water' (E. Smidt 2009 'personal
communication').
Groundwater, being less visible than surface waters, is more easily associated
with holiness. It cannot be excluded that water was considered an important resource
not only for religious reasons, but also because it was an extremely scarce product
due to its absolute importance for human life and its scarcity in arid areas such
as Palestine. A similar hypothesis could contribute to the explanation of the wor-
shipping of wells in several cultures, generally in regions where water is a scarce
resource.
Taking into account religious and spiritual wisdom in water management can
play a positive role in promoting wise water management by linking values and
actions that promote sustainable water management (Schelwald-Van der Kley and
Reijerker 2009 ).
17.2.4 Sustainability
One of the biggest challenges with regard to a sustainable environmental policy
is found in groundwater protection. In general, sustainability relates to a specific
state of a process, or state, that is able to continue or to be maintained indefinitely.
In this topic a wider definition such as the Brundtland Commission definition of the
General Assembly of the United Nations (United Nations 1987 ) is used (see Section
1.9.6): a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs or negatively affecting the
wider surroundings . This expansion of the common sustainability definition is espe-
cially relevant with regard to groundwater as a pathway for contaminant transport,
since contaminant transport may lead to risks at places far from the source.
Several groundwater reservoirs have been used as sustainable drinking water
resources for many decades, or even centuries. As a consequence, the general belief
often was that at least the next few generations might be able to benefit from the
same groundwater reservoirs. In the past, a sustainable water supply was typically
considered to be a matter of water quantity, in other words, that it was related