COGNITIVE AND CULTURAL INERTIA AS OBSTACLES TO THE HIDROLOGICAL TRANSITION, A FORMATIVE PROPOSAL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Abstract

The forecasts of climate change scenarios regarding water availability and its distribution at a spatio-temporal scale, demand new perspectives of analysis that promote more sustainable and adaptive management approaches from both environmental and social perspectives. This process of hydrological transition entails radical changes, from water management models based on the development of hydraulic infrastructures to new ecosystemic and holistic management approaches. This transition is hampered by cultural and cognitive inertias resistant to change where educational strategies can make interesting contributions. The article describes and analyzes an educational experience carried out in two contexts of non-formal teaching, in the field of advanced environmental education. Through group analysis of selected texts, different ideological and conceptual scenarios related to the necessary hydrological transition are constructed. The analysed texts refer to the conceptual underpinnings of the Spanish “hydraulic regeneration” movement, to the permanence and influence of those ideas to this day - what we call cognitive inertias -, and to the persistence of water management challenges despite a century of hydraulic interventions and the new approaches to sustainability and water rationality. The experience highlights the complexity of conceptual change processes, the need to know the ideas underlying water perceptions in order to transform them, and the need for educational strategies to facilitate the hydrological transition.