Reporter passionate about the village world, cats and existential questions.
Water use has always been an indicator of social relations. In western societies, most treat drinking water as a simultaneously infinite and hyper-individualised resource. But plastic pollution and the climate emergency are forcing us to question our consumption habits.
During communism, extensive irrigation systems turned the regions along the Romanian Plain into major producers of fruit and vegetables. But when the infrastructure collapsed, so did the ecosystems built around it. Today, farmers are digging wells to deal with desertification: a risky strategy.
