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Book Review
| From a Few to All: Long-term Development of Water and Environmental Services in Finland Edited by Petri S. Juuti and Tapio S. Katko. Pieksamakik, Finland: KehraMedia Inc., 2004. 175 pp.
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"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
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| Benjamin Franklin |
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| Finland might not have experienced many dry wells in its history. On the contrary, it is a country with abundant water resources of high quality and quantities. This does not make the history of water management in Finland less interesting. Even Finland has had water problems. From a Few to All surveys the development of water technology from the 1800s to the present. The articles in the book cover the long-term development of water supply, sewage and sanitation, policy changes, and lessons learned. It ends with a discussion of the convergence of history and the present. Two distinct perspectives are featured: health and water and the environment and technology. Readers are offered specific case studies, both rural and urban. The first pipe was laid in Turku in the mid-1600s. The evolution of common rural water supply systems, however, became more intense after 1900 and was based on cattle farming. In urban areas wells were common until the mid-1800s, but began to disappear with the growth of cities. The first urban water supply was completed in Helsinki in 1876. |
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The authors focus on four reasons why water and sanitation systems developed: fire, thirst, health, and hygiene. The evolution of water systems and services is described in more detail in—among others—the city of Tampere, the first industrial and third biggest city in Finland, a case that on a smaller scale reflects Finland as a whole. The historical development indicates that Finland's road to a secure water supply and sanitation for all was rocky. When looking at the institutional framework, the discussions about how to construct water supply and sewage services might be summarized as public versus private ownership and central government versus local government. The authors conclude that the construction of the water system was carried out through the cooperation of private and public stakeholders and that they got weak support from central government. The main model was one of cooperation among several parties, including associations of professionals like engineers and academics. |
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Water, water management, and sanitation are common topics in the field of environmental history, both in the United States and in Europe. What makes this book particularly interesting is the multidisciplinary approach and the ambition to link historical research with contemporary research. Even if the historical description sometimes suffers from a jumpy chronology or fragmentation, this is outweighed by the interesting discussion of the role of time in history and research and by the use of the path-dependence theory. By showing that key strategic decisions in water supply and sanitation were to a large extent path dependent, the book is a good example of how theory may be fruitfully linked to historical practices, which may inform solutions to current problems. |
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Hilde Ibsen is associate professor of history at Karlstads University, Sweden, where she teaches environmental science. She has contributed to ABC-Clio World Environmental History (forthcoming). One of her current research projects is the writings and environmental ideas of Rolf Edberg. |
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