Environment Forum

Some good news for a thirsty world

Amid the worry about water and food scarcity, some hints of good news: a five-year, 30-nation analysis suggests there might be enough water – and therefore enough food — for Earth’s hungriest and thirstiest as the human population heads toward the 9 billion mark sometime around mid-century.

Anxiety about food and water supplies stems in part from the effects of climate change, with its projected rise in droughts, wildfires, floods and other events that cut down on food production. Another factor is the increase in population, much of it grouped around water sources in the developing world. But water experts said at a conference this week in Brazil that there could be plenty of water over the coming decades if those upstream collaborate with those downstream and use water more efficiently.

The leader of the study, Simon Cook of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, said this is actually possible. And he said it wouldn’t require the repeal of the more selfish impulses of human nature.

Citing an article in Harvard Business Review, Cook said, “It’s not necessarily human to be totally individualistic. There’s substantial evidence that people can collaborate.”

In fact, Cook said, this kind of discussion between upstreamers and downstreamers — the ones most likely to be at odds over how water should be used — is already taking place. There is evidence that China’s involved in a project to enable hydropower development along the Mekong River, one of several huge river basins examined in the water study. “They’re actually engaged in dialog with the people who will be affected by it” in Laos, Cook said, with a bit of wonder in his voice. “So there are some glimmers of hope.”

That would be different from what has often happened in developed countries, including the United States, where those who use water for irrigation may have scant discussion with those who use it for rain-fed farming, hydropower, aquaculture or other purposes.

The key is to communicate across borders and across sectors, Cook said. One problem is that those who have power tend to want to hang onto it.

The Beer-Water Nexus

Does the path to clean, safe water lead through a brewery?

Andy Wales, head of sustainable development at global brewer SABMiller, maintains it can happen.  The maker of Miller beer — and 20 other brands, from Aguila in Colombia to Zolotaya Bochka Klassicheskoye in Russia — likes the environmental angle, but the main impetus is to ensure production of their products in what is a highly variable business from location to location.

“Water is obviously a critical part of high quality beer,” Wales said by telephone from London. One important part of this equation is figuring out how to use less water and still make good beer.

What this means in practice is working with groups like World Wildlife Fund and GIZ, a German organization that coordinates international development and sustainable development efforts. It also means recognizing the potential for water scarcity and the need for conservation. The four countries seen as having the biggest long-term water risk are South Africa, Ukraine, Tanzania and Peru, Wales said.

“The goal is to reduce our water use per liter of beer by 25 percent by 2015 over a 2008 base,” Wales said. “So that’s from 4.6 liters per liter of beer to 3.5 liters by 2015. Water efficiency’s a big part of our operations everywhere.”

What does this have to do with making good beer? In South Africa, beer-making hops grow in the George region of the Eastern Cape — an area where weather patterns are shifting due to climate change. To keep the hops growing and beer flowing, SABMiller worked with a government scientific research organization called CSIR to understand risks to that watershed, and risks to the supply of water for irrigation of hops.

In Tanzania, water is scarce for another reason: infrastructure. The country’s biggest city, Dar es Salaam, is home to 4 million people, with a water supply for only 400,000 drawn from a source 90 kilometers away. Because the infrastructure to carry the water has problems, many local businesses dig for water, draining the water table. Since Dar es Salaam is a coastal city, digging for water near the ocean allows salt water to intrude into the water supply. One response to this is to invest in equipment to protect the main water supply, Wales said. Another is to seek better enforcement and regulation of ground water.

from The Great Debate UK:

“Dutch dialogue” aids New Orleans restoration

-Han Meyer is Professor of Urban Design at Delft University of Technology.  He has been a principal organiser of the ‘Dutch Dialogues’ with New Orleans since 2005 and is Editor of ‘New Orleans-Netherlands:  Common Challenges in Urbanised Deltas’. The opinions expressed are his own.-

In August 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated large swathes of the U.S. Gulf Coast and overwhelmed New Orleans causing what then-U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff described as “probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in U.S. history.

Katrina’s punishing storm surge, strong winds and massive rainfall weakened flood protection infrastructure which then failed, flooding coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, including 80 percent of New Orleans:

• Tragically, at least 1,836 people lost their lives, while a massive 1.3 million residents were evacuated, some never to return.
• The scale of the carnage is underlined by the fact that U.S. federal disaster declarations covered some 90,000 square miles, an area almost as large as the United Kingdom.
• The U.S. Geological survey has estimated that some 217 square miles of land was transformed to water by Katrina and Rita.
• The economic impact of the crisis has been estimated at some 150 billion pounds, with around 81 billion dollars in property damage alone.

The disaster was not only the costliest in U.S. history, but also served as a major warning for all urbanised deltas across the world of the need to maintain sufficient and efficient flood defences and water management systems.  As such, one of the biggest questions raised in New Orleans itself since 2005 has been how, and indeed whether, the city should be reconstructed and redeveloped given the threat it will continue to face from future hurricanes and catastrophic flooding.

This debate has not only prompted major interest from U.S. planners, engineers and designers, but also public authorities and politicians too, including Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, about international best practice, especially the pioneering ‘Dutch tradition’ of combining water management with urban development.

A better way to clean water?

Treating water for human consumption is costly and energy intensive. Is there a more efficient way to do it?

Gunter Pauli thinks so.

In the first innovation explored by PhD, entrepreneur and eco-designer Pauli in the ZERI Foundation’s two-year essay and video project The Blue Economy, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs, the self cleansing mechanism found in natural water sources is identified as a possible solution to treating water without the huge cost in chemicals and energy.

Rivers clean their own water all the time, and for free, Pauli says in his essay. Their secret? A combination of gravity and a swirling motion called the vortex. If there were a way to replicate that function in water treatment facilities, it would mean energy savings and less cost for producers down to consumers.

This is the idea that inspired Swedish inventors Curt Hallberg and Morten Oveson to design and build the technology to replicate the self-cleansing function of the vortex.

Based on this technology, they started a company, Watreco AB, initially serving water-dependent businesses like ice rinks and golf courses.

Watreco, Sweden’s 2009 GreenTech company of the year, is now taking the vortex into a whole new arena: industrial water treatment and desalination.

from The Great Debate UK:

Bringing a new perspective to World Water Day

- Dr. Ir. Jules B. van Lier is a professor at Delft University. The opinions expressed are his own. -

The international observance of World Water Day, this year on March 22, is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.  This year’s theme -- ‘Clean Water for a Healthy World’ -- reflects the fact that population and industrial growth are adding new sources of pollution and increased demand for clean water across the world.

Human and environmental health, drinking and agricultural water supplies for the present and future are at stake, yet water pollution rarely warrants mention as a pressing issue.

It is absolutely right that water quality considerations should be highlighted just as much as water quantity issues going forwards.

However, what is sometimes obscured in this important debate is that, even with a step change in global water treatment efforts, vast amounts of potentially valuable wastewater will continue to be produced for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, in some developing countries some 80 percent of all waste is being discharged completely untreated, because of lack of regulations, resources and control. Globally, it is estimated that 1,500 cubic kilometres of wastewater is produced on an annual basis, whereas the world renewable fresh water reserves amounts to only 40,000 cubic kilometers per year.

Realising that 1 m3 of non-treated wastewater may spoil over 1000 m3 of fresh water for human consumption or other activities, the urgency of the matter is obvious..

from Russell Boyce:

Don’t drink the water, even if there is any to drink (Update)

One more picture that caught my eye during the 24 hours news cycle for the World Water Day is the image of hundreds of hoses providing drinking water to  residents of a housing block in Jakarta.  The grubby plastic pipes supplying a fragile lifeline to families seem to represent the desperation that people face when the water supply is cut off.

Hoses used to supply residences with water are seen hanging across a street at the Penjaringan subdistrict in Jakarta March 22, 2010. Residents in the area say that they have had to construct makeshift water supplies for their homes by attaching hoses to pumps bought with their own money, as the government has yet to repair the original water supply which was damaged. March 22 is World Water Day.     REUTERS/Beawiharta

Today, March 22 is World Water Day and Reuters photographers in Asia were given an open brief to shoot feature pictures to illustrate it.  The only requirement I asked of them is that they included in the captions, the fact that while the Earth is literally covered in water, more than a billion people lack access to clean water for drinking or sanitation. At the same time in China 50 million people are facing drought conditions and water shortages and the two stories seemed to tie in with one another.

Looking at the file today three pictures really stuck home to me as to just how enormous the problem of getting clean water to people in the world is.

A boy swims in the murky waters of Manila Bay March 21, 2010. The Earth is literally covered in water, but more than a billion people lack access to clean water for drinking or sanitation as most water is salty or dirty. March 22 is World Water Day.    REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo

Rainy Taiwan faces awkward water shortage

 Chronically rainy Taiwan faces a rare water shortage as leaders ask that people on the dense, consumption-happy island of 23 million finally start changing habits as dry weather is forecast into early 2010. 

Taiwan, a west Pacific island covered with rainforests and topical fruit orchards, is used to rain in all seasons, bringing as much as 3,800 mm (150 inches) on average in the first 10 months of every year. But reservoirs have slipped in 2009 due to a chain of regional weather pattern flukes giving Taiwan too much dry high pressure while other parts of Asia get more storms than normal, the Central Weather Bureau  says.

Deadly typhoon Morakot  in August brought more than half the year’s rain to much of south Taiwan, washing away drought fears as well as a lot of other things. But the three-day storm dumped too much rain at once for much storage or use. Despite the typhoon, southern Taiwan’s anchor city Kaohsiung was 20 mm below average in the first 10 months of 2009, with the typhoon’s contribution about half the 1,747 mm total. Below-average rainfall resumed after the typhoon, the weather bureau said, and the same is forecast through February.

Some reservoirs in south and central Taiwan have hit water-rationing levels, a senior climate researcher told the United Daily News , adding that “southerners had better not go home for the Chinese New Year” in February.

Authorities in Taiwan won’t say when they might ration water or how long Taiwan can get by without more rain. For now they are trying to wash off the spectre of rations by asking ordinary people to make awkward, expensive lifestyle changes. One: Reuse water used for baths or laundry to wash floors. Two: Install low-flush toilets, low-flow faucets  and low-usage washing machines. The island’s Water Resources Agency aims to reduce today’s average per capita water use of 274 litres per day down to 250, said drought prevention director Wang Yi-feng. “We also hope they change and correct their use of water,” Wang said. “To reuse water can save a lot.”

Consumers are likely to consider low-flush, low-flow appliances only when buying new homes or remodeling them, being in a mood already to spend money on updates, said a volunteer surnamed Tsui with the Consumers’ Foundation, Chinese Taipei. “But if you’ve got older equipment, then maybe not. The cost would be unknown.”

((Photos: Low water levels in Taiwanese reservoirs – courtesy of Government water resources agency))

Oceans away! U.S. makes federal stab at ocean policy

The seven seas get a single U.S. approach in a draft federal plan for oceans released on Thursday (and dated Sept. 10, when it was given to the prez). The report is a response to President Obama’s request for a plan and says a new National Ocean Council should use ecosystem management to take on the task. Previous efforts have been focused on solving individual problems — saving fisheries, stopping water pollution — which did not always match.

“This is the first time they have declared their intention to adopt a new way of managing the oceans, one that puts a priority on the health of the marine ecosystem, from which all the other benefits flow,” said Chris Mann, director of the Pew Charitable Trust’s campaign for healthy oceans.

Goals include addressing changing conditions in the Arctic, reacting to climate change and ocean acidification and land practices that affect water.

But wait — until they come up with details, it might not amount to a hill of beans.

Photo credit: Reuters/ (Fishing boats and other vessels form the words “Acid Ocean”  in Alaska,  September 2009)

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan’s cry for water

Pakistan is running out of water so fast that the shortage will strangulate all water-based economic activity by 2015, a Pakistani thinktank says.  And that pretty much covers 70 percent of the population  who are involved in farming.

This is not a new warning.  In recent months,  as this blog itself has noted, experts have painted an increasingly bleak scenario of Pakistan's rivers drying up, the ground water polluted and over-exploited and the whole water infrastructure in a shambles.

But Pakistan, as the Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies says, is not listening.  Pakistan has gone from a "water scarce" country to a "water-stressed" country, worse than Ethiopia, the Centre says quoting a  2006 World Bank study. In 10 years time, it will become a water-famine country.  

Among the 25 most populous countries, South Africa, Egypt and Pakistan are the most water-limited nations, that study said.

According to the World Bank data, Pakistan only stores 30 days of river water, India stores 120 days, while the Colorado river system in the U.S. has storage capacity of up to 900 days of water usage.

The depletion of water resources is unchecked, as the 2009 UN World Water Development Report points out. It says that the total actual renewable water resources in Pakistan decreased from 2,961 cubic metres per capita in 2000 to 1,420 cubic metres in 2005. A more recent study indicates an available supply of water of little more than 1,000 cubic metres per person. 

from Global Investing:

Water investments

A growing number of Investors, including state-owned funds, are looking to invest in water to benefit from efforts to tackle climate change.

According to multi-asset manager Armstrong Investment Managers, less than 0.01 percent of water is easily accessible freshwater and global water use has tripled since 1950 -- increasing faster than the world's population.

"Demographic and climate changes will lead to two thirds of the population inhabiting areas with scarce water," the firm says.

Armstrong likes water equipment and water treatment stocks and water utilities as these should benefit from sustainable growth opportunities.

Norway's $350 billion sovereign wealth fund is aiming to invest 20 billion crown ($3.24 billion) investments over the next five years into water and other environmental technologies, such as carbon-capture storage and waste and pollution management.

The Norwegian fund says water was an important input or production factor for about 1,100 companies in its, whose combined market value is some $43 billion.