Water is scarce.
Most of us use water as if it is fully available. It is not.
The water we need - freshwater and drinking water - is scarce.
71% of our Blue Planet is covered by water. Of the total water available, an estimated 2,5% is freshwater. Of this less than 1% is accessible available for us to drink.
Growth needs water.
In the western world, we do not (yet) have an imminent issue getting potable drinking water. But with population growth, urbanisation & climate change, countries like Australia, area’s like California and cities like Cape town experiencing extreme heat periods and droughts. Water supply is not given anymore everywhere at any moment. By 2025, half of the world’s population will live in water-stressed areas. People and companies need to adjust their behaviour. Improving water efficiency, reusing wastewater by recycling and recuperating energy will become of economic and strategic importance.
Not priced right.
Although today still relatively cheap, water costs are increasing year on year faster than any other utility in the US (and this since 1984 !), today driven by sewage costs mainly. But also in the UK, costs for water and sewer is increasing YOY faster than the Consumer Price Index and this for the past 40 years. The biggest issue here is that scarcity is not yet part of today’s pricing – and where energy prices are falling due to the transition to sustainable energy sources, sewage costs will always be there and will increase.
Water is used inefficiently, or even wasted.
An estimated 14% of drinking water used in homes is pure waste as it is actually leak water. In UK, a third of drinking water supply (the distribution pipes) is lost to leaks, leading to a certain water shortage by 2025 – if government, water companies, companies & end consumers fail to meet consumption reduction & leak reduction targets. On top, leaks in buildings are the biggest source of damage. In Germany alone, over 1.1 million pipe related water damage claims are reported – every year. Water in the house is not managed – it is available or not that’s it.
Besides leaks, water use by devices installed in the home can be inefficient. From the simplest taps and mixers that used to consumer 12 l/min in the nineties, new ones consume only 5,8 l/min or less, driven by new standards originating from regulators in water scarce areas, like Calgreen from California. The best thing: it’s easy to consume less by simply replacing the mousseurs. But looking at the water guzzlers in the home, toilets on rainwater, showers with flow and/or time limiters and newest generations of washing machines can dramatically reduce water consumption. A new washing machine built in 2011 consumed around 80 litre per washing cycle versus 43 litre in 2019!
Agriculture accounts for 70% of water withdrawal. More than 25% of crops grow in areas suffering water stress, rising to 40% taking into account irrigated areas. As water demand is forecasted to rise 50% by 2030, where agriculture drives half of the growth, water stress becomes a problem at massive scale. Water stress has a direct impact on the agricultural productivity and on crop & animal choice – we will need to transform our eating habits: 1 kg lentils needs 1.250 l of water versus 16.000 l water needed for 1 kg beef. On top, up to 40 percent of food we produce is wasted – that’s a lot of wasted freshwater… We therefore need to reduce food waste, shifts towards healthier/vegetarian diets, optimise crop breeds, implement individual plant-based irrigation…
Water is polluted
Globally, 1 billion people have no direct access to potable water. Over 2 billion use drinking water sources contaminated with faeces and every year at least 3 million people die by improper sanitation (over 2.3 billion do not have proper sanitation). According to WHO investing 1 dollar in improving sanitation, hygiene and drinking water quality returns 8 dollars in economic benefits. On top The world’s freshwater resources are increasingly polluted with organic waste, pathogens, fertilisers and pesticides, heavy metals, and emerging pollutants.
Water quality will be affected also by climate change. Water temperature starts to rise and will result in reduced dissolved oxygen and thus a reduced self-purifying capacity of freshwater bodies. This has an immediate effect on water quality as will pollution and pathogenic contaminations (disease-causing bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites) due to floods. Pathogen contamination is the most widespread water quality problem already in developing countries due to unsafe water and sanitation. Climate change will bring more extreme weather more frequently leading to these floods and droughts. Precipitation in certain areas will rise and elsewhere will reduce, combined with increasing evaporation due to the increased temperatures.
And then there’s the plastic ocean. Exemplary is the use of plastic straws by humans: only in US & UK together, we use 550 million plastic straws per day, worldwide over 500 billion plastic bottles are used, 1 billion of toothbrushes are discarded in the US every year and 1 trillion plastic bags are thrown away globally every year. Single use plastic is a drama as a lot ends up in the ocean: over 8 million tons of plastic are dumped in the oceans every year. Plastics degrade slowly but decompose in seawater to micro plastics that enter our food chain via fish or … drinking water. As this pollution is still a fairly new phenomenon, scientists did not yet conclude on the short- and long-term negative effects of micro plastics on life.
Zooming in on drinking water consumption, the increase in plastic bottled water consumption not only leads to environmental problems due to waste and transportation. According to recent studies bottled water contains twice as much micro plastics as normal tap water in US. Even tap water is not perfectly clean. With a contamination rate of 94% in US and 72% in Europe (see full study), another test has proven the weakness of water supply again. One of the key suspects is surprising to the least: we are more and more wearing clothes made of advanced plastics. When washed, small micro plastic particles are polluting the wastewater at the end landing into the drinking water supply.
“When the well’s dry, we know the value of water.”
— Benjamin Franklin