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SUSTAINABILITY: Water ‘Scarcity’ Can be Fixed – Report

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Mar 5 2004 (IPS) - Despite a worldwide rise in consumption, there would still be adequate water on planet Earth for everyone if waste was ended, says a new report by an independent research group.

According to the WorldWatch Institute in Washington the world faces a problem of “over-consumption” and “under-consumption” of water rather than the more clichéd image of a planet suffering from water scarcity.

“There is more than enough water, but so far the political will and financial commitments to provide the poor with access to it have not been sufficient,” says the U.S. non-governmental organisation (NGO).

“The headline stories about water scarcity and increasing population can seem pretty dire sometimes but à through water efficiency technologies and good practice, we can boost the productivity of our existing limited supplies à and that’s good news,” said the institute’s Amy Vickers, a water conservation engineer.

“The challenge is implementing these efficiency measures and that’s where I see the need to put emphasis,” she told IPS.

The vastly uneven distribution of water shows clearly on a global level. Only six countries – Brazil, Russia, Canada, Indonesia, China and Colombia – account for half of Earth’s total renewable freshwater supply.

Canada, for example, ranks near the top of water affluence, with more than 92,000 cubic metres of water per person.

At the water-poor end of the spectrum is Jordan, with annual renewable supplies of only 138 cubic m per person.

This imbalance between the water-rich and poor is further complicated by hugely divergent consumption patterns.

While industries account for about 22 percent of the world’s total freshwater withdrawals, they claim a far higher share in industrial countries – 59 percent on average – than they do in developing ones – 10 percent.

Individual water use is also very high in rich nations. The report cites the example of one U.S. resident of water-strapped Orange County, Florida, who was billed for 15.9 million litres (l) of water for one year – a volume roughly equivalent to what 900 Kenyans use annually.

Indoor water use in U.S. homes is estimated to average 262 l per capita a day, while the irrigation of U.S. lawns and landscapes daily claims an estimated 30 billion l of water – a volume that would fill 14 billion six-packs of beer.

With its high meat content, the average U.S. diet requires 5.4 cubic metres of water per person per day, twice as much as an equally – if not more – nutritious vegetarian diet from rice.

Water is often distributed unevenly within countries, as well. China, for instance, has 21 percent of the world’s people, but only seven percent of its renewable fresh water – and most of that supply is in the southern part of the country.

These imbalances have produced disastrous results in some regions.

Worldwide, freshwater wetlands have shrunk in area by about one-half. At least 20 percent of Earth’s 10,000 freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction or already extinct because of periodic droughts and massive diversions of water for irrigation, says the institute.

One out of five people in the developing world – 1.1 billion in all – faces disease and death because they lack “reasonable access” to safe drinking water, it adds.

Water tables are falling in many countries too because of the over-pumping of groundwater.

Recent projections quoted in the report indicate that by 2025 numerous river basins and countries will reach a situation in which 30 percent or more of their irrigation demands cannot consistently be met because of water shortages.

But these daunting problems are not so hard to solve, argues the report. Globally, providing universal access to 50 l of water per person per day – a reasonable amount needed for clean water and sanitation – by 2015 would require less than one percent of current global water withdrawals.

Vickers suggests this can be done by changing habits, increasing the productivity of water and stopping waste.

Delivering and applying water to crops more efficiently and increasing crop yields per litre of water consumed are ways to efficiently manage agricultural water, the report says.

Shifting diets, too, will allow people to meet nutritional needs with less water. It takes five times more water to supply 10 grams of protein from beef than from rice, and nearly 20 times more water to supply 500 calories from beef.

A pressing need is to combat water waste in urban areas, the report adds.

Most of the world’s 16 mega-cities – those with 10 million or more inhabitants – lie within regions experiencing mild to severe water stress. These cities include Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta, Karachi, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City and New York City.

Recovery of water “lost” from leakage, faulty measurements or corrupt accounting is a great untapped water supply that could help reduce water scarcity, says the report.

“Tremendous volumes of fresh potable water are lost simply to leaking pipes,” added Vickers, one of the report authors. “This is a common problem even in the most advanced countries and it really has yet to be fully addressed or solved”.

Governments that have adopted measures to fight water waste, including those in Denmark, Singapore and some U.S. states, have succeeded, adds the institute.

In Denmark, utilities are taxed 0.7 euros or about 0.85 U.S. dollars, per cubic metre if their leakage rate exceeds 10 percent of the water they use. As a result, in 2000 only eight out of 40 of the largest water suppliers there reported losses exceeding 10 percent.

Through forceful leak detection and repair, pipe renewal and 100-percent metering, Singapore reduced water waste from 10.6 to 6.2 percent of usage from 1989 to 1995, and saved over 26 million dollars in avoided capital facility expansions. By 2003, the amount of lost water had dropped to only five percent of that used.

“In applying these efficiency technologies, we are not saying it’s going to solve every problem, but when you are conservation minded in your water management, and if you actually apply those principles in practice, I think what we’ll we see is a future where we have far more available supplies of water than what we have now,” Vickers predicted.