Nearly 40% of the world will live in water scarce regions by 2025. Many say there will be wars over water. How can we resolve this serious challenge? Rolph Payet, Special Adviser to the President of Seychelles explores.
Water is more fundamental to life than oil, yet we spend billions to extend our oil-driven economies when at least 1.1 billion people on the planet lack access to safe water. That’s about 18 % of the world population in need of water and who are likely not to get any anytime in the near future, due to increased population and economic growth. Indeed, it is estimated that over 40% of the world will live in water scarce regions by 2025.
From the example above it is evident that freshwater is not distributed evenly across the planet, with some regions having access to more water than others. However, this may not necessarily hold true in the future as we continue to pollute and unlock large reservoirs of freshwater. Water scarcity has dominated news even in developed countries such as Australia, whereas in many parts of the world, lakes have started to recede and groundwater contamination has begun extending several tens of kilometres inland due to over-pumping. China, for example, faces severe water constraints as it moves its huge economy into double-digit economic growth. In some parts of the world like Brazil, water is connected to large hydropower plants, which reduces its dependency on fossil fuel. While we live in a world of competing resources, our current national and international economic, political and trade regimes are inadequate in addressing the challenges we face in addressing the issue of water scarcity.
The root causes of this crisis are often ignored. The worsening water crisis is largely a result of human failure to address distorted market conditions, environmental degradation and social misallocation. Despite water transcending borders and being subject to ongoing disputes among countries in many regions of the world, the issue of access to water has become one of the essential precursors to the eradication of poverty, famine and health scourges. Why? Because it is fundamental to life in all its aspects – food, agriculture, sanitation, health and even education, not to mention its relevance to economic development. The matter indeed becomes very complex when one considers the multiple competing uses of water. Few governments and organizations have the capacity and will to address these competing uses, which are often distorted by market forces. It is equally disturbing to comprehend how government and local communities agree that over 1 million cubic of water is diverted a day to refine Canada’s oil sands into crude oil.
However, by far the largest demand for water comes from agricultural irrigation. Although these practices have been undertaken for millennia by ancient civilizations, current practices have led to serious decline in many regions of the world, for example the drying of the Aral Sea and the shrinking of Lake Chad. Despite the existence of technology which reduces agricultural water consumption considerably, the impact of irrigation continues.
Dams and large water diversion projects to meet the growing demands of expanding cities and the urban environment continue to be expanded across continents and the world’s largest rivers causing displacement of tens of millions of people, reduction in river flows, impact on deltaic communities and extensive ecosystem damage. While they meet short-term needs, their impacts lead to further water scarcity in the long term as the basic ecosystems that support the balance of water are destroyed. Human consumption in the cities grow this problem several orders of magnitude. Indeed, this is currently being disputed within one of the large river deltas, the Mekong. Large diversions to meet South Africa’s growing water demand are an example of the transboundary and long-range effects such projects can have on ecosystem function, although it is done in the name of improving access of growing population centres to water.
Until water is treated as a scarce resource, any rational attempt to address this emerging crisis will be futile. The traditional approach which addresses water demand by enhancing supply is the terminal philosophy of the neoclassical economic approach on the basis that price will dictate demand. However, because water pricing is a sensitive public issue even in many rich countries, another pervasive economic solution kicks in – water subsidies. This approach unfortunately dominates many of our national and international development policies, and totally ignores environmental costs, inter-community and intergenerational liabilities. Human systems should be designed to be dependent upon the least amount of water possible, that is the lowest water footprint possible, and efforts to totally reuse wastewater efficiently should be enhanced. Singapore, a country with no natural sources of freshwater, has taken on such a perspective. Rational use of water will reduce competition among users, reduce cost of water treatment and, in some cases, allow much more water to be shared across borders. Unless this fundamental flaw is addressed, there is little hope to resolve the crisis. In poverty dominated areas, another set of factors are at play, which include lack of access to water due to poor governance, environment degradation or climate-related factors. Once these issues are addressed, a much more robust platform can be established to enable the implementation of efficient and fair distribution of water.
Naturally, such countries will need the necessary financial and technical resources, which could come from genuine savings in the optimization of water resource use in rich countries.
To move beyond this current crisis requires a radical change in consumption patterns and the release of additional resources for development of low water dependent economies, fluvial ecosystem restoration and integrated watershed management as it is unlikely that alternative substitutes to water will ever be found. Until this happens, 2030 will present us with a new economics of water, one that is sold to the highest bidder.
Rolph Payet
Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum
Special Adviser to the President of Seychelles
This article is brought to you in partnership with the World Economic Forum curremtly holding its annual meeting at Davos.
