Environment Industry Magazine issue 15

A L L

W A T E R

I S

N O T

E Q U A L

Access to clean water is a

basic human right, but not all of it, says CIWEM executive director, Nick Reeves.

Fresh water is finite. But it’s a message that doesn’t work and we continue to be profligate. A growing population and growing demand for food and manufactured goods means that water tables

around the world are falling fast. And when, earlier this year, the government considered the use of water canon to cool the passions of protesting students nobody suggested that it might be an entirely inappropriate use of a precious resource – both wasteful and unethical.

So, with the melody of distant rioting drifting on

the wind and preparations for the

London Olympics adding a sighing counterpoint, what better time to

consider the really important things in life and ask: what price the value of water?

July and August 2010 signalled the driest summer on record and Cumbria was hit by hosepipe

restrictions. Despite the floods a few months earlier this normally ‘wet’ and beautiful part of Britain – beloved of artists, writers and naturalists down the years - was dry and the reservoirs half empty. To the experts and to locals this came as no surprise. Only the media looking for a ‘silly season’ story was incredulous.

The Cumbrian

landscape and pasture lies atop hard impervious rock and

most of the flood water ended up in the sea via hills and the rivers. Unlike the south east – where water is absorbed by spongy

limestone and stored in aquifers - the hot, dry summer of 2010 was, for Cumbria, very bad news. It exposed an urgent need to think about water

differently and to manage it much more efficiently. It may be de rigueur to rubbish the IPCC and its evidence for climate change but the extremes of wet and dry will become more frequent and more damaging as global warming bites. But, what happened in Cumbria was a little local difficulty. In some parts of the world, water and the lack of it, is a matter of life and

|96| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE Still bathing in the self- reflecting glow and glory of a

successful football World Cup, you might be forgiven for thinking that South

Africa is a country on top of its game and equal to any challenge: social, political, economic or environmental. And you might not be wrong.

South Africa, the soi-disant rainbow nation, is full of confidence and bravado and understands its problems only too well. Better than most other countries, it is preparing for the devastating effects of an emerging global water crisis. South Africa has had to confront, head- on, an issue that others are only now beginning to understand. Water – and how we rise to the challenge

of enough for all - is the big green issue and

narrative that will come to define the 21st century.

It’s true to say that few countries include a

reference to the right of access to water in their constitutions. South Africa’s constitution does and should be applauded. Most of the rest of the world’s attitude to water is wrong-headed and arrogant, and is wholly unsustainable. Global water requirements are expected to grow by over 50 per cent by 2030 according to a recent report by McKinsey for the Water Resources Group. In 20 years time water withdrawals will exceed natural renewal by more than 60

per cent, mostly at the expense of water required for the environment and

at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable.

With our eye off the ball, our attention has

been taken by the threat of peak oil and depleting fossil fuels. We have been largely ignoring the far more serious threat of peak water. Unless

radical changes are made, soon, we will run out of water first. The number of people (around one billion) without access to clean water, now, will escalate, heralding an unprecedented humanitarian and ecological disaster. Water-wars are not only a real possibility – they are happening now.

death.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12 | Page 13 | Page 14 | Page 15 | Page 16 | Page 17 | Page 18 | Page 19 | Page 20 | Page 21 | Page 22 | Page 23 | Page 24 | Page 25 | Page 26 | Page 27 | Page 28 | Page 29 | Page 30 | Page 31 | Page 32 | Page 33 | Page 34 | Page 35 | Page 36 | Page 37 | Page 38 | Page 39 | Page 40 | Page 41 | Page 42 | Page 43 | Page 44 | Page 45 | Page 46 | Page 47 | Page 48 | Page 49 | Page 50 | Page 51 | Page 52 | Page 53 | Page 54 | Page 55 | Page 56 | Page 57 | Page 58 | Page 59 | Page 60 | Page 61 | Page 62 | Page 63 | Page 64 | Page 65 | Page 66 | Page 67 | Page 68 | Page 69 | Page 70 | Page 71 | Page 72 | Page 73 | Page 74 | Page 75 | Page 76 | Page 77 | Page 78 | Page 79 | Page 80 | Page 81 | Page 82 | Page 83 | Page 84 | Page 85 | Page 86 | Page 87 | Page 88 | Page 89 | Page 90 | Page 91 | Page 92 | Page 93 | Page 94 | Page 95 | Page 96 | Page 97 | Page 98 | Page 99 | Page 100 | Page 101 | Page 102 | Page 103 | Page 104 | Page 105 | Page 106 | Page 107 | Page 108 | Page 109 | Page 110 | Page 111 | Page 112 | Page 113 | Page 114 | Page 115 | Page 116 | Page 117 | Page 118 | Page 119 | Page 120 | Page 121 | Page 122 | Page 123 | Page 124 | Page 125 | Page 126 | Page 127 | Page 128 | Page 129 | Page 130 | Page 131 | Page 132 | Page 133 | Page 134 | Page 135 | Page 136 | Page 137 | Page 138 | Page 139 | Page 140 | Page 141 | Page 142 | Page 143 | Page 144 | Page 145 | Page 146 | Page 147 | Page 148 | Page 149 | Page 150 | Page 151 | Page 152 | Page 153 | Page 154 | Page 155 | Page 156 | Page 157 | Page 158 | Page 159 | Page 160 | Page 161 | Page 162 | Page 163 | Page 164 | Page 165 | Page 166 | Page 167 | Page 168 | Page 169 | Page 170 | Page 171 | Page 172 | Page 173 | Page 174 | Page 175 | Page 176 | Page 177 | Page 178 | Page 179 | Page 180 | Page 181 | Page 182 | Page 183 | Page 184 | Page 185 | Page 186 | Page 187 | Page 188 | Page 189 | Page 190 | Page 191 | Page 192