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New paradigm required for water storage
The global water storage gap is an international crisis that requires action now to champion smart solutions, according to a recent report from The World Bank
WHAT HAS BECOME KNOWN as the water storage gap is an undeniable crisis in the water industry that will continue to grow unless action is taken now. There is growing concern that natural water storage is declining, the amount of built storage has declined, and what is available is ageing and waning. Over the past 50 years more than 27,000 billion m3
Above: On 19 January 2018, Theewaterskloof Dam which supplies most of Cape Town City’s water was at 13.9% of capacity © Charles HB Mercer /
Shutterstock.com
of water storage has been lost due to melting glaciers and snowpack and the destruction of wetlands and floodplains. In addition the volume stored in large dams has come under threat as sediment fills space in reservoirs and the structures are ageing faster than the pace of rehabilitation and new construction. As freshwater storage declines global populations are increasing, and with the shadow of a warming climate looming in the background where over 1.65 billion people have been adversely affected by floods (an increase of over 24% compared with previous decades), it is becoming clear that worldwide water insecurity can only be resolved through a changed approach to planning and managing water storages. In its new overview for policymakers called What the Future Has In Store: A New Paradigm For Water Storage, the World Bank calls for “developing multi-sectoral solutions to the water storage gap, taking approaches that integrate the needs and opportunities across the whole system, including built and natural storage”. It adds that the framework will help to accelerate collaboration between economic sectors and public and private stakeholders globally, overcoming the storage gap to help supply the water and water security needed by communities worldwide.
Close the gap Closing the global water storage gap is a shared
Below:Gamkapoort Dam near Prince Albert during drought in South Africa. Like many areas of the world, South Africa is addressing an extreme climate
challenge, the bank says. Global, national, and regional stakeholders can no longer focus only on their own needs in isolation. A conceptual shift in thinking, anchored in an integrated, systemic approach to planning and managing water storage, against the backdrop of broader integrated water resource management, is imperative if sustainable, climate-resilient water storage solutions that sustain generations are to be achieved. In 2018, as the World Bank highlights in its report, South Africa’s Cape Town “was in striking distance of catastrophe” and made international headlines as its taps ran dry and four million people in this modern metropolis were on the verge of “one of the largest drought-induced municipal water failures in recent history”. The experiences of Cape Town, which also endured intense flooding that almost stretched the city’s stormwater infrastructure beyond capacity
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in 2022, is a graphic illustration of what is now an international crisis. Indeed water storage is being viewed as an importantly vital tool for adapting to climate change, providing a mechanism to offset some of the hydrological changes brought about by climate change by improving water availability and reducing the impact of floods. Built water storage gives water managers more control over resources while also providing an important contribution to climate change mitigation through the production of hydropower and its enabling role for other renewable energy. Suleiman Hussein Adamu, the Minister of Water
Resources in Nigeria believes, agrees that freshwater storage is at the heart of adapting to climate change. “I’m very glad to see that there’s a strong shift now
from too much discussion on emissions, to discussions about how climate change relates to water,” he said at the launch of the World Bank report in February 2023. “I think one of the areas where we see the quickest impact of climate change is in our water resources, and I’m glad that this is taking a prominent position.” Suleiman Hussein Adamu explains that the
droughts of the 1970s in Nigeria highlighted the fact that “water storage was going to be of great importance” to the country. As many of its rivers are silted up and seasonal, a form of storage was required. Since then, a lot of investment has been made into building dams and reservoirs, especially as a large part of the population agricultural area is in the Sahara region where rainfall is erratic. Although the country is still dealing with excess sedimentation leading to reduced storage in rivers and reservoirs, the hydropower benefits of dam storage has been of great value. Adamu also spoke about issues such as capacity building to maintain existing infrastructure, coordinated reservoir operations and balancing the demand between water supply, irrigation and flooding, “In a lot of cases,” Nigeria’s Minister of Water
Resources says, “we found some years where we had excess rainfall and because of the storage capacity of the reservoirs has reduced, we found ourselves opening more gates and valves over time, and downstream communities are seriously affected when that happens. Even when there’s no natural flood, some of our reservoirs tend to create this kind of flooding situation downstream.” Therefore in Nigeria, the previous experiences of downstream communities before river basin management was given greater consideration, have led to “politically explosive” challenges when it comes to modern day requirements of building new reservoirs where they are needed. “Some downstream committees tend to feel short-
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