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Water and the future of humanity : revisiting water security
This unique, engaging, and highly authoritative volume enlightens readers on changes needed in the way society accesses, provides, and uses water. It further shines a light on changes needed in the way we use food, energy, and other goods and services in relation to water, and offers projections and recommendations, up to 2050, that apply to water access challenges facing the poor and the common misuse of water in industry, agriculture, and municipalities. Written by an unparalleled slate of experts convened by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the book takes on one of the most critical issues on the planet today. In a frank yet optimistic assessment of major developmental challenges, but also opportunities, facing future generations, the author elucidates linkages between water and a range of other drivers from various disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives. Ultimately portraying the belief that Humanity can harness its visionary abilities, technologies, and economic resources for increased wellbeing and sound stewardship of resources, the book presents an optimistic statement stressing actions scientists, policy makers, and consumers can and must take to meet the water management challenges of a warming planet anticipating nine billion inhabitants by 2050.
Book
Africa's water and sanitation infrastructure : access, affordability, and alternatives
The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has produced continent-wide analysis of many aspects of Africa's infrastructure challenge. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africa's Infrastructure: a time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African Union Commission Heads of State Summit on Infrastructure. Although the flagship report served a valuable role in highlighting the main findings of the project, it could not do full justice to the richness of the data collected and technical analysis undertaken. There was clearly a need to make this more detailed material available to a wider audience of infrastructure practitioners. Hence the idea of producing four technical monographs, such as this one, to provide detailed results on each of the major infrastructure sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), power, transport, and water, as companions to the flagship report. These technical volumes are intended as reference books on each of the infrastructure sectors. They cover all aspects of the AICD project relevant to each sector, including sector performance, gaps in financing and efficiency, and estimates of the need for additional spending on investment, operations, and maintenance. Each volume also comes with a detailed data appendix, providing easy access to all the relevant infrastructure indicators at the country level, which is a resource in and of itself.
eBook
Water Supply Challenges in Rural Areas: A Case Study from Central Kazakhstan
Rural water supplies have traditionally been overshadowed by urban ones. That must now change, as the Sustainable Development Goals calls for water for all. The objective of the paper is to assess the current access to and the perceived water quality in villages with various types of water supply. The survey was carried out during July–December 2017 in four villages in central Kazakhstan. Overall, 1369 randomly selected households were interviewed. The results revealed that even though villagers were provided with tap water, significant numbers used alternative sources. There were three reasons for this situation: residents’ doubts regarding the tap water quality; use of other sources out of habit; and availability of cheaper or free sources. Another problem concerned the volume of water consumption, which dropped sharply with decreased quality or inconvenience of sources used by households. Moreover, people gave a poor estimate to the quality and reliability of water from wells, open sources and tankered water. The paper suggests that as well decentralization of water management as monitoring of both water supply and water use are essential measures. There must be a tailor-made approach to each village for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of providing rural Kazakhstan with safe water.
Journal Article
Groundwater depletion embedded in international food trade
Global food consumption drives irrigation for crops, which depletes aquifers in some regions; here we quantify the volumes of groundwater depletion associated with global food production and international trade.
International food trade causes water depletion (Dalin 21403, Phys Letter)
International trade is increasingly transporting 'hidden' resources and environmental factors from one country to another. For example, the water used to produce a spear of asparagus eaten in London might come from irrigation in South America. Similarly, pollution generated in China might be traceable to consumer demand in the United States. Carole Dalin
et al
. now extend this idea to the non-renewable groundwater that is consumed for agricultural trade. They find that 11 per cent of groundwater extraction is linked to agricultural trade, with Pakistan, the United States and India accounting for two-thirds of the global totals. The research reveals the degree to which food consumption in one country can lead to groundwater depletion in others, highlighting the need to better consider issues of sustainability and equity in the international food trade.
Recent hydrological modelling
1
and Earth observations
2
,
3
have located and quantified alarming rates of groundwater depletion worldwide. This depletion is primarily due to water withdrawals for irrigation
1
,
2
,
4
, but its connection with the main driver of irrigation, global food consumption, has not yet been explored. Here we show that approximately eleven per cent of non-renewable groundwater use for irrigation is embedded in international food trade, of which two-thirds are exported by Pakistan, the USA and India alone. Our quantification of groundwater depletion embedded in the world’s food trade is based on a combination of global, crop-specific estimates of non-renewable groundwater abstraction and international food trade data. A vast majority of the world’s population lives in countries sourcing nearly all their staple crop imports from partners who deplete groundwater to produce these crops, highlighting risks for global food and water security. Some countries, such as the USA, Mexico, Iran and China, are particularly exposed to these risks because they both produce and import food irrigated from rapidly depleting aquifers. Our results could help to improve the sustainability of global food production and groundwater resource management by identifying priority regions and agricultural products at risk as well as the end consumers of these products.
Journal Article
Water Diplomacy
Water is the resource that will determine the wealth, welfare, and stability of many countries in the twenty-first century. This book offers a new approach to managing water that will overcome the conflicts that emerge when the interactions among natural, societal, and political forces are overlooked. At the heart of these conflicts are complex water networks. In managing them, science alone is insufficient and so is policy-making that doesn't take science into account. Solutions will only emerge if a negotiated or diplomatic approach that blends science, policy, and politics is used to manage water networks.
The authors show how open and constantly changing water networks can be managed successfully using collaborative adaptive techniques to build informed agreements among disciplinary experts, water users with conflicting interests, and governmental bodies with countervailing claims.
Shafiqul Islam is an engineer with over twenty-five years of practical experience in addressing water issues. Lawrence Susskind is founder of MIT's Environmental Policy and Planning Program and a leader of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Together they have developed a text that is relevant for students and experienced professionals working in a variety of engineering, science, and applied social science fields. They show how new thinking about water conflict can replace the zero-sum battles that pit experts, politicians, and stakeholders against each other in counter-productive ways. Their volume not only presents the key elements of a theory of water diplomacy; it includes excerpts and commentary from more than two dozen seminal readings as well as practice exercises that challenge readers to apply what they have learned.
eBook
Source Separation and Decentralization for Wastewater Management
Source Separation and Decentralization for Wastewater Management sets up a comprehensive view of the resources involved in urban water management. It explores the potential of source separation and decentralization to provide viable alternatives to sewer-based urban water management. The book presents a comprehensive view of the state of the art of source separation and ecentralization. It discusses the technical possibilities and practical experience with source separation in different countries around the world. The area is in rapid development, but many of the fundamental insights presented in this book will stay valid.
eBook