In an Expert Focus article for Waterbriefing, David Smith, Chief Strategy Officer of MWH, now part of Stantec, dicusses why the impact of water crises presents one of the top risks to global security, and why both innovation and investment are needed, now and well into the future, to tackle the challenge.
David Smith: Today, around one-third of the world’s population lives in water-stressed areas. Water crises and climate change are risks of the highest concern to global leaders over the next ten years and beyond, with huge potential impact on the essentials for life - not just water, but also energy and food.
However, whilst our increasingly complex and interconnected world faces unprecedented economic, geopolitical and environmental challenges, by focusing on how to meet these challenges we can create a more stable and sustainable future. The central question is whether we have the foresight, creativity, and inventive alignment to meet the challenges.
In the short term, human-made systems – from global economic trade and financial markets, to international politics and communications networks – are fragile and, with potentially ‘dangerous’ climate change looming on the horizon, so too are the fundamental systems that underpin civilization – water, energy and agriculture.
Yet business and political leaders, economists, commentators and the public are seeing that all these systems – human-made and ‘natural’ – are connected and layered in ways that we can now begin to better understand. Some of the boundaries between water, energy and agriculture are already breaking down as system-wide strategies are beginning to be recognised as the principal solution to improving resilience, resource efficiency and economic performance. What remains missing from the dialogue is a focus on the underlying forces of alignment and collaboration of stakeholders to truly work in a joined-up way.
City populations continue to grow and some megacities will be at greater risk from climate change extremes and intense human activity. Yet many megacities will also act as the catalyst for invention and changing human behaviours. The emerging narrative is a shift in attitudes from city leaders, governments and corporations toward investment, above all in ecosystem security, partly for reasons of economic stability and growth, but also to maintain social order. This shift will be driven not only because of community-led public opinion, but because governments and policymakers will recognise that investment in well-being and sustainable technologies will generate returns in the real economy.
New technologies can help to meet the global water scarcity and resilience challenge
New technologies can help to meet the global water scarcity and resilience challenge. Digital, sensor driven, real time management systems, novel water reuse techniques, cheap desalination, nanotechnology and ‘at-tap’ treatment systems could all be game changers. For example, what if we could introduce more efficient ‘precision agriculture’ to monitor, automate and manage water usage? What if we can link weather reports, so fields are not irrigated when rain is expected and so massively reduce agricultural water usage for food production? If people are reluctant to drink ‘recycled and treated’ water, how can we influence consumer attitudes and cause behaviour changes, or otherwise use this water for other purposes? Imagine if we can find a way to create a low energy and inexpensive solution to desalinate seawater.
There are certainly reasons to be optimistic, particularly in the realm of technology. The view that we can cut our dependence on fossil fuels through radical innovation has become much more commonplace. A good example of this new sentiment is in the 400 investors, managing some £19trillion in funds, signing the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change in the run up to the Paris summit, which saw them commit to investing in renewable energy.
Indeed, since the climate change talks in Paris in 2015, we have begun to see a shift towards more co-ordinated action that might act as the prompt for governments to drive this necessary investment, and create the conditions for public-private partnerships focused on solutions.
The direction of travel is clear – investor confidence in creating new capital to boost investment in sustainability is growing. That is not to underestimate the scale of the challenge. By some estimates £68 trillion will be needed to create the necessary worldwide investment in renewables and resource efficiency. However, it is feasible that the ‘sustainability economy’ may lead to large-scale systematic and compound innovation, with many opportunities for economic growth.
A crucial ingredient is visionary leadership. For investment to be pooled and to be deployed effectively, we will need creative, determined people to unlock innovation and new ideas to overcome the global water challenges. This is where cities – naturally the homes of information and idea exchange – can really drive change, acting as incubators and hubs for co-ordinated action, as I mentioned above.
We can be optimistic about facing the challenges of water security, though they are considerable. It remains true that water, energy and food are essential to every aspect of human life, as is the fact that populations are increasing and, whether human-made or not, our climate is changing – meaning more water scarcity and more flooding is creating a new global resilience challenge. The impact of water crises presents one of the top risks to our global security, and the health and sustainability of our people and planet. More investment is needed, now and well into the future.
David Smith is Chief Strategy Officer of MWH, now part of Stantec.