06. Water Stress Management
“Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces.”
It has become a cliché to say that the wars of the future will be fought over water.
Whether or not this turns out to be true, there is already evidence that many places around the world do not have enough of it. Throughout 2018, there was panic in Cape Town as it approached ‘Day Zero’ — the day when water would be rationed. It was narrowly averted, but water remains at a crisis point. In Karachi, water has become a criminal currency controlled by mafias. These are extreme examples, but it is a global trend. The gap between water demand and supply is predicted to rise to 40% by 2030. Meanwhile, many people already struggle to get safe, clean and reliable water access. Imported water is expensive — but as populations grow, so does demand — we will always need water.
A lot of people have no option but to drink dirty water and suffer the health consequences, something likely to worsen as extreme weather compromises drinking water supplies. Perhaps the best known solution is desalination, a process by which saltwater from the sea is turned into a drinkable product. Small modular desalination plants that use renewable power could be a sustainable solution to water crises around the globe. Some plant-based water purification techniques currently in development could help. So could water management software and atmospheric water capture. Smart irrigation systems can even help farmers assess water levels for their crops, and solar pumps can help cut the costs of irrigating farms with water. Some of this innovation is new, but many of these technologies — such as desalination — are well-established. Work is needed to make them viable for countries in development, creating smaller scale plants and hardware that is durable and easy to maintain.
Novel Water Purification
Dirty water is a huge problem. Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. Contaminated water can transmit diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio. It causes hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. But new technologies to purify water are coming to the fore, using UV light and ozone, plus filtration, to produce sustainable, bacteria-free water.
Similar systems are already used in industry and at the municipal level in different countries. But traditionally, most have needed electricity. New systems of UV filtration are electricity free. It is not a perfect solution — the technology removes bacteria, but not other contaminants like pharmaceuticals or heavy metals. But, if widely applied, it could still give people access to sterilised water and help to prevent many avoidable deaths.
Modular Desalination
Many countries are forced to import water, which is expensive and uses fuel. In addition, plastic is heavily used in packaging water. Desalination, or turning saltwater into drinking water, is well established as a solution. But centralised desalination plants involve big set-up costs and are mostly run off diesel, which is heavy, polluting and noisy. This kind of plant is often inappropriate for island nations — which, surrounded by saltwater, are obvious sites for desalination.
What if desalination plants could not only be smaller, but use renewable energy? Resolute is currently working in Cape Verde, an archipelago, using wave energy to power desalination. This model reduces pollution and makes drinking water cheaper, allowing nations to be self-sufficient and reducing geopolitical tension over water. The fact that this desalination technology is modular means it can be tailored for different settings, and could even be used for disaster relief or electricity generation. Most of these projects are in development or pilot stages, and more financing is needed — not least to help clear regulatory boundaries.
Irrigation Management
As the climate changes, it is increasingly difficult to predict the weather. Rainfall is erratic — at one end of the spectrum, this can mean water shortages and droughts, and at the other, flooding and rising water levels. For farmers, this can result in significantly fewer crops grown and lost income. Though hardware and software to monitor water delivery to crops exists in the global North, many farmers in those regions do not have access to it in the global South.
This technology is widely commercial in the developed world, but needs to be adapted before it can be transferred — devices are expensive, maintenance is complicated, and there is a whole infrastructure required to support their use. But there are solutions: such as solar-powered water pumps, smart irrigation systems, soil-based and plant-based sensors. Work is needed to make the costs of acquiring and using them lower, to simplify maintenance — and to encourage farmers to try new technology in the first place.
Futurepump build solar-powered irrigation pumps for use by small-scale farmers. Some of their customers have purported a tripling of their income by being able to grow a particular high-value crop, thanks to the use of the pump.
Atmospheric Water Generation
All air contains at least a little bit of water. On hot, humid days, the air feels thick and uncomfortable because it’s saturated with moisture. Water generators, also known as water makers, harvest the moisture suspended in humid air. This can then be condensed and purified into drinkable water. At the moment, this technology produces a limited amount of water, but if it can be developed further, it could provide much-needed drinking water to small and remote communities, particularly in hot places. If water generation can be integrated with renewable energy, it could be even better, circumventing the need for electricity connections and reducing emissions. Some water generation tech is at the early stages of commercialisation, but more work is needed, particularly when it comes to transferring it to other parts of the world.
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