Water for Earth: embracing water for inclusive and long-lasting prosperity
Water impacts, influences, and shapes several dimensions and contexts at the foundation of our current way of living. In the previous Water for Earth articles, we have investigated the central role of water within diplomatic balances and governance; in the adaptation process towards climate and environmental changes; as a unique track at the basis of social relationships, touching traditions and identity; and within our domestic and urban environments. In recognition of World Water Day, I would like to conclude this group of articles by analyzing a dimension that crosscuts all the previous ones: the relationship between water and prosperity.
The costs of water inefficiencies
“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the water is polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then you will find that you can’t eat money.” — Native American proverb
We often confuse the concept of public water as a synonym for free water. In reality, guaranteeing access to water has specific costs, such as operating costs, maintenance of water facilities, purification, etc. These are costs that still today struggle to be perceived as necessary investments to ensure widespread forms of well-being; costs that in time pay back with higher economic returns. Why?
Firstly, investing in water efficiency (clean, good quality) is the foundation of hygiene, which generates direct benefits for the healthcare system. We have all experienced the importance of frequent handwashing with soap or sanitizers as an immediate response to the covid pandemic. The World Health Organization reported that each dollar invested in sanitation efficiency (including water supply and water quality efficiency and improvement) determines a $5.50 economic return in the form of lower sanitation costs and increased productivity. However, 3 billion people still don’t have soap and water in their homes. 2.2 billion people lack access to good quality drinking water. More than 700 million children die of diarrhea-related to unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene. This is a phenomenon generating a ripple effect that also reverberates on national economic and financial scales. Affecting the agricultural, industrial, and tertiary sectors, water dispersion and water scarcity can weigh up to 6% of a country’s GDP, as the World Bank reports. As recent research published in The Lancet earlier this year revealed, the financial costs for premature mortalities linked to fossil fuel use and air pollution: $10.7 billion in China alone.
New forms of prosperity: the care economy and well-being economy
The decades of the culture of unnatural abundance, driving us towards a worldwide economic, climate, biodiversity, psychological, and health crisis, seems to have led the global society to one big lesson to be learned again: taking care of natural resources, understood as common goods to be valued and protected, is socially, environmentally, and economically profitable, just as putting individuals’ well-being back at the center again.
It is a message that has been spreading in a choral way at different scales, from the UN level with the report “Nature Hires: How Nature-Based Solutions Can Power A Green Jobs Recovery,” to studies published within the national Ministry of Finance, as for the case of the UK with the Dasgupta Review, stressing the economic importance of maintaining the variety of life on Earth.
New forms of economy, designed to be circular, holistic, and integrative are emerging as a result of a new eco-systemic mindset: the well-being economy and care economy.
New notions of prosperity are increasing among national and regional policies, aiming to fulfill the well-being of all the components of the complex ecosystem. This means merging economic AND environmental interests; the prosperity of small inland areas AND megacities; tradition AND innovation. This means going beyond the GDP as a tool for measuring the prosperity of a country, to include the state of the landscape, the conservation of natural resources, the level of empowerment and inclusion of individuals, the physical and mental health of the society. All aspects thus far undervalued and that cannot be measured in exclusively economic terms.
This is also leading some researchers to investigate alternative forms of progress measurement, such as the Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP).
Valuing Italian water potential
The 2021 UN World Water Development Report, titled Valuing Water, points out the plurality of views and perspectives when dealing with the real ‘value’ of water, which is shaped by the interests of user groups and stakeholders. “Traditional economic accounting, […] tends to limit water values to the way that most other products are valued — using the recorded price or costs of water when economic transactions occur. However, in the case of water, there is no clear relationship between its price and its value. Where water is priced, meaning consumers are charged for using it, the price often reflects attempts for cost recovery and not value delivered.” stresses the report.
In Italy, this is particularly evident if we consider the state of water infrastructures: our country counts 541 large dams, mainly used for hydroelectric and irrigation purposes, that are showing dangerous signs of aging. To prevent dams from collapsing, further exacerbated by the frequency and severity of extreme environmental events, it is urgent to intervene with repair, maintenance, or dismantling. This requires delicate cost-benefit analysis: to the economic costs often associated with dam dismantling, in the majority of cases, both the environment and local communities have benefitted. This data is illustrative only if we think that 13% of the national GDP comes from tourism. To this, we need to add that 37.3% of water does not reach end-users due to the obsolescence of Italian water infrastructure, heavily imperiling the first major economic driver of the national economy: food and agriculture.
Today, the Future Food Institute, in collaboration with Finish and the Italian Environment Fund, has officially launched an Innovation Challenge for agriculture: a call for start-ups to develop water efficiency solutions in Sicily, supporting the production of one of the island’s most iconic foods: the Sicilian Lemon, officially recognized in 2020 as a Protected Geographical Indication.
Conclusions
Some aspects cannot be exclusively evaluated through economic lenses. “The true value of water cannot be expressed in market terms, but in its capacity to create life. Water is the milk of Mother Earth,” stressed H.E. Mr. David Choquehuanca, Vice-president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia during the High-Level Opening Ceremony of World Water Day 2021.
We need to rethink, redesign, rebuild our way of living, reconnecting with the natural ecosystem, its precious resources, its rhythms, and its beautiful complexities. Commodifying natural resources, including water, is what has brought us this far, at a time marked by global emergencies and crises. We need deep collaboration among experts to open the dialogue and decision-making process towards all the actors, including youths, women, minorities, and Indigenous people.
“If you take care of the Earth, the Earth will take care of you,” is their mantra. Only in this way can we become flexible, resilient communities in perfect balance with Nature.
The Future Food Institute is an international social enterprise and the cornerstone of the Future Food Ecosystem, a collection of research labs, partnerships, initiatives, platforms, networks, entrepreneurial projects and academic programs, aiming to build a more equitable world through enlightening a world-class breed of innovators, boosting entrepreneurial potential, and improving agri-food expertise and tradition.
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