World Water Day: Why Plumbers Are Heroes

The old joke about the plumber's crack has gone dry. Especially on World Water Day.

But it's no joke: water and plumbing changes lives.

Here is a cool infographic I received from Able Skills, the UK-based construction training program on Why Plumbers Are Heroes (you can see an interactive version here):

 


As you can see from the infographic, clean water alone can reduce water-related deaths by 21 percent, improved sanitation alone can reduce such deaths by 37.5 percent, and simple hand-washing can reduce such deaths by 35 percent.

Today, according to UN-Water, "over 780 million people do not have access to improved sources of drinking water and 2.5 billion people are without improved sanitation."

2.5 billion. And we're well into the 21st Century, people.

Population growth, especially in cities, is driving increased water demand. Yet, even more startling is the fact that water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.

With the world population set to grow to 8 billion by 2025, water withdrawals are likely to increase by 50 percent in developing countries and by as much as 18 percent in already developed countries.

Not all of the water use is from the growth of our cities. In fact, only 8 percent of freshwater is tapped for domestic use. 70 percent of freshwater is used for irrigation and 25 percent goes to industrial uses.

Water for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources, according to UN-Water.

The World Bank estimates economic losses from lack of sanitation cost up to 7 percent of GDP in some countries.

So, on this World Water Day, tell your plumber how much you appreciate how they've made your water safe to use and readily available. And think about how you can get involved in addressing the issue of access to clean water and sanitation.

Cities and the Global Water Crisis | Sustainable Cities Collective Audio

Last week for World Water Day (March 22nd, 2011), I participated in an exclusive webinar about how global cities are dealing with the challenge of managing their most essential resource.

Listen to the audio at Sustainable Cities Collective (length 01:01:06)

    or download here  

Panelists included

Dr. Paul Bowen is the Director of Strategic Business Initiatives, Water Technology and a Member of the Global Water Stewardship team for The Coca-Cola Company. In that role, he oversees water use efficiency programs for global manufacturing, including work with plants on water minimization, water reuse, and water conservation. Paul is a member of the 2010-2011 Board of Trustees for the Water Environment Federation (WEF), and previously was an Assistant Professor for the School of Civil Engineering & Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma.

Larry Levine is a senior attorney in NRDC's Water Program, and works on a variety of issues pertaining to water quality in the Northeastern U.S., as well as at the national policy level. He focuses especially on promoting the use of “green infrastructure” as a sustainable solution to polluted urban runoff and raw sewage overflows. Larry was previously a litigation fellow at NRDC and a clinical fellow in environmental law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a graduate of Yale Law School and Tulane University.

Scott Edward Anderson is the founder of VerdeStrategy, a consulting and advisory firm focused on the cleantech, energy, and environment sectors, and the popular blog TheGreenSkeptic.com, as well as a frequent commentator on FOX Business Network. He has held management positions for large institutions, such as The Nature Conservancy, the world's most successful global conservation organization, and Ashoka, a social venture capital organization with operations in 72 countries worldwide, and has consulted with dozens of businesses and social entrepreneurs around the globe.

Richard McGill Murphy moderates the Sustainable Business Forum. Richard is a journalist and media consultant with 15 years of experience covering business, technology and international affairs. He writes for Fortune and BusinessWeek and serves as managing partner of Walled City Media LLC, a media strategy firm. Previously, he has worked as a top editor at Fortune Small Business and CNNMoney.com, and earlier served as editorial and program director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. He holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from Harvard and a doctorate in social anthropology from Oxford University.

Some good insights about water, water investing, water supply issues, environmental concerns, weather events, and the potential impacts of climate change.

World Water Day: Urban Challenges and Opportunities

Half of the world's people now live in cities, according to the United Nations, and within two decades, nearly 60 percent of the population -- 5 billion people -- will be urban dwellers.

Developing countries feel the growth most directly, but even cities like Philadelphia are showing signs of population growth.

While cities are considered by many to be the most environmentally benign habitat for human beings, urban population growth brings challenges. Among those challenges are increasing stresses on water availability, access, and sanitation.

Cities are hard to sustain without reliable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Yet even in the industrial world, urban water and waste service infrastructure is not up to the challenge.

Scarcity of usable water around the world is leading to further challenges and economic constraints, according to William Brennan of Summit Global Management, a San Diego-based investment firm that specializes in water.

"The continued industrialization of emerging markets, growing global agricultural demand, and rising energy inputs are unstoppable trends that are all converging at a historic rate, making the water demand curve further accelerate," Brennan wrote to me recently.

Yet, with such challenges also come opportunities, especially where recycling and reuse and treatment of water and wastes are concerned.

In the US, start-up companies like Liberty Hydrologic Systems, BlackGold Biofuels, Cardinal Resources, and ET Water are coming up with innovative solutions to deal with treatment, filtration, and waste; while large utilities such as AquaAmerica and American Water tackle the infrastructure for drinking water and wastewater services.

Internationally, organizations such as charity:water and the Global Water Challenge are addressing clean, safe drinking water, and sanitation issues in developing nations. (Here is a comprehensive list of water related organizations: H20.)

"Good urban water management is complex and requires not only water and wastewater infrastructure, but also pollution control and flood prevention," as the organizers of World Water Day point out. "It requires coordination across many sectors and between different local authorities and changes in governance that lead to more sustainable and equitable use of the urban water resources."

It also requires innovative solutions and new ways of thinking about how we use, reuse, conserve, and treat our water.

One day each year hardly seems adequate to raising the awareness of water issues around the world, but it's a start.  As our cities expand and stresses to water supplies increase, it will become clear as...well...water that we need to pay more attention to this most precious resource.


NOTE: Join me and Dr. Paul Bowen of Coca-Cola, Larry Levine of NRDC, and Richard Murphy of Fortune for a webinar today at 1PM ET as we discuss water challenges and opportunities: Cities and the Global Water Crisis.

World Water Day: Stand Up for Water and Sanitation?

Today, March 22, 2010, is World Water Day, an attempt to raise awareness about the importance of clean water and the thousands of people who still do not have access to clean, healthy water resources.

World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.  Each year, it has a different sanctioned theme, determined by the UN Water Group.  This year's theme is "Clean Water for a Healthy World."

Clean water scarcity is a serious situation affecting more than 2.5 billion people.  Lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation leads to more deaths among children than malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB combined, according to the UN. 

In addition 4000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable water-related illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and dysentery.

Serious stuff and in need of attention.  It's hard to believe that in the 21st century some parts of the world are without simple sanitation and access to water.  World Water Day is an attempt to shed light on this problem.

In one of the sillier actions associated with the "celebration" this year, a coalition led by the group End Water Poverty, along with Freshwater Action Network, and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre has organized a Guinness World Record attempt to form the world's largest toilet queue.

To participate, you need to gather at least 25 people and have them wait on line to use the bathroom in a public place from 10 minutes up to 24 hours.

What seems like a joke from the days of Monty Python is actually a "serious" attempt to capture the imaginations of the caring public and the World Record.  (And you wonder why I'm a skeptic!)

(Did you know there was a record for longest toilet waiting line? The current record for an individual queue stands at over 868 people, according to organizars.)

Remember: don't cut in line and wash your hands after you go.
 

World Water Day: No Drop Left Behind

Water is one of the most precious resources on Earth. Clean drinking water is essential to human life -- but only 10 percent of global water use is for human consumption.

The other 90 percent is used for a combination of direct inputs to industry, agriculture, transportation, recreation, producing hydropower and cooling nuclear power plants, and sustaining the ecosystems upon which we depend.

Over the last century, according to the United Nations, water use increased sixfold, twice as fast as the population rate.

The increase has led to water shortages around the globe. Experts from the International Water Management Institute now estimate that by 2025 over three quarters of the people on Earth will be affected by water scarcity.

Today, 40 percent of people globally (@ 2.8 billion) deal with some degree of water scarcity. Whether physical shortage or issue of access, shortages are increasing demand and competition for water. (Darfur is the poster example for what conflicts can arise from the perfect storm of water scarcity.)

March 22nd is World Water Day,a UN General Assembly designation to call attention to the issue of water scarcity and push for more sustainable management of the resource.

Clearly, global water use patterns are not sustainable. Some scientists claim that current water use rates will lead to such a shortage that there may not be enough water to produce the food needed by the world in 2050.

Not to mention the potential collapse of important ecosystems and the corresponding benefits, which may have a cascading effect on people and economies.

Integrated water resources management may help the situation, as some propose, but it is clear that we need a better method for calculating the true value of our fresh water resources.

The bottom line: No longer can we assume that past abundance of water is a guarantee for our future water returns.