Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years

Landmark review says urgent action needed to conserve resources and save ecosystems that supply fresh water

More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review.

Half the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water published on Thursday.

Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of the decade, because the world’s water systems are being put under “unprecedented stress”, the report found.

The commission found that governments and experts have vastly underestimated the amount of water needed for people to have decent lives. While 50 to 100 litres a day are required for each person’s health and hygiene, in fact people require about 4,000 litres a day in order to have adequate nutrition and a dignified life. For most regions, that volume cannot be achieved locally, so people are dependent on trade – in food, clothing and consumer goods – to meet their needs.

Some countries benefit more than others from “green water”, which is soil moisture that is necessary for food production, as opposed to “blue water” from rivers and lakes. The report found that water moves around the world in “atmospheric rivers” which transport moisture from one region to another.

About half the world’s rainfall over land comes from healthy vegetation in ecosystems that transpires water back into the atmosphere and generates clouds that then move downwind. China and Russia are the main beneficiaries of these “atmospheric river” systems, while India and Brazil are the major exporters, as their landmass supports the flow of green water to other regions. Between 40% and 60% of the source of fresh water rainfall is generated from neighbouring land use.

“The Chinese economy depends on sustainable forest management in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Baltic region,” said Prof Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the co-chairs of the commission. “You can make the same case for Brazil supplying fresh water to Argentina. This interconnectedness just shows that we have to place fresh water in the global economy as a global common good.”

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the president of Singapore and a co-chair of the commission, said countries must start cooperating on the management of water resources before it was too late.

“We have to think radically about how we are going to preserve the sources of fresh water, how we are going to use it far more efficiently, and how we are going to be able to have access to fresh water available to every community, including the vulnerable – in other words, how we preserve equity [between rich and poor],” Shanmugaratnam said.

Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, say experts

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water was set up by the Netherlands in 2022, drawing on the work of dozens of leading scientists and economists, to form a comprehensive view of the state of global hydrological systems and how they are managed. Its 194-page report is the biggest global study to examine all aspects of the water crisis and suggest remedies for policymakers.

The findings were surprisingly stark, said Rockström. “Water is victim number one of the [climate crisis], the environmental changes we see now aggregating at the global level, putting the entire stability of earth’s systems at risk,” he told the Guardian. “[The climate crisis] manifests itself first and foremost in droughts and floods. When you think of heatwaves and fires, the really hard impacts are via moisture – in the case of fires, [global heating] first dries out landscapes so that they burn.”

Every 1C increase in global temperatures adds another 7% of moisture to the atmosphere, which has the effect of “powering up” the hydrological cycle far more than would happen under normal variations. The destruction of nature is also further fuelling the crisis, because cutting down forests and draining wetlands disrupts the hydrological cycle that depends on transpiration from trees and the storage of water in soils.

Harmful subsidies are also distorting the world’s water systems, and must be addressed as a priority, the experts found. More than $700bn (£540bn) of subsidies each year go to agriculture, and a high proportion of these are misdirected, encouraging farmers to use more water than they need for irrigation or in wasteful practices. Industry also benefits – about 80% of the wastewater used by industries around the world is not recycled.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, also a co-chair of the commission, said countries must redirect the subsidies, axing harmful ones while ensuring poor people were not disadvantaged. “We must have a basket of policy tools working together if we are to get the three Es – efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability and justice. Therefore we have to couple the pricing of water with appropriate subsidies,” she said.

At present, subsidies mainly benefit those who are better off, Okonjo-Iweala added. “Industry is getting a lot of the subsidy, and richer people. So what we need are better targeted subsidies. We need to identify the poor people who really need this,” she said.

The water crisis has an outsized impact on women, one of the commission’s co-chairs said. Photograph: Anjum Naveed/AP

Developing countries must also be given access to the finance they need to overhaul their water systems, provide safe water and sanitation, and halt the destruction of the natural environment, the report found.

Mariana Mazzucato, professor of economics at University College London, and a co-chair of the commission, said loans made by public sector banks to developing countries should be made conditional on water reforms. “These could be improving water conservation and the efficiency of water use, or direct investment for water-intensive industries,” she said. “[We must ensure] profits are reinvested in productive activity such as research and development around water issues.”

Water problems also had an outsized impact on women and girls, Mazzucato added. “One of our commissioners is Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, the mayor of Freetown in Sierra Leone. She says most of the rapes and abuse of women actually happen when they’re going to fetch water,” Mazzucato said. “Child mortality, gender parity, the water collection burden, the food security burden – they’re all connected.”

Five main takeaways from the report

The world has a water crisis

More than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people – 44% of the population – lack access to safe sanitation. Every day, 1,000 children die from lack of access to safe water. Demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip its supply by 40% by the end of this decade. This crisis is worsening – without action, by 2050 water problems will shave about 8% off global GDP, with poor countries facing a 15% loss. Over half of the world’s food production comes from areas experiencing unstable trends in water availability.

There is no coordinated global effort to address this crisis

Despite the interconnectedness of global water systems there are no global governance structures for water. The UN has held only one water conference in the past 50 years, and only last month appointed a special envoy for water.

Climate breakdown is intensifying water scarcity

The impacts of the climate crisis are felt first on the world’s hydrological systems, and in some regions those systems are facing severe disruption or even collapse. Drought in the Amazon, floods across Europe and Asia, and glacier melt in mountains, which causes both flooding and droughts downstream, are all examples of the impacts of extreme weather that are likely to get worse in the near future. People’s overuse of water is also worsening the climate crisis – for instance, by draining carbon-rich peatlands and wetlands that then release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Water is artificially cheap for some and too expensive for others

Subsidies to agriculture around the world often have unintended consequences for water, providing perverse incentives for farmers to over-irrigate their crops or use water wastefully. Industries also have their water use subsidised, or their pollution ignored, in many countries. Meanwhile, poor people in developing countries frequently pay a high price for water, or can only access dirty sources. Realistic pricing for water that removes harmful subsidies but protects the poor must be a priority for governments.

Water is a common good

All of human life depends on water, but it is not recognised for the indispensable resource it is. The authors of the report urge a rethink of how water is regarded – not as an endlessly renewable resource, but as a global common good, with a global water pact by governments to ensure they protect water sources and create a “circular economy” for water in which it is reused and pollution cleaned up. Developing nations must be given access to finance to help them end the destruction of natural ecosystems that are a key part of the hydrological cycle.

Source: The Guardian

Philippines at ‘medium’ risk of ecological threats

This year is the fifth edition of the Ecological Threat Report by think tank Institute for Economics & Peace, which analyses ecological threats in 207 independent states and territories. The report covers 3,518 sub-national areas which account for 99.99 per cent of the world’s population. The ETR assesses threats relating to food insecurity, water risk, natural disasters, and demographic pressure.

The research takes a multi-faceted approach by analyzing ecological threats at the national, subnational, and city level, while also assessing the threats against societal resilience and levels of peace. Comparing ecological threats against societal resilience enables IEP to identify the global regions, countries, and subnational areas most at risk of an ecological disaster, both now and into the future.

The Philippines got an overall score of 3.22 out of 5 in the 2024 edition. This put the country at a “medium” risk of natural disasters, food and water insecurity, and rapid population growth.

ETR-2024-web.pdf

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Source: Business World

The greener bathroom of the future

Expect a sensory pod instead of a deep bubble bath and a smart loo that could mean no more toilet roll

Bathrooms, one of the newest spaces in the home, have come a long way in a relatively short time. In 1971, one in 10 UK households still used an outdoor toilet. And go back less than 30 years before that, to 1947, and fewer than half of all homes in Britain had a bathroom – 46%, to be precise.        

One in three had a portable bath – often made of tin – and one in 10 had no bath at all. Households with no appliance for heating water for washing made up 15% of the population – who relied instead on boiling water in kettles or pans – and 7% had no piped water at all.        

Contrast that with 2024, when the bathroom is a ubiquitous feature of the home and sits on the edge of a revolution that promises to make it one of the most radically changing domestic spaces over the next few decades.

Water Conservation

While we may hardly recognise the bathroom of 2074 or 2124, it could be a case of back to the future – because the bath in its current form may disappear as a feature in many homes. That’s because using less water, already a worldwide concern, will become much more of an urgent requirement in the decades to come. It’s not that we have less water – rain still falls, and will continue to do so – but the planet now has many more people to support, and vastly more water is needed for growing plant foods than in the past. Also, water is a resource that isn’t being fairly shared: we might all now have an inside loo in the UK, but globally, six in 10 are still without one – and levelling up will be a big ambition in the years ahead. Added to which, using less water is connected with using less energy – heating water is one of the big burners of the fossil fuels that we need to reduce our dependence on.

When it comes to the domestic bathroom, there’s immense scope for using less water – and younger generations will make that central, says Jorge Hernandez, head of design at the Bathroom Brands Group: ‘Younger people are open to change and water-saving devices will become increasingly commonplace.’

A ‘green vision’ for the bathroom of the future, designed by German manufacturer Hansgrohe, boasts that it functions ‘almost without water’ at all: it uses 90% less water and 90% less energy and, as a result, releases 90% less CO2 into the atmosphere. ‘In the future, you’ll be able to have a shower using 10 litres of water, one tenth of the current average,’ says Steffen Erath, Hansgrohe’s head of sustainability.

The shower of the future will feature a light that warns as consumption reaches 10 liters; but showers will be quicker because a change in the pH level of water in the pipes could reduce the need for soap and shampoo — it's a natural cleanser. The futuristic Hansgrohe bathroom also has a wash station with three spray types: a mist for hand and face washing, and heated and non-heated sprays activated by sensors — so that water only flows when skin is underneath.

Water-saving will also come into its own in the loo of the future, which will be to separate urine from faeces: since flushing will be controlled by sensor, less water will be used for most toilet visits. And what kind of water will we be flushing the loo with? Well, definitely not the fresh water we currently use, says Steffen - that makes no sense at all. Future bathrooms will have an internal recycling system, where water you've used for a shower then flushes the loo. And in the far future, bathrooms could even have a sealed purification system, so all the water needed is stored in a tank, recycled after use and reused for years. ‘In 30 or 40 years, you might have a bathroom in which all the water is recycled,’ says Jorge.

No need for Loo Paper

Saving water is only one element of the toilet revolution, because the loo of the future also promises to be your domestic GP, and you won't need to wait for an appointment. It will be able  to analyze your bodily waste to provide important and - crucially - early information about issues such as blood in your poo (which can be a sign of colon cancer} and sugar in your urine (which can indicate diabetes), as well as more everyday health advice along the lines of, ‘You're a bit dehydrated,’ or ‘You need to eat more fiber.’  And then there's comfort. The Japanese company TOTO has been on a mission since the 197Os to reimagine the experience of going to the loo.  I recently tried out its top-of-the-range Neorest WX1: no hands needed (other than for the control panel on the wall alongside) for a call of nature that involved a heated seat, targeted jets of warm water to clean my nether regions (you decide which bits you want the jets to wash) and an air dryer to finish off.  The loo, which cleans and deodorizes itself, also has a memory function so the preferences of various family members can be stored: you sit down and the loo does the rest. If they become popular, then toilet paper could one day be a thing of the past, which would have a very positive impact on the environment.  As Kazuki Osugi, general manager at TOTO UK, says: ‘This is about a more comfortable way to go to the toilet. It's not just about being high-tech; it's about your bum being cleaned with warm water and dried.’ So far, more than 60m TOTO toilets have been sold worldwide. ‘We believe, going forward, it will become more common; it's been in Japan for 45 years now and more than 80% of people there have one. They're like smartphones  - people don't realise how much they need one until they try it.’     

Relaxation Hub

We've tended to think of the bathroom as a place connected with bodily cleanliness, but in fact that's only a small part of what it's about. And being clearer about the variety of human needs the bathroom caters for will be right up there in shaping its future.  A 2021 survey of 2,000 UK adults found four in 10 said the bathroom was    a place to escape for some peace and quiet; others said they ate breakfast there, sipped tea on the loo, even took calls while they were in there. Not to mention the inspiration element: one study revealed that 40% of people find they come up with their best thoughts in the bath or shower, or on the loo  (by comparison, just J2% find they get their best thinking done at works.  Hansgrohe uncovered a similar story: ‘We found 40 reasons why people go to the bathroom, and only one of them is to get clean,’ says Steffen Erath.  ‘Of course there's a need for physical hygiene, but more and more, the bathroom is going to be about mental hygiene: because it's the best retreat in the home. People go there to recharge, to get some me-time.’  Combine the relaxation element of the bathroom with the need to conserve water and it's clear the bath itself needs a rethink — because if we detach relaxation from cleanliness, it's much more sustainable to take  a short shower to pet clean and to linger instead in a meditation booth, a sensory pod or a massage chair. which every bathroom of the  future will have. You'll lie back in an armchair-cum-dome, naked or  wearing a robe, and select the sounds, lights and fragrances that meet your mental needs in the moment. And the shift towards these experiences will  acknowledge the fact that me-time is a human need, not something we should feel guilty about or dress up as something else (‘getting clean’}. 

Smart Mirrors

AI will be another big game-changer: there's so much potential that it's difficult to be specific, but elements such as lighting, mirrors (anti-mist, of course), sounds and sink and loo height may be personalized - so an app on your smartphone will ‘tell’ the bathroom as you enter it how you like it to be.  This personalization could well extend to beauty.

Smart mirrors will be able  to analyze our skin's condition instantly and recommend which face regime  or cream is needed. High-tech mirrors will also provide previews of our looks — if you're not sure what color lipstick to use or whether you want  to wave your hair, the mirror will be able to show you how it will look before you make your choice. Some futurists even predict the bathroom mirror  will become a two-way device that you'll be able to activate for in-the- moment advice from a beautician, a hairdresser or a doctor.  In tomorrow's bathroom, it won't be just the water that's on tap. In fact, it will be less about the water and more about a whole panoply of gadgets to meet your needs, as well as instant advice from experts.

Source: Good Homes