No shortages---abundance is coming quickly
Dr. Asit K. Biswas 19, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, and Dr. Cecilia Tortajada, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Water Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore, “Water Crisis and Water Wars: Myths and Realities”, International Journal of Water Resources Development, Volume 35, Issue 5
In terms of industrial water use, which is increasing the most in terms of total percentage in global use, major multinational corporations like Unilever and Nestlé are leading the way to reduce their water footprints very significantly. Unilever reduced total water abstraction for its factories by 44% between 2008 and 2018. It reduced its total water abstraction in 2018 by 7.2% compared to 2017. It has saved 22 billion litres of water compared to 2008, with very significant increases in production.
Unilever’s average payback time for measures to increase water use efficiency has been just over two years. Reduced water consumption has also reduced its energy costs, since less water had to be pumped and heated, and less wastewater had to be treated. Between 2008 and 2017, water conservation reduced Unilever’s annual energy bills by €105 million.
Similarly, Nestlé reduced its water withdrawals per tonne of product, for every product category, by 29.6% between 2010 and 2018. Its most innovative idea has been zero-water factories. By installing condensate recovery units for milk, which is 88% water, it made its plant in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, a zero-water factory. The plant does not abstract water from outside sources. Similar total water savings have been achieved, or soon will be achieved, in six plants in Brazil, and one each in China, India, Pakistan, South Africa and California (Biswas & Tortajada, 2019).
Many other industries are now following the footsteps of Unilever and Nestlé, and increasingly more corporations are likely to go this route.
Agricultural water use, the largest user of water in the world at 70%, is also becoming more efficient. Globally, water used by agriculture, as a percentage of total water use, has been steadily declining for over a decade. China dramatically reduced its agricultural water abstraction per hectare of irrigated land, by 20%, between 1990 and 2012 (Doczi, Calow, & d’Alançon, 2014). The emphasis on improving agricultural water use efficiency has increased very significantly since then. Importantly, food production since 1990 has continued to grow steadily, as have its economic activities. China is successfully decoupling its economy from water use. Between 2012 and 2017, China reduced its water consumption per RMB 10,000 by 30%, while increasing industrial value added by 52.9% (Wang, 2019).
With the increasing emphasis on water conservation and pollution at China’s highest political levels, by 2030, water use is likely to decrease even more dramatically compared to what has been witnessed in the past.
More and more countries are being forced to improve their water management practices, since they have no real alternative. Industries are realizing they can survive and thrive only by steadily improving their water efficiency. The general public is becoming aware of the value and the cost of water and of the uncertainties posed by climate change to all related sectors. Cumulatively, all these developments will ensure that the global water scene by 2030 will be very different from the present. A by-product of all these changes is likely to be that the present misguided focus on scarcity due to physical lack of water will move to considering how best water management practices and processes can be improved so that significantly more can be done with the same quantum of water and its regular reuse.