Anyone who has ever experienced thirst, not the urge to drink water that is readily available, but true thirst like that which occurs when one has been dehydrated as a result of illness or has no access to sources of clean water, knows the truth of the slogan ‘water is life.’ Some seventy per cent of the human body is water which needs daily replenishing. Water is also needed for sanitation purposes and to grow food.
The signs are all around us that a global water crisis is imminent, as they were a few years ago that there was going to be a food crisis. This is aside from the almost annual droughts some countries experience. The fact is that the global demand for potable water is increasing while the world’s fresh water resources are diminishing.
According to statistics published by the UN, almost half of the world’s population of six billion-odd is under twenty-five years old. More than half of these people are still children and adolescents, but will come of age in the near future and many of them will have children of their own. The world is looking at another population boom in the near future.
Meanwhile, the current and previous generations, to put it mildly, have not been the greatest stewards of the earth. As the world observed Earth Day yesterday, with greater global awareness of the need to preserve the environment for posterity, there ought to have been some shamefacedness among those who have lived/still live as though the earth would die with them. While poverty has contributed to the damage done to the environment, there has been wholesale pollution for the purpose of garnering wealth and in the name of development, the world over.
Managing the earth’s resources, particularly its water is therefore a must for our generation and the ones to come. Professor of Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University Peter Rogers said in an article he wrote for Project Syndicate that despite how dire things seem a global water crisis is not a foregone conclusion. He believes it can be averted by careful management and the embracing of technical modifications.
He advocates advanced desalination, recycling of waste water and conserving irrigation water. Professor Rogers acknowledged that avoiding a crisis will not be a walk in the park, but believes that advanced processes such as trading virtual water – “the amount of water that is embodied in producing a product (usually food) and shipping it somewhere else to be used” would allow the recipient to save the water he would have used for higher-value activities.
He also suggested developing creative pricing policies for urban water and wastewater, though he acknowledged that it would be difficult to place a price on “protecting human and ecosystem health, because they form part of the pervasive externalities associated with water use.”
Of all the recommendations made, conservation – and not just of irrigation water – would be the least expensive to implement. It would require some amount of re-education where people would have grown accustomed to wasting water, and perhaps active policing to prevent them slipping back. Because realizing behavioural change is always difficult, those in authority would also need to lead by example, rather than spouting ‘do as I say and not as I do.’ This is a lesson the Guyana Water Incorporated should take on board as it desperately needs to review its “three working days” and longer response to reports of broken water lines. Water Minister Irfaan Ali had said at the launch of the one-stop shop for house lots held at West Demerara that faults which are reported should be addressed with immediacy. This is still not happening generally.