Challenges in Water Management Series
Editor:
Justin Taberham
Independent Consultant and Environmental Advisor, London, UK
Titles in the series:
Urban Water Security
Robert C. Brears
2016
ISBN:978-1-119-13172-4
Water Resources: A New Water Architecture
Alexander Lane, Michael Norton and Sandra Ryan
2017
ISBN: 978-1-118-79390-9
This edition first published 2017
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The right Alexander Lane, Michael Norton and Sandra Ryan to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lane, Alexander, 1986- | Norton, Michael (Michael Robin), 1952- | Ryan, Sandra -1979
Title: Water Resources : A New Water Architecture / by Alexander Lane, Michael Norton, Sandra Ryan.
Description: Chichester, West Sussex : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017007294 (print) | LCCN 2017008973 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118793909 (cloth) | ISBN 9781118793954 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781118794074 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Water-supply-Management. | Water demand management.
Classification: LCC TD215 .N67 2018 (print) | LCC TD215 (ebook) | DDC 333.91-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007294
Cover Design and Graphics: Courtesy of Lisa Mellis
The World Bank in 2014 noted:
‘Water is one of the most basic human needs. With impacts on agriculture, education, energy, health, gender equity, and livelihood, water management underlies the most basic development challenges. Water is under unprecedented pressures as growing populations and economies demand more of it. Practically every development challenge of the 21st century – food security, managing rapid urbanization, energy security, environmental protection, adapting to climate change – requires urgent attention to water resources management.
Yet already, groundwater is being depleted faster than it is being replenished and worsening water quality degrades the environment and adds to costs. The pressures on water resources are expected to worsen because of climate change. There is ample evidence that climate change will increase hydrologic variability, resulting in extreme weather events such as droughts floods, and major storms. It will continue to have a profound impact on economies, health, lives, and livelihoods. The poorest people will suffer most.’
It is clear there are numerous challenges in water management in the 21st Century. In the 20th Century, most elements of water management had their own distinct set of organisations, skill sets, preferred approaches and professionals. The overlying issue of industrial pollution of water resources was managed from a ‘point source’ perspective.
However, it has become accepted that water management has to be seen from a holistic viewpoint and managed in an integrated manner. Our current key challenges include:
This series highlights cutting-edge material in the global water management sector from a practitioner as well as an academic viewpoint. The issues covered in this series are of critical interest to advanced level undergraduates and Masters Students as well as industry, investors and the media.
Justin Taberham, CEnv
Series Editor
www.justintaberham.com
I grew up in the valley of Wastwater and the River Irt in Cumbria in England. I was fascinated by water. Where did it come from? How was it that the Irt kept flowing even during dry weather? How did water influence the shape, width and depth of streams, rivers and lakes? Why was water such a haven for flora and fauna?
That fascination endured through my childhood and into my university education, where hydrology and geology were far and away my best subjects within a crammed civil engineering curriculum. I embarked upon a career in civil engineering, starting as a graduate trainee with a small English Water Board designing water supply infrastructure. My career subsequently took me far and wide to work on over 100 projects in more than 20 countries. The fascination with water has never faded, and I have contributed to solving problems to a wide range of water challenges, from water resources through water supply and wastewater, to managing floods and providing irrigation systems.
In 2008 my employer Halcrow Group Ltd entrusted me with a review of ‘water scarcity’ on the basis that it was perceived as a global mega trend that was going to impact most infrastructure and environment sectors in the early twenty-first century. I undertook that review with gusto and, along the way, learned more of the vital role that water plays in the biosphere; I was able to calibrate that learning against a background of having worked in a wide range of institutional settings.
It was during this time that the seeds of New Water Architecture (NWA) were sown in my mind, an idea that stemmed from Integrated Water Resources Management and was infused with elements of the emerging concepts of the water-food-energy system, virtual water and urban sustainability. My enthusiasm to develop new ways of thinking about water has been, and continues to be, shared by many colleagues, but two young people have stood out: Alex Lane at Halcrow as co-incubator of NWA; and Sandra Ryan at Amec Foster Wheeler as a kindred water spirit in an Oil & Gas-orientated company. When in 2012 I put to Sandra and Alex the idea of writing a book, they jumped at the opportunity. I am deeply grateful that they did.
Michael Norton
Long Newnton
We, the authors of this book, have been profoundly affected by our experiences in both our careers and our personal lives that are increasingly highlighting the very real problems of water scarcity, stress and mismanagement. Most worryingly, these problems appear largely disregarded or unheard of by those that hold the necessary power to take action.
We live and work in an age where we see water problems growing and accelerating; the pressure is tangible, and yet there remains inertia within organisations that have responsibilities and duties to govern and protect our water environment and its resources. Some of that inertia may be a consequence of the size and complexity of the challenges that face us. We suspect there is an element of ‘heads buried in the sand’, of hoping that water problems will somehow work themselves out while we continue to manage according to the status quo.
Recent years have seen a proliferation of advocacy groups and enlightened businesses that see things differently and argue that change is not just a good idea, but essential. Old, traditional concepts such as perceived ‘rights’ to unlimited water are being questioned and challenged by these groups and businesses, but governments seem to be lagging behind. New ways of thinking about water, such as water footprinting and virtual water, are gaining ground in terms of application and acceptance and are helping us to understand the complexity of our water problems. Slowly but surely, we believe a paradigm shift is occurring. Water management is no longer a responsibility ring-fenced by public authorities and taken for granted by water users. Businesses and their investors are experiencing the impacts of water stress and, gradually understanding the threats (and potential opportunities) these introduce, have taken the lead, beginning to embrace principles of water stewardship and increasingly forcing governments to follow suit.
Our careers have enabled us to work on many water projects, some at a very local scale. Such projects have given us a grassroots knowledge of hydrology and water management systems and an important understanding of the perceptions of, and demands for, water from businesses and industries. We have observed and are helping to direct the gradual change in the attitudes to water held by many corporations. We have also worked with national governments and with regional transboundary institutions and partnerships to analyse water issues at strategic international scales, and to assess the role of water in the development of national and international economic policy. We can see that the opportunity landscape for water professionals is beginning to look very different to that which has passed.
While we see the recent positive progress and the valuable lessons that are being learned, it is the numerous remaining barriers and obstacles that triggered us to write this book. The overlooked importance of water in so many of our daily activities – in the electricity and fuel we burn, the food we eat and the products we consume – is the dominant theme running through this book. Populations are changing, climates are evolving and our natural water systems are responding in complex and interlinked ways which we don't yet fully understand. ‘More of the same’ as a management approach is therefore not going to resolve our problems. While some of our current water resource management techniques and approaches are effective and, with continued improvement, can provide beneficial outcomes or even become cornerstones of a new water management paradigm, others have run their course and are now not fit to address the challenges we face. Having the courage to question the validity of well-established approaches and taking the necessary steps to enable change is difficult but necessary.
This book does not claim or intend to give all the answers. It presents the authors' collective views on how a new water management paradigm, a New Water Architecture, could look and feel. Its purpose is to stimulate the much-needed critical thinking on attitudes and approaches to water management that will drive real progress.
We believe that mankind must face up to the consequences that will be experienced if water management is not improved, if availability and access to safe and secure water resources does not improve, and if the detrimental impacts that arise from poor water management continue to become more widespread and intense. History presents us with several examples of civilisations whose collapses can be traced to water. People have always followed water and its associated riches and, while we may increasingly try to make water follow us, it is only resilient water management systems that will be able to sustain the global distribution of people in secure environments.
We urge all water professionals to measure their success in terms of their contribution to improving the water environment, in securing appropriate and fair allocation of water resources, and in increasing the perceived value of water in the eyes of all those with a stake in sustainable water management. By this, we are not referring to only political and corporate leaders, but to everyone.
We have received much direct and indirect support during the journey from initial idea to publication of this book.
First and foremost we wish to thank Professor John Bridgman of Birmingham University for suggesting to Wiley that we might be interested in writing such a book. Wiley asked a number of people to review the book proposal, and we wish to thank them. One of those reviewers has sadly since passed away, Professor Raúl Galindo of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Valparaiso Chile, and so we pass our thanks to his family.
We wish to thank Justin Taberham for his enthusiastic review of our final manuscript and his many suggestions of how we might disseminate our key messages. Thanks also to Laura Polito for her insight and advice on how to utilise the many media available to us to publicise and promote this book.
For production of the book we thank Lisa Mellis for her work with many of our original illustrations, copy-editor Elaine Rowan and all those too many to mention in Wiley who helped us on our journey.
Our families have played their part, not least putting up with times when we worked late or over the weekend as we tried to balance our day jobs with book writing. These include Shirley Norton, Cheryl and Peter Lane, and Caroline and Michael Ryan.
When we embarked upon the journey, our employers gave us permission to write this book: Amec Foster Wheeler for Sandra and Michael, and CH2M for Alexander. Our thanks go to them.
Finally, we wish to thank those friends, colleagues and others who have knowingly or unknowingly given inspiration to one of more of us, before and during the journey, including: Tony Allan, Tony Allum, Rodolfo Aradas, Frank Chasemore, Roger Falconer, Chris Fawcett, Mark Fletcher, Arjen Hoekstra, David Johnstone, Harlan Kelly, John Lawson, Bill McCall, Alex Mung, Ken Newnham, Isabella Polenghi-Gross, Susie Roy, John Readman, Rebekah Rice, Stacey Sabol, Barry Walton, Dominic Waughray, Marvin Williams and David Yaw.
The following acronyms and abbreviations are used in this book.
| Acronyms/Abbreviation | Term |
| AgMIP | Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project |
| ASR | Aquifer storage and recovery |
| AWS | Alliance for Water Stewardship |
| CAP | European Union Common Agricultural Policy |
| CAPEX | Capital expenditure |
| CBM | Coal-bed methane |
| CCS | Carbon capture and storage |
| CDP | Carbon Disclosure Project |
| CHP | Combined heat and power |
| CSO | Combined sewer overflow |
| CSP | Concentrated solar power |
| DEFRA | England and Wales Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs |
| EPA | US Environmental Protection Agency |
| EU | European Union |
| FAO | UN Food and Agriculture Organization |
| GCM | Global climate model |
| GDP | Gross domestic product |
| GM | Genetically modified |
| GWP | Global Water Partnership |
| ICDPR | International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River |
| IEA | International Energy Agency |
| IMF | International Monetary Fund |
| IPCC | Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change |
| IWRM | Integrated Water Resource Management |
| MAR | Managed aquifer recharge |
| MDG | Millennium Development Goal |
| MENA | Middle East and North Africa |
| NETL | United States National Energy Technology Laboratory |
| NGO | Non-governmental organisation |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| OPEX | Operating expenditure |
| PPP | Public-private partnership |
| PV | Photovoltaic |
| PUB | Singapore Public Utilities Board |
| RCM | Regional climate model |
| RO | Reverse osmosis |
| RWR | Renewable water resource |
| SAR | Shallow aquifer recharge |
| SUS | Sustainable drainage systems |
| TEEB | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity |
| UN | United Nations |
| UV | Ultra-violet |
| WASH | Water, sanitation and hygiene |
| WBCSD | World Business Council for Sustainable Development |
| WCD | World Commission on Dams |
| WEC | World Energy Council |
| WEF | World Economic Forum |
| WFN | Water Footprint Network |
| WHO | World Health Organization |
| WRG | World Resources Group |
| WRI | World Resources Institute |
The following table provides conversions between the units of measurement commonly used in this book.
| Unit | Conversion |
| 1 megalitre (ML) | 1,000,000 litres (L) |
| 1 gigalitre (GL) | 1,000 ML |
| 1 cubic kilometre (km3) or 1 cubic gigametre (Gm3) | 1,000,000,000 cubic metres (m3) |
| 1 m3 | 1,000 L |
| 1 km3 or 1 Gm3 | 1,000,000 ML |
A variety of terms are used to describe water resources of one form or another and these are often used interchangeably. They are typically quantified as an annual total in cubic kilometres per year (km3/yr). For ease of comparison between case studies, this book typically adopts the renewable water resource (RWR) term.
In Earth's 45th millionth century a global crisis of freshwater scarcity is looming, a crisis that is accelerating thanks to our unbridled development and our burgeoning demand for food and energy, and as a result of the effects of climate change. Just 0.1% of the total global water volume of 1.4 billion km3 is accessible freshwater; we are already withdrawing one-quarter of our accessible renewable water resource (RWR) however, much of which is already needed to sustain our ecosystems and biodiversity, themselves vital for our survival.
In this book, we argue that the world faces water security challenges of a scale previously unseen and largely unsuspected by its population. Estimates suggest that we need four times the current global rate of investment in new water supplies if we are to successfully meet projected water demand in 2030 (2030 WRG 2009). To have any chance of meeting future water demands, we believe there is a compelling need for water professionals to emerge from their comfort zones and to engage with politicians, decision makers and those stakeholders with influencing power. While we can and should continue to develop cost-efficient water technologies, water professionals must grasp this moment to put themselves at the centre of the often-siloed disciplines of science, technology, politics, environment and economics. New models of integrated water management are required to address complex multi-stakeholder demand patterns and water-related responsibilities.
On 31 October 2011, a baby girl born in Manila was chosen to symbolise the 7 billionth human being on the planet. Although the rate at which the global population is growing has almost halved since the 1970s, in the last 40 years the world's population has still doubled. Alongside this increase, strong economic growth has seen standards of living rise dramatically in the developed world. Forecasts of population growth suggest that by 2050 there may be 9.5 billion humans sharing the planet, most of them living in our ever-expanding cities. We have already reached a point where more than half of all people live in urban areas, and this proportion is expected to rise to two-thirds later this century. The influence of these demographic trends on water resources in discussed further in Section 2.3.3 and in detail in Chapter 4 ‘Live’.
Significant volumes of research have been carried out and continue to be conducted into potential scenarios of climate change and their projected impacts on RWR and water demand. The evidence is strong that the influences are real and that the impacts are already with us and set to intensify (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2013). Very broadly, predictions are for increased rainfall and runoff in higher latitudes and reduced rainfall and runoff in tropical and mid-to lower latitudes. The volumes of water stored in glaciers are expected to fall, thereby reducing annual meltwater flows and in turn affecting water supplies in dependent areas such as Peru and California. Higher temperatures will exacerbate water pollution problems in many rivers and lakes, and will increase evaporation from open waterbodies and soil. More intense rainfall events will result in more frequent stormwater flooding in urban areas as well as from rivers.
It is estimated that the world's total RWR is between 33,500 km3 and 47,000 km3 per year (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Vast amounts of this resource are, for all practical purposes, unavailable due to their remoteness relative to demand (for example in the Amazon Basin, Canada, Greenland and Russia). It has been estimated that only around 50% of the global RWR can be accessed (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).
Currently, we withdraw around 4,500 km3 of our accessible RWR (2030 WRG 2009). In the last 40 years, global water withdrawals have almost tripled and this growth rate remains strong, increasing by over 60 km3 each year. Despite these increases in withdrawals, demands for water are growing even faster and are expected to reach 6,000 km3 a year by 2030 (2030 WRG 2009). Even with our increasing water supply rates, and allowing for more efficient use of water, meeting this demand is believed by many authors to be unlikely (2030 WRG 2009). It can be argued that even now we are reaching what some observers are calling ‘peak water’, the concept of the safe water withdrawal limit that must not be passed if we are also to leave enough water in our rivers to maintain their aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity, a vital and much underappreciated resource in their own right.
Now that more than 1 in 2 people live in urban environments, the need to address the pressures that urban lifestyles exert on water resources is paramount. Urban water managers already face challenges of aging water infrastructure, large energy demands, high maintenance and treatment costs, and increasingly stringent environmental regulations. Many are also facing population growth, and the impacts of climate change on water demand and on urban stormwater runoff.
Water management in cities and urban settings has experienced many developments in thinking in recent years. The International Eco-Cities Initiative identified as many as 178 significant so-called ‘eco-city’ initiatives at different stages of planning and implementation around the world (Joss et al. 2011), and most of these initiatives include a water management component. Examples include Curitiba (Brazil), Auroville (India), Dongtan (China), Masdar (UAE), Freiburg (Germany) and Stockholm (Sweden). The evolving aim is to move from urban systems which are heavy users of non-renewable resources and generators of waste to urban systems which reduce their water demand, use renewable resources and recycle their wastes into valuable products (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Inputs and outputs in an idealised urban resource system. Source: adapted from Rogers (1998).
Importantly, this aim applies as much to the resources of food, energy and other materials as it does to water; water is at the heart of urban sustainability, however. Already, most urban water utility managers are implementing measures which can be loosely classed as ‘demand management’: promoting the uptake of household appliances which use less water, advocating garden rainwater harvesting and considering the recycling of treated wastewater, for example. They also wish to minimise the costs and carbon footprint of their primary water supply systems, seeking water from sources which cost less to secure and at the same time offer resilience against the potential future impacts of climate change and weather extremes.
It is projected that future water withdrawals required to grow and process our food will reach 4,500 km3 by 2030, compared to around 3,100 km3 in 2010, unless significant efficiency gains are realised (World Economic Forum 2011). These withdrawals are around seven times higher than those for drinking water. At the current time, around 30% of the food eaten worldwide is grown under irrigation, accounting for 70% of all water withdrawals (World Economic Forum 2011). Irrigation underpins crop production, particularly commercial cropping, because it significantly increases crop yields over and above those which can be achieved by rainfall alone. While there are still vast tracts of cultivatable land on the planet with regular rainfall, the growing trend for crops to be grown under irrigation shows no sign of abatement. A special report in The Economist in February 2011 concluded that of all the constraints to ‘feeding the 9 billion’, that of finding sufficient water is the most intractable. The relationships between water and food are explored in detail in Chapter 5 ‘Eat’.
In his 2010 BBC Reith Lectures, UK Astronomer Royal Professor Sir Martin Rees said “This is a crucial century. The Earth has existed for 45 million centuries. But this is the first when one species, ours, can determine – for good or ill – the future of the entire biosphere”.
This is a profound statement and one that has inspired the authors of this book. We believe that the future of the biosphere as a sustainable habitat for mankind will be framed by how effectively we manage our water: water in our rivers, lakes and aquifers; water in our soils; water which sustains our incredible biodiversity and ecosystems; and, most of all, the water that we humans use to live, eat and consume (Part II: chapters 4, 5 and 6, respectively).
In the subsequent chapters of Part III of this book we describe the fundamentals of water resources, the current state of water stress through our live, eat and consume activities, and how current policy, regulation and water management seek to address water scarcity and increasing water insecurity. In Part IV, our final collection of chapters, we propose a new way forward characterised by conceptual, physical and institutional integration of all aspects of the management of our planet's water, an approach which transcends current valiant yet largely unsuccessful attempts to implement Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). We term this new approach a New Water Architecture.