While the amount of water in the earth system is constant – it varies in quality, location, access, delivery and availability. In fact, the distribution of fresh water is extremely disproportionate, as eleven countries share approximately 60% of the world’s fresh water resources and 450 million people in 29 countries suffer from chronic water shortages. By 2025, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates 1.8 billion of the world’s projected 8.9 billion people will be living in countries or regions that are experiencing “absolute water scarcity”, and two-thirds of the world population could be under conditions of water stress.
We need to consider how that water is delivered, how much water is delivered and how to manage our use such that we can achieve sustainability. These solutions are institutional. The practices of the past will not be the practices of the future. Indeed our infrastructure decisions of the past have hindered our future. With growth and the pressing need to replace $300 billion to $1 trillion of infrastructure we have the opportunity to make a strategic change in the way we consider water supply and distribution.
We need to adopt a fundamentally different water delivery paradigm. One based on the fundamentals of Total Water Management and using the "right water for the right use". Not only can this paradigm save water, but it acts as a hedge against increasingly stringent water quality criteria, and is a more power efficient model.
