Prabhakar Shukla, Scientist, UKRI GCRF

Prabhakar Shukla

Scientist (GIS and Water Resources Management) UKRI GCRF Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub

What are your hopes for the future of our water sources?

There is no way to predict exactly what the world’s water resources will look like in the future. Demand relative to supply will likely increase rapidly across the globe in the next few decades, as more people compete for ever dwindling surface-water supplies.

When people think about water stress, they often think of major changes in supplies: year-long droughts, or dry monsoon seasons. Such events will play a significant part, and their consequences will be severe. different polluting substances (generating benefits for municipal water supply as much as for fishing), which are more difficult to assess in monetary terms.

What steps are you taking to help improve water quality?

We are in the process of generating scientific evidence about the identification of hotspots for pollution in the Yamuna river, Delhi. The findings shall be disseminated through a GIS based framework to the stakeholders.

If you could change one thing about the way water quality is managed currently, what would it be?

It is important to avoid pollutants from contaminating the water and to use water more efficiently. Stormwater management is also essential in order to reduce runoff into streets, lawns and other sites, which also has knock-on impacts on water quality.

Why is water quality still a topic of concern globally?

Water quality degradation causes environmental, social and economic problems. The availability of the world’s scarce water resources is increasingly limited due to the worsening pollution of freshwater resources caused by the disposal of large quantities of insufficiently treated, or untreated, wastewater into rivers, lakes, aquifers and coastal waters.

Furthermore, newly emerging pollutants like personal care products and pharmaceuticals, pesticides, industrial and household chemicals - combined with changing climate patterns - pose a great challenge to water quality management, with many long-term impacts on human health and ecosystems still unknown. What role do you think technology will play in securing water quality?

Innovation and technology have a vital role to play in scarcity and safety, water efficiency, utility operations, monitoring and treatment.

Global entrepreneurs are witnessing a greater willingness by utilities and business to test and adopt promising technologies such as the remote sensing of water, which can help with water accounting, non-revenue water remediation and much more. Other solutions include data and analytics, and the internet of Things (IoT), which enables smart irrigation, water quality control, and, when coupled with new computing capacity, allows us to develop complex models for water management.

What role does the water industry play in improving water quality?

Strengthening valuations of water pollution in Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), which are required for infrastructure development projects in most countries, can help to identify, assess and mitigate any risks arising from these investments and identify trade-offs and co-benefits.

Investment in water supply and sanitation services typically generates a number of economic, environmental and social benefits. Benefits from the provision of basic water supply and sanitation services have been reaped in the late 19th or early 20th centuries in most countries, with now a marginal rate of return of water and sanitation interventions that diminishes with the increasing sophistication of measures.

In contrast, relatively high cost investments required in wastewater treatment have benefits, through the removal of Website: watersecurityhub.org

Global entrepreneurs are witnessing a greater willingness by utilities and business to test and adopt promising technologies