Sarni, W. (2019). Building a Sustainable and Resilient Urban Water Strategy. Solutions 10(1): 69–75. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/building-a-sustainable-and-resilient-urban-water-strategy
Feature
Building a Sustainable and Resilient Urban Water Strategy by Will Sarni
In Brief
Will Sarni
Figure 1. Women fetching water as a daily routine.
C
urrently, approximately 4 billion people live in water-scarce and -stressed regions, with nearly 1 billion people lacking access to safe drinking water and almost 1 million deaths per year from water-borne diseases (Figure 1). The 2030 Water Resources Group projected1 that by 2030 the world faces a 40 percent “gap” between water supply and demand under business as usual practices (e.g., public policy and technology). In addition to water scarcity impacts, the world also faces the obstacles flooding poses to economic growth, business continuity, and social
well-being. For example, the Chennai flood in India in December 2015 was the worst flooding from rain storms in the last 100 years.2 Among a population of 7.6 million, hundreds of people were killed, millions were without safe drinking water, and business operations were severely disrupted. Several global cities—from Johannesburg to Rio de Janeiro—are facing risks to their water supplies, and as a result are increasing their resiliency to changing hydrologic conditions. Research by CDP Water highlights the response of cities to these water risks, noting that the cities
Currently, an estimated 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas which is expected to increase to 68 percent by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90 percent of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa.20 As a result, a sustainable and resilient water strategy is needed for global cities to cope with increased demand for water and the impacts of climate change (e.g., scarcity and extreme weather events). Urban water strategies require innovation in public policy, technology, funding and financing and business models. In addition, a system thinking approach is needed which connects urban water management to watersheds, customers and other stakeholders to manage water to ensure economic development, business growth, ecosystem health and social well-being.
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