The United Nations World Water Development Report 3

Water in a Changing World (Two Vols.)

World Water Assessment Programme

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781844078394
• eBook ISBN: 9781136551604
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

The United Nations World Water Development Report, published every three years, is a comprehensive review providing an authoritative picture of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It offers best practices as well as in-depth theoretical analyses to help stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector. It is the only report of its kind, resulting from the collaboration and contributions of the 26 UN agencies, commissions, program, funds, secretariats and conventions that have a significant role in addressing global water concerns.

The news media are full of talk of crises - in climate change, energy and food and troubled financial markets. These crises are linked to each other and to water resources management. Unresolved, they may lead to increasing political insecurity and conflict.

Water is required to meet our fundamental needs and rising living standards and to sustain our planet's fragile ecosystems. Pressures on the resource come from a growing and mobile population, social and cultural change, economic development and technological change. Adding complexity and risk is climate change, with impacts on the resource as well as on the sources of pressure on water.

The challenges, though substantial, are not insurmountable. The Report shows how some countries have responded. Progress in providing drinking water is heartening, with the Millennium Development Goal target on track in most regions. But other areas remain unaddressed, and after decades of inaction, the problems in water systems are enormous and will worsen if left unattended.

Leaders in the water sector can inform decisions outside their domain and manage water resources to achieve agreed socioeconomic objectives and environmental integrity. Leaders in government, the private sector and civil society determine these objectives and allocate human and financial resources to meet them. Recognizing this responsibility, they must act now!

Two volume set: 336

PART 1 Understanding what drives the pressures on water

Chapter 2 Demographic, economic and social drivers

Chapter 3 Technological innovation

Chapter 4 Policies, laws and finance

Chapter 5 Climate change and possible futures

Chapters 2-5
Coordinator
Tim Kasten
(UNEP) with the support of Thomas Chiramba (UNEP)

Facilitator
Richard Connor

The amount of freshwater on Earth is finite, but its distribution has varied considerably, driven mainly by natural cycles of freezing and thawing and fluctuations in precipitation, water runoff patterns and evapotranspiration levels.

That situation has changed, however. Alongside natural causes are new and continuing human activities that have become primary ‘drivers’ of the pressures affecting our planet’s water systems. These pressures are most often related to human development and economic growth. Our requirements for water to meet our fundamental needs and our collective pursuit of higher living standards, coupled with the need for water to sustain our planet’s fragile ecosystems, make water unique among our planet’s natural resources.

Chapters 2-5 describe these water drivers and their interactions as they relate to the sustainability of water resources and systems. They also examine how to make reasonable predictions about the future. Such forecasts are relevant for policy-making directed to water resources and for development activities, investment planning and other activities generally considered to be outside the domain of the water sector – or ‘outside the water box’.

Part 1 examines the processes behind the rising pressures on our water supplies, identify the ones most likely to have the greatest impact on the world’s water resources in the coming decades and describe the context within which water will be managed. These chapters describe what we know about the current situation and recent trends and forecast possible futures related to processes that we refer to as drivers of change and define as:

a set of fundamental processes that are external to the water sector and that directly or indirectly co-determine the evolution of the water system in terms of the quality, quantity and spatial distribution of the resource.

At the turn of the century the World Water Vision exercise of the World Water Council – the first and largest international effort to develop global water scenarios – identified a series of ‘driving forces’ that ‘represent key factors, trends or processes which influence the situation, focal issues or decisions, and actually propel the system forward and determine the story’s outcome’.¹ Using this definition, the Vision team selected major drivers and organized them into six clusters: demographic, economic, technological, social, governance and environmental. This part of the Report draws on these clusters, with the exception of the environment, which is defined as a use and is covered extensively in part 2. To this list we have added climate change, discussed in Chapter 5 and throughout the Report. This part of the Report also describes many of the complex links between the drivers, which can cause both positive and negative feedback impacts.

In describing drivers ‘external to the water sector’, we have sought to identify key forces or processes of change over which water sector users, managers and decision-makers have little direct influence. Thus, water use sectors (agriculture, energy, domestic and industrial) are not drivers even though they have a major impact on the resource because they are not external to the water sector. The drivers of agriculture – and its demand for water – are such fundamental processes as population growth, changes in dietary preferences as living standards rise, and increasing demand for non-food agricultural products such as bioenergy. The drivers of change are the demographic, economic and social forces that, in combination, exert pressures on the agriculture sector. This leads to an evolution in agriculture practices, which can also be influenced by technological innovation and agricultural and trade policies, all of which eventually affect the quality and quantity of water.

These drivers should not be considered in isolation of related socioeconomic or political factors and other drivers. Many natural links influence how drivers affect changes, directly and indirectly. Water properties are governed by biological, chemical and physical laws that define the quantity and quality of water resources and that are linked in various ways. Temperature, a physical factor, can affect the metabolism of aquatic organisms, a biological process. The excessive biological production (such as excessive algal growth) associated with increased temperature can degrade water quality, a chemical property.

Superimposed on these natural processes are human activities that exacerbate these processes, disrupting the natural balance of water systems. The growth of algae or aquatic plants in a lake, for example, is stimulated by excessive nutrients and minerals washed into the lake as a result of human activities, accelerating natural growth processes to levels that can cause water quality degradation and interfere with beneficial water uses.

Drivers are thus the forces and processes generated by human activities. Consider governments’ efforts to improve citizens’ livelihoods and standards of living by increasing economic growth. Economic growth is affected by a wide range of policy decisions, from international trade to education and public health, while the potential rate of economic growth can be affected by demographic variables such as population distribution (local workforce availability) and social characteristics (workforce capacity) and by the availability of new technologies. Economic activity also requires adequate quantities of natural resources, including freshwater. And water availability is directly subject to the impacts of climate change, which can exert additional pressures on other drivers.

A rising standard of living is typically accompanied by increased consumption and production of goods, along with rising demands for water-related household services and water resources to facilitate economic growth and related activities. Rising demand for meat and fish in urbanized and emerging market economies, for example, has increased fishery activities and livestock production, generally a water-intensive activity. The feedback loop of degraded water quality from livestock feedlot runoff can diminish fish production or alter its quality. There is also sociological evidence that urbanization shifts fishing pressures from natural water systems to artificial systems. Thus, urbanization and globalization, with changes in diets and lifestyles, are strong drivers of water use, even though decisions made outside the water sector are driving them.

The result is a continuously increasing demand for finite water resources for which there are no substitutes. When water resources of acceptable quality can no longer be provided in sustainable quantities to meet such demands, aquatic ecosystems can be overexploited as each sector or user group tries to satisfy its own water needs at the expense of others. The ultimate loser is the sustainability of the exploited aquatic ecosystems and the organisms (including humans) dependent on them for survival and well-being.

Note

1. Gallopín and Rijsberman 2000, p. 18.

Chapter 2

Demographic, economic and social drivers

Authors: Gunilla Björklund, Richard Connor, Anne Goujon, Molly Hellmuth, Patrick Moriarty, Walter Rast, Koko Warner and James Winpenny
Contributors: Arjen Hoekstra, Walter Rast and David Wiberg
Coordinator: Tim Kasten (UNEP)
Facilitator: Richard Connor

Key messages

• Human activities and processes of all types – demographic, economic and social – can exert pressures on water resources and need to be managed.

• These pressures are in turn affected by a range of factors such as technological innovation, institutional and financial conditions and climate change.

• The rapid global rise in living standards combined with population growth presents the major threat to the sustainability of water resources and environmental services.

________________________

Demographic drivers

Authors: Richard Connor, Anne Goujon, Molly Hellmuth and Koko Warner
Contributors: Walter Rast and David Wiberg

Key messages

• Population dynamics (growth, age distribution, urbanization and migration) create pressures on freshwater resources through increased water demands and pollution.

• Changes in the natural landscape associated with population dynamics (migration, urbanization) can create additional pressures on local fresh-water resources and the need for more water-related services.

Demographic processes such as population growth, age distribution, urbanization and migration create some of the greatest pressures on water resources quantity and quality. These demographic processes directly affect water availability and quality through increased water demands and consumption and through pollution resulting from water use. They affect water resources indirectly through changes in land use and water use patterns, with significant implications at local, regional and global levels. And the availability and quality of water as well as trends in water use can influence demographic processes.

The world’s population is growing by about 80 million people a year, implying increased freshwater demand of about 64 billion cubic metres a year.¹ An estimated 90% of the 3 billion people who are expected to be added to the population by 2050 will be in developing countries, many in regions where the current population does not have sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.² Many governments lack the financial resources and institutional capacity to provide for these needs, while countries that have experienced gains in the number of people with access to water supply and sanitation services since 1990 may see these gains eroded by population growth.

The demographics of the global population are changing, with important implications for water resources. By 2050, 22% of the world’s population is expected to be 60 years old or older, up from 10% in 2005. At the same time, the world has more young people than ever, with nearly half the world population being under the age of 25.

While the world’s urban population grew rapidly during the 20th century (from 220 million to 2.8 billion), the next few decades will see an unprecedented scale of urban growth across developing countries. In Africa and Asia the urban population is expected to double between 2000 and 2030. By 2030 the towns and cities of the developing world will make up an estimated 81% of urban humanity.³

Today, there are an estimated 192 million migrants worldwide, up from 176 million in 2000.⁴ Coastal areas, with 18 of the world’s 27 megacities (populations of 10 million or greater), are thought to face the largest migration pressures.⁵ About 75% of people residing in low-lying areas are in Asia, with the most vulnerable being poor people. International migration is increasing as a result of such factors as demographic changes, economic disparities, trade liberalization, environmental changes and new communication technologies. Impacts of climate change can substantially accelerate migration (see chapter 5). Demographic ch...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Overview of key messages
• Water in a changing world
• 1 Understanding what drives the pressures on water
• 2 Demographic, economic and social drivers
• 3 Technological innovation
• 4 Policies, laws and finance
• 5 Climate change and possible futures
• 2 Using water
• 3 State of the resource
• 4 Responses and choices
• Appendix 1 World Water Development Report indicators
• Appendix 2 Water-related goals and objectives of major conferences and forums, 1972-present
• Abbreviations, data notes and units of measure
• List of boxes, figures, maps and tables
• Index