We live on a planet covered in water, so surely countries like Britain shouldn’t have to worry about running out of it? After another summer of drought warnings and hosepipe bans, perhaps it’s time we stopped taking water for granted.
This week on the Net Hero Podcast I spoke to Professor Peiying Hong from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia about water scarcity and why something we routinely flush away could become an increasingly valuable resource.
Wastewater. Or, as Peiying would rather call it, “new water.”
She said: “In my native Singapore, the new water goes towards a certain percentage of it goes into our surface reservoir to be blended with surface water and then it goes through the drinking water treatment process.
“So it’s what we call indirect drinking water resources. So it’s not directly pumping it to your household.”
But drinking it isn’t necessarily where the biggest opportunity lies. Peiying told me food production accounts for around 80% of global freshwater use, which means recycled water could become particularly valuable for agriculture.
“Maybe we should repackage the way we think about this new water, in the sense that it goes towards food production,” she said. “This is another source of water that can be blended with groundwater, that can be blended with desalinated water or whatever, to make out the total water demand that is needed to produce food.”
What struck me most was her warning for countries like Britain. We tend to think water scarcity is a Saudi Arabian or desert problem. It isn’t.
“All of these are common pressures that countries globally are going to face,” she told me. “People always think that okay, if you want economy you need energy. Energy needs water. You want to sustain the population growth, you need food and drink. And then they forget that water is part of the equation.”
And relying on our traditionally wet climate may be a dangerous assumption.
“I think rethinking and not assuming that water is always going to be abundant is very important,” Peiying said. “A bit of rethinking into infrastructure planning and how you want to utilise the water resources are perhaps things that temperate countries can start to learn from the hyper arid environments, where we know we cannot afford to waste any water.”
That means capturing rainfall, improving storage, considering desalination and, crucially, treating wastewater as a resource rather than something to dispose of.
As Peiying puts it, water, food and energy are intrinsically linked. We cannot plan the future of one without thinking seriously about the other two.
It is a fascinating conversation about a resource most of us barely think about until it stops coming out of the tap. Listen to the full conversation with Professor Hong on the Net Hero Podcast now, download the episode wherever you get your podcasts and please subscribe.
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