WHO WE ARE
Water Sustainability is a Newly Proposed Concept
We are familiar with the concept of Sustainability, which means the capacity to endure in a relatively ongoing way across various domains of life. A related concept is that of Sustainable Development. A distinction has been formulated between the two concepts. It says that Sustainability often indicates a long-term goal for a more sustainable world, while Sustainable Development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve the goal.
Sustainable Development is also defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
We know the importance of Water, as a chemical substance with the basic molecular structure of H2O, to human life. However, what we discuss here is about all waters and their related natural and engineering systems.
With these in mind, we may define Water Sustainability as waters and their related natural and engineering systems that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The topic of water sustainability at least covers the followings:
Water Resources
Dealing with natural resources of water that are potentially useful as a source of water supply for agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental uses.
Water Technology
Dealing with all technological aspects related to water utilization. A large part of it is related to water treatment including any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use, including its safe-return to the environment.
Water Management
Dealing with the control and movement of water resources to minimize damage to life and property and to maximize efficient beneficial use. Drainage water management is usually the most important topic.
Water Economy
Studying the economic constraints of water resources development and water management to satisfy various needs without creating social inequalities and unsustainable environmental impacts.
Water Environmental Ecology
Dealing with the ecosystem in and surrounding a waterbody with stress on studying the interactions among aquatic organisms and their water environment.
Water Industry
Dealing with businesses for providing drinking water and wastewater services (including sewage treatment) to residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy.
Water Market
Dealing with the markets that allow for the physical transfer of water between buyers and sellers and also the markets for all water-related businesses.
Why Water Sustainability Becomes a Hot Topic?
In the whole world, we are facing the following problems and tasks:
Water shortage
Water Shortage is a worldwide problem due to limited available freshwater resources and their uneven regional distribution. Some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Water shortage results in inadequate sanitation for 2.4 billion people—they are exposed to diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, and other water-borne illnesses.
Deterioration of Aquatic Environment and Ecology is widely reported in many countries and regions. As aquatic environments, including oceans, lakes and rivers, and groundwaters, are the ultimate sinks for the contaminants from various human activities, water quality degradation often occurs in aquatic environs and thus bring about significant negative health issues. Although water has a natural capacity to neutralize the contamination, when contamination becomes uncontrolled, water will lose its self-generating capacity.
Deterioration of Aquatic Environment and Ecology
Urban Flooding
Urban Flooding occurs when water flows into a city or town faster than it can be drained, absorbed into the soil or moved to and stored in a man-made lake or reservoir. Urban flooding is not just a flooding happened when a river overflows its banks. Instead, it is caused by excessive runoff in developed areas where the water doesn’t have anywhere to go. Even small amounts of rain can overwhelm the deteriorated or inadequate infrastructure found in many cities, towns and communities.
Safe Drinking Water is defined as the water that does not represent any significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption. However, it is estimated that in the whole world, 663 million people still lack access to safe drinking water. The United Nation declared access to safe drinking water as a fundamental human right, and an essential step towards improving living standards. Safe drinking water is anonymously accepted as an international agenda and priority.
Safe Drinking Water
Upgrading of livability
Upgrading of livability relates much to the improvement of environmental quality of living areas such as cities. The provision of visible clean waters in urban area is often considered an important factor for a livable city where roadside green infrastructure and major blue-green corridors can provide opportunities for recreation, inclusive public space, economic development and transportation, creating multi-purpose spaces and infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the above-mentioned problems cannot be easily solved if the traditional manner of resource development and consumption is not to be changed. Various resources, including water, are graces from the nature to human beings, but have their limitations due to the natural processes of their renewal and regeneration. For a very long time until the Industrial Revolution which marked the beginning of our world’s modern era, natural resources had been considered unlimited. If only technologically and economically feasible, exploitation of sufficient resources was the only strategy to meet the requirement of human development, especially in the process of fast urbanization. Taking the modern urban water system which covers the whole cycle of water supply, wastewater disposal and final discharge back to the nature as an example, the system was traditionally a linear system characterized and ‘end-of-the-pipe’ without worrying about its impact on water source availability and environmental quality. However, the explosive population growth associated with faster urbanization much wrecked the balance between water source availability and water demand. Continuous construction and/or expansion of the urban water systems following the traditional manner inevitably brought about overexploitation of water resources which seriously damaged the source water system, deteriorated the aquatic environment, and degraded the urban livability.
Under such a circumstance, needs were growing worldwide for a shift from the traditional paradigm characterized by unsustainable resource use and environmental degradation, to a new paradigm characterized by sustainable resource use and preservation, and sustainable environmental protection. Regarding water, as the most important resource and environmental factor, it is urgently required for us to develop water science and technology, and to enhance innovation of water industry toward Water Sustainability.