The Future of Water

Hey everyone,

This week, I'm covering something that’s talked about a lot less than emissions or pollution: water scarcity. It's one of the most urgent environmental challenges we face. Today, over two billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and by 2050, demand is expected to exceed supply by over 40%.

Multiple factors contribute to this, with climate change being a major contributor. We need solutions and we need them fast, so what can technology offer us?

To give some context, the existence of freshwater isn't an issue, it's accessing it that's the real challenge. Only 1% of all water is available for human use, with the rest being locked away in glaciers or deep underground. It gets even more tricky when you realise that 1% then isn't evenly distributed across the planet, with some regions experiencing flooding at the same time others face extreme droughts.

It's worth noting that human water demand is also growing at an incredibly unsustainable rate. Almost 70% of our global freshwater use is for agriculture, with energy production, manufacturing and the tech industry all having massive water footprints.

It's not all doom and gloom though, because, alongside political changes, some incredible technology innovations will hopefully support sustainable water access.

The first and possibly most promising is desalination, where salt is removed from seawater to make it drinkable. The biggest challenge is that desalination is currently extremely expensive and requires a lot of energy. Most desalination plants also run on fossil fuel, somewhat ironically contributing to climate change which is worsening water shortages in the first place. Companies like Solar Water Solutions are developing solar-powered desalination systems, which could help make clean water more accessible, partially in remote areas where droughts are common, without the need for harmful fossil fuels.

A more ambitious and rather futuristic concept is atmospheric water harvesting, which is quite literally pulling water out of the air! SOURCE Global have developed solar-powered panels that extract moisture out of the air and condense it into clean drinking water. This sort of technology could prove invaluable if we can find a way to deploy it at scale into arid regions.

Aquaphant offers a consumer-friendly version that’s already on the market. It pulls water out of the air in your home and produces pure, chilled drinkable water!

Away from finding water, there is also a growing push to try and introduce circular water systems into wider society, recycling and reusing water more efficiently. Singapore’s Public Utility Board have a project called “NEWater” which is one of the best examples of this. It’s passed thousands of tests and whilst the World Health Organisation has labelled it as safe to drink, it’s mainly used in commercial environments (e.g. air conditioning).

Whilst the thought of drinking recycled wastewater can seem a little unsettling, the reality is that closed-loop water systems will become essential as populations grow and natural water sources become less reliable.

Then there’s the issue of water waste. This is one of the biggest areas that technology can help, and we’ve already got loads of active solutions reducing water waste around the real world.

Better irrigation systems, AI water management systems, smart water grids and leak detection technology are just a few of my personal favourites!

From a technical perspective, we have the all tools we need to solve the water crisis, the challenge is whether can we scale them up fast enough to support our water demands. We also need serious policy and cultural changes to improve how we value and manage water. Currently, far too many parts of the world treat water like an unlimited resource when in reality it’s anything but that!

I’d love to hear your thoughts as always thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you next week!

James