Rethinking how we live with water

The amount of water on Earth, in its various forms, is fixed. As the planet warms, and glaciers shrink and disappear, freshwater locked in the ice, water for billions of people, will disappear into our oceans.

It’s possible to live for up to two months without food, three months with water alone, but only a few days without. It’s been said that there is sufficient food to feed everyone on Earth, and water to fulfil everyone’s needs, but in our very imperfect world people continue to starve and go thirsty.

Food and water insecurity exist for the same reason, unequal access and distribution, the inability to get food and water to those who most need it, insecurity rising with periods of war and a changing climate.

Knowing that water is essential to life, should it be a human right?

From the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights — “On 28 July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a historical resolution recognizing the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.”

This is a noble statement, but the reality is altogether different.

Oxford Languages defines rights as “that which is morally correct, just or honourable” and “a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something …” These are powerful words. The right for every person to have access to clean drinking water is morally correct, honourable and just, but mainly aspirational, as rights don’t come with guarantees. It is incomprehensible that in our developed country, blessed with so much water, that many of our Indigenous communities still do not have safe drinking water.

Water is a commodity, and a resource to be conserved, but who decides how water is allocated, and apportioned equitably?

The interests of profit seekers who see water as a commodity too often trump those of ordinary citizens. Putting a price on water excludes those least able to afford it, the poor, and flies in the face of everyone’s right to water.

Others argue that it’s necessary to put a price on water, not to sell it, but to give it value in order to conserve and protect it. In the end, given the multitude of demands on water supplies, water as a right, in support of life, should be the moral imperative.

Climate change is altering precipitation patterns, the result historic and concurrent droughts in East Africa, South America and a 22-year megadrought in the U.S. southwest. Europe experienced a oncein-500-years drought, and rivers such as the Po and Rhine reached historic lows or dried up entirely.

Some already dry areas of the Earth are becoming drier, and others much wetter. Add increasing populations and you have the recipe for a climate disaster. The American southwest is a cautionary tale; too many people, living in a desert, chasing too little water. Change the climate and the whole system has the potential to collapse.

When something is plentiful we waste it. If water is our most precious and essential life-preserving resource, why then do we continue to misuse, pollute and squander it?

Climate change is rewriting the script, and either we voluntarily use water more wisely, we will have limits imposed on us, either by government or climate change. All sectors of society will have to rethink their water use habits. It’s not a hardship to practice water conservation or reuse, as they have learned to do so, of necessity, in Las Vegas, with the collection and reuse of grey water for irrigation, while saving the energy to purify it, pump it and treat the resulting wastewater. This is a water- and energy-saving scenario that more communities could adopt.

Increased human suffering, political conflicts and water wars will be the inevitable consequences if we fail to revalue and reassess how we use water.