By Rich Bowden:

Recycling, Desalination the Answer?

While water recycling and desalination have both been touted as showing the way forward on water reuse, and helping to offset a “peak water” scenario, experts have noted significant drawbacks to both, including the amount of energy needed to power wastewater recycling and desalination plants.

“In general, desalinization and wastewater recycling are environmentally beneficial, since each practice reduces pressure on existing freshwater sources, potentially leaving more water available for ecosystems support and environmental services,” said the ADB’s Arjun Thapan, though pointed out that “the primary drawbacks are likely to be found in the energy intensity of these processes.”

“Although technological advances, including membrane and nanotechnology, are reducing the costs and energy intensity of these processes, they still require considerable amounts of energy. To the extent that this energy is being provided by fossil fuels, these processes then contribute incrementally to global warming, which is possibly their most serious environmental impact,” he continued.

“With regard to wastewater re-use, there is also an issue of public acceptance if this water enters the drinking water supply, although over time it is likely that the practice will become more common.”

Maude Barlow concurred that desalination was often not the answer in Asia, due to the high energy demands and lack of access to cheap energy sources, as in the Middle East. Ms Barlow also highlighted the by products produced by the process which are damaging to the environment.

“Desalination is not an answer except in the most dire circumstances,” she said. “It is energy intensive, so it is part of the very problem it is supposed to address; it is very expensive so these poor countries do not have the money for it; and it produces a by-product made up of intensive brine, dead aquatic life that was sucked in with the ocean water for treatment, and the chemicals used in the reverse osmosis process.”

Planning For the Future

Though the  term “peak water” remains contentious, there is no doubt that increased water stress is affecting Asia as it is in most parts of the globe and governments need to use the concept to help them plan for the future and avoid conflicts on the issue of increasing water scarcity.

A report released last month by the UK-based sustainable development NGO Forum for the Future, said regional co-operation in sharing scarce water resources needed to be supported over natural urges by water scarce nations to horde dwindling supplies.

The study, commissioned by the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), quoted Faisal Islam, Environment and Livelihoods Advisor at DFID Bangladesh as saying more dialogue was required to overcome water shortages.

“The scope for regional solutions will need to be explored much more over the next 20 years,” he said. “The South Asia Water Initiative promotes dialogue but more is needed, for example, with watershed management and possible new storage in Nepal and Bhutan. The South Asia region is already reasonably connected but more regional co-operation may be needed to address some of the connected energy, water, flood and food issues.”

Alternative methods of supplying water resources may be an answer to ongoing problems on water supply and whether or not the term “peak water” can be framed as an adequate description of a renewable resource unlike oil, the reality is the concept describes neatly how the over extraction of water resources from groundwater leads to a non sustainable scenario.

Combining with burgeoning population growth, changes brought about by global warming and increased irrigation for agriculture and industrial, the overuse of water resources “peak water” leads to dire consequences for local populations and vital challenges for the region’s lawmakers.

With the concept of peak water acting as a wake up call for Asian governments, and indeed the world, Maude Barlow believes the term may help to bring about a new way of thinking on how humans interact with their water systems.

“Humans have seen water as an infinite resource for our convenience and profit and we must move away from this model soon,” she said. “We need to start building our lives around water systems and protect and restore watersheds, stop polluting water, stop over mining groundwater and conserving like never before.”

See Part One of “Peak Water and the Asian Water Crisis” here.

Article originally written by Rich Bowden for green news portal EcoSeed.

Tags: ecoseed, peak water asia, rich bowden, water crisis, water management asia