Mental mind shift for sustainable water

The water industry has an opportunity to do more for sustainable growth using technology that is already currently available.

By 2050, it is expected 70% of the world’s population will reside in cities. Clean water and sanitation with a resilience to a changing climate are all essential elements for sustainable water-wise cities of the future.

At the World Water Congress held in October, 17 new principles to create water-wise cities were launched by the International Water Association. Principles for Water-Wise Cities are designed to help city leaders ensure that everyone in their cities has access to safe water and sanitation; that their cities are resilient to floods, droughts and the challenges of growing water scarcity; and that water is integrated in city planning to provide increased livability, efficiencies and a sense of place for urban communities. The 17 principles are grouped into four categories: regenerative water services, water-sensitive urban design, basin-connected cities and water-wise communities.

Xylem Sales & Industry Marketing Director – Oceania Brian Krishna was at the congress and said that Xylem endorses these water-wise cities principles. “It’s a good start,” he said. “The next step is to get our political leaders behind it as well, because if industry can set the foundation, it’s going to help the decision-makers in the political arena understand water and take it a lot more seriously.”

Krishna said the water-wise principles are driven by three paradigm shifts:

• Limited resources.
• Increasing densification of cities.
• Uncertain future, climate change, etc, underlying the planning of our cities.

The IWA advises in its water-wise principles to:

• use diverse sources of water with treatment that matches the use, applying the ‘fit for purpose’ water quality approach and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM5);
• recover energy from water whether through heat, organic energy or hydraulic energy;
• recycle and recognise the value of ‘upcycled’ materials such as nutrients or organic matter.

Are we ready for recycled water?

Because resources are limited, we need to be doing more with less. “We need to set our mindset back to re-use,” said Krishna.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Denis Gladkiy

Xylem recently conducted a state-wide survey in California, which was released in March 2016. The severity and impact of the drought remains top of mind among Californians and the survey respondents results revealed:

• 76% thought recycling water should be used as a long-term solution for managing water supply regardless of whether water shortages continued.

However, back in Australia in 2006, most will remember how the residents of Toowoomba, in Queensland, voted against using recycled water, even though the town was in the middle of the ‘Millennium Drought’ and facing unprecedented severe drought conditions. It was the ‘yuck’ factor that was blamed as one of the main reasons for the negative local opposition to the use of recycled water.

Interestingly, Xylem’s Californian survey respondent results also revealed:

• 89% were more likely to use recycled water after learning about advance water treatment processes and understanding how the water is made clean and safe;
• there would be a 10% uptake of recycled water if it was called purified water.

“The importance of education and language should not be overlooked,” said Krishna. “It may sound almost too simple, but the [Californian] survey results revealed that just by renaming the recycled water to purified water, a mental mind shift can occur that can achieve better results. Even calling it reclaimed water had a better result [in California], so this is something we need to look at more of locally.”

Water and wastewater treatment

One of the actions detailed under the IWA water-wise principles is to look at regenerative water sources for all. Within that, the IWA advice is to “protect the quality of water sources from wastewater and urban run-off so that it is fit for ecosystems and for use with minimal treatment requirements”.

“Disinfection is a big area on the radar for the water-wise principals and goals,” said Krishna. “Thankfully in Australia, our water treatment principles are quite rigid. But it was only a decade or so ago that the city of New York had a Cryptosporidium outbreak. The risk of such an outbreak is only going to get higher if we don’t consider using the technologies that are available in the current market.”

Krishna said Xylem is at the forefront with its UV disinfection technology and its sustainability principles, and goals for the future include: mitigating the use of chemicals and continuing to develop the technology by using different methods to identify new waterborne diseases and improve kill rates of known waterborne diseases.

By 2030, it has been predicted that over 6 billion people will be living in cities, and this will create an urban challenge on a scale that has never been experienced before. Although hidden away, wastewater management is an essential component to growing, sustainable communities. So, there will be need for energy-efficient wastewater solutions to accommodate this growth.

Xylem’s ‘Powering the wastewater renaissance’ report assessed the wastewater management capacity of three regions (US, Europe and China). It showed that nearly half the electricity emissions related to wastewater management can be abated by installing high-efficiency wastewater technology that exists today.

“Unlocking significant emissions abatement in the wastewater technology sector does not require new technology or an aggressive carbon pricing,” said Krishna. “It does require an accelerated adoption and investment in existing high-efficiency technology and that’s where we are working closely with existing water authorities. We may have been seen in the past as a Flygt pump supplier, but the shift in our vision has been to become a complete solutions provider.”

On the 10th anniversary of Nicholas Stern’s landmark review of economics of climate change, Stern said: “We have a unique opportunity now, with historically low interest rates, rapid technological change (particularly in energy production and use), digital communications, new materials, biotechnology and constructions, coinciding with a period of strong investment in infrastructure to build a new path of sustainable growth.”

Krishna said Xylem echoes the sentiment of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when announcing the government’s National Water Initiative (NWI) this year, called on the states to make the necessary investment for alternative water sources such as recycling and desalination, which are not climate dependent.

“We want to really be part of that,” Krishna concluded.

Top image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Delphotostock