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Source: FAO
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that producing enough food to feed the world’s rapidly growing population will require the international community to ensure the sustainable use of the world’s “most critical finite resource,” water.
 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted each year “Unless we increase our capacity to use water wisely in agriculture, we will fail to end hunger and we will open the door to a range of other ills, including drought, famine and political instability,” warned Ban in a statement read at the start of World Water Day 2012 ceremonies taking place at FAO.
In many parts of the world, water scarcity is increasing and rates of growth in agricultural production have been slowing, he noted. At the same time, climate change is exacerbating risk and unpredictability for farmers, “especially for poor farmers in low-income countries who are the most vulnerable and the least able to adapt,” he said.
Guaranteeing sustainable food and water security for all will require transferring appropriate water technologies, empowering small food producers and conserving essential ecosystem services, the UN chief said. He also called for policies that promote water rights for all, stronger regulatory capacity and gender equality.
“Water will play a central role in creating the future we want,” concluded Ban. “At the upcoming Rio+20 Earth Summit, the international community will need to connect the dots between water security and food and nutrition security in the context of a green economy.” Continue reading Water is critical to creating a better future
Key players in South Africa’s food industry have been urged to implement strict water saving measures to address the country’s impending water deficit that is threatening food security and produce.
 Water recycling The appeal comes from Gareth Lloyd-Jones, managing director of Ecowize – the hygiene and sanitation company servicing the food sector.
In a report compiled by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) last year, it was said that there have been repeated warnings that SA faces a water supply crisis. Furthermore the report stated that SA’s freshwater resources will be fully depleted by 2030 and unable to meet the needs of people, industry and its neighbours if people continue to exploit their water resources by following a “business as usual” approach.
“This report highlights the critical need for food producers and manufacturers to realise the magnitude of this crisis and take responsibility and make concerted efforts to prevent water wastage often caused by, pipe bursts and water leaks and unscheduled use of water,” said Lloyd-Jones. Continue reading Strict water saving measures urged in food industry
By A.D.McKenzie
Source: IPS
As non-governmental organisations question the relevance of the World Water Forum being held here this week and slam its “corporate” nature, the United Nations says that a coordinated approach to managing and allocating water is critical.
 Sub-Saharan Africa could experience severe freshwater scarcity by 2020 The fourth edition of the triennial World Water Development Report (WWDR), which brings together the work of 28 U.N.-Water members and partners is being officially launched Monday at the Forum. It stresses that water “underpins all aspects of development” and needs to be a key element in global policies and regulations.
Titled ‘Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk’, the comprehensive report paints a somber picture of what could result from failure to deal with water issues. Experts warn of increased political conflicts over resources, the endangering of future availability and reduction in economic and social welfare.
“We want to be optimistic but there are increased pressures on water that could make it less available for normal consumption, and that’s the bleak picture,” said Dr. Olcay Ünver, coordinator of the UN World Water Assessment Programme which produced the report.
“The other side is that there’s a lot that leaders of government and civil society can do, especially by working together to ensure sustainability,” he told IPS.
The stakes are high as more than one billion people lack access to safe water, and about 1.4 billion lack access to electricity (which can be generated through hydropower). With the world’s population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, demand for water will surge over the next decades, experts say. Continue reading Increased pressures on water could make it less available
Article by: Sue Blaine
Source: Business Day Blogs
Here’s a suburban scene that makes my blood boil: someone using a garden hose to “sweep” a driveway. In fact, it’s not only in suburbia that you see this — I saw an employee of a top Rosebank hotel doing the same this morning.
 We still use potable water to “sweep” driveways Perhaps the reality is this: water is just not expensive enough in South Africa.
We have had endless government campaigns about saving electricity, but I have yet to see much, if anything, on saving water. We ignore water at our peril.
Poor-quality water “was of limited use and added to society’s economic burden through treatment costs and secondary impacts” on the economy, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research said in its a 2011 report on water in South Africa.
The country’s National Water Resource Strategy calls for “appropriate and timely corrective measures” to mitigate the effects of industrialisation and urbanisation on its water resources.
The CSIR report notes that in 2005, 95% of South Africa’s freshwater resources had already been allocated. The country’s average annual rainfall, at 450mm, is less than half the global average (850mm) and 10 of the water management areas in South Africa could not fulfil demand in 2000, according to the report. Continue reading We ignore water at our peril
By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor (Founder of Water Rhapsody Conservation Systems and winner of a WWF Green Trust Award)
Water is in the news again, but never has the situation been as dire as today. Quite simply – Cape Town is out of water. Any new augmentation schemes are not sustainable.
The following are proposed non-sustainable schemes:
- Damming the Lourens River at Somerset West: This will add less than one percent capacity to our beleaguered situation. There are no more rivers that can possibly be dammed to provide any more water for Cape Town.
- Extracting water from the berg by pumping to the Voëlvlei Dam: The well-respected head of the Freshwater Research Unit at UCT, Prof Jenny Day, commented that this was a “no-no”. Already the salinity of the Lower Berg River is rising to unacceptable standards, and any further extraction will make this worse. The situation of the Lower Breede River is equally parlous.
- Desalination of sea water: this is not sustainable as it is too costly on any scale let alone on a large scale. Costly because each kilolitre of water desalinated from sea water will cost more energy than we have got or we likely will get. Desalination costs eight kilowatt hours per kilolitre of desalinated water. Further problems of desalination are that a super saline concentrate is returned back to sea, which turns valleys in the sea into a place where neither plants nor animals can survive.
- Pumping from the TMG (Table Mountain Aquifer): Already we have seen deep boreholes dry up and collapse in this aquifer and any extraction from this aquifer will have a negative impact on the river systems as this is most likely where the recharge of the aquifer will come from. These are the same rivers that are now dammed to extinction throughout the Western Cape.
- Recycling of sewerage effluent: while this is to be supported, it must be understood that this will not be acceptable to some of our religious groups. It should also be noted that our sewerage systems are in an unsafe condition, and we need some 6.6 billion Rand to upgrade and build new sewerage treatment works. Here too energy plays a huge role, as 90% of the running cost of our sewerage treatment works is the energy cost of pumping water around the various treatment sewerage works. At last check there was only 300 million on any long term budget for upgrading sewerage works. Continue reading Future water supplies lie in demand management
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