Water – the medium for climate change

With just a few months left for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (also called COP15); many water sector professionals are crossing their fingers and hoping that water will be a part of the negotiations.

Stern calls for action

In November 2006, when Nicholas Stern issued a report on the economics of climate change, the “sternness” of his predictions would not have escaped anyone. This was not a report by a climatologist, but an economist. Calling climate change the “greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen,” Mr Stern laid out the possible scenarios if global temperatures continued to rise.If no action is taken on emissions, the Stern report predicts a 75% possibility of global temperatures rising by two to three degrees. There is a 50% chance that average global temperatures could rise by 5⁰C. Such changes would drastically alter the geography of the world.

How will global warming affect the water sector?

Suddenly, global warming is the hot topic of discussion in news channels, papers, magazines and even tabloids. Rising temperatures, melting glaciers and extreme events have become too obvious to be missed. What’s more, a film on global warming An Inconvenient Truth has won an Oscar this year. 

But how does the climate change affect the water sector? Some studies are ongoing regarding the impact of changing temperatures and precipitation on water resources, ecosystems and river flows. However, there appear to be few or none on the impacts of these on water utilities and their assets.

It is clear that the business of water treatment and supply as well as wastewater treatment is poised at the threshold of extraordinary challenges. Rising sea levels are about to cause permanent displacement of millions of people and even animals. Due to climatic shifts, rainfall patterns are changing. Drying up of water bodies is driving up the cost of water treatment. Sudden heavy downpours such as the one witnessed in Mumbai some years back are causing serious sewer overflows. Encroaching seas are contaminating freshwater supplies.