Back-to-back La Niña years makes it easy to forget that, just a few years ago Australia was on fire. And that our default setting is: drought. Water scarcity and sustainability is still a huge, growing problem in Australia and around the world. Run out of freshwater and things get bad real quick.
To help drive awareness about the seriousness of water scarcity, Water Night on Thursday, 20 October asks Australians to turn off all taps and running water between 5 and 10pm. The initiative will give you a little taste of what a life without clean, readily available water would be like. Follow it up by implementing water-saving habits in your daily life, and pushing the government for stronger climate and environmental action to protect Australia’s water supply – that’s where the real change happens!
Read on for the basics to know about freshwater scarcity.
Will we run out of clean water?
The world has a fixed amount of water that can’t technically run out – Professor Roberta Ryan said it best in The Conversation: “we are drinking the same water as the dinosaurs.” But only around 3% of water on Earth is drinkable. Freshwater sources are being drained faster than they can be replenished. In a frequently quoted 2015 report from Denmark’s Aarhus University, researchers predicted that if nothing changed the world would have run out of fresh water by 2040.
In Australia, many rural towns reached ‘Day Zero’ during 2020 – a suitably ominous name for the day when supply runs out, residential taps are turned off and fresh water must be shipped in from elsewhere. Even more towns were right on the brink.
This is not a problem exclusive to rural areas. One report predicted that, if we don’t do anything about it, Melbourne could run out of drinking water sometime between 2040 and 2050. The BBC listed 11 major cities most likely to reach a Day Zero of their own, including London, Beijing, Bengaluru (Bangalore), Tokyo, Jakarta and Miami. In 2017 and 2018, Cape Town in South Africa narrowly avoided this fate with rain arriving just before water rations had to be implemented.
So, yeah. If we don’t act, running out of freshwater is a scary but real possibility.
As Australia grapples with devastating drought, there are towns bracing for ‘Day Zero’, when the taps will run dry. @JessMillward9 #9News pic.twitter.com/GYSHQfV39U
— 9News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) September 23, 2019
What is causing the water crisis?
There are multiple factors contributing to water shortages, and their prominence varies in different parts of the world.
Climate Crisis: Our heating planet has less predictable weather (i.e.: rain) patterns. The combination of longer droughts and deluges of rain at unexpected times (like we’re experiencing on the east coast of Australia right now) makes it much harder to capture and store rainwater. Drought and reduced rainfall also affects how much water is stored in groundwater wells and aquifers, which supply drinking water to the majority of the global population.
The warmer climate is also melting glaciers faster, depleting another source of freshwater. Glaciers provide freshwater to 25% of the global population, much of it used for agriculture irrigation. In turn, melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels (i.e.: more saltwater) which then contaminates freshwater sources like groundwells, making them undrinkable. The climate crisis and fast-melting glaciers caused this year’s devastating floods in Pakistan, destroying a lot of the country’s water and sanitation facilities.
Growing Population: It comes down to supply and demand. Fresh water supplies are depleting, and there are more people who need water – to drink, to grow the food we eat, for health and hygiene, and power.
Poor Management of Water Sources: The people responsible for managing freshwater sources don’t always do a good job. Australia’s own Murray-Darling Basin river system is rapidly declining due to the climate crisis, and plans to save it have been politicised, infiltrated by alleged corruption, and delayed for a decade. As of 2022, only 0.4% of the promised water has been ‘bought back’ by the government.
Pollution and contamination of water sources is another management problem. In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan, switched the source of its water supply to the Flint River – which was not properly treated, becoming contaminated with lead and E-coli. Thousands were poisoned, and the health implications will be long term. In Bengaluru, India, a recent water quality report found none of the lakes in the area is suitable for drinking – they are all contaminated by untreated sewage or industrial waste.
Natural Disasters: Events like hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and floods can destroy important infrastructure, contaminating fresh water sources. In 2022 alone, Hurricane Fiona has left thousands in Puerto Rico without clean drinking water; Dubbo in NSW had no water for a week after floods washed dead animals into the catchment; and volcanic ash from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption “seriously affected” Tonga’s water supply.
Water Wastage: In Australia, around 80% of household water becomes wastewater which is not widely recycled (although this is slowly changing). A 2020 World Bank report showed that 80% of wastewater is being dumped, not treated and recycled like it could be. While this wastewater will eventually evaporate, collect in clouds and return to us again as fresh rain, that process takes longer than immediate recycling.
A developer in Hawai’i is constructing a $40m artificial wave pool in Ewa. Once finished, it will be the largest in the world, using 1.7m gallons of potable drinking water during a historic water crisis caused by climate change and the Red Hill fuel crisis. pic.twitter.com/M8VqTiiXPG
— Victims of Capitalism Memorial Foundation (@karaokecomputer) October 13, 2022
What happens if we run out of water?
In Australia, 70% of freshwater is used for agriculture; 16% for energy and industry; and 14% is used by the public for general activities – drinking, showering, flushing the loo, doing laundry and watering the garden. Running out of water, even temporarily, will slow or stop these activities. Particularly in rural areas, if water runs out altogether entire towns, cities and regions will become unlivable.
Displacement of people from their home and mass migration is already a consequence of the climate crisis. By 2030, an estimated 700 million people could be displaced due to drought in Africa – half the population of the continent.
This creates greater competition for resources, like water, in more dense populations. A potential result of competition for a scarce, invaluable resource? Even bigger inequalities between the wealthy and the poor – particularly on health and nutrition outcomes. And the most extreme consequence, already brewing in some parts of the world, is war.
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