Plan ahead to address water challenges from urbanization
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E-mail Xinhua, March 16, 2012
To address the water challenges posed by urbanization, countries like China can plan ahead, a UN water expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"There is no silver bullet in finding a solution to urban issues," said Olcay Unver, coordinator of the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), which is one of UN-Water's four programmes and is hosted by the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO).
The UNESCO officially unveiled the latest edition of the United Nation's World Water Development Report at the Sixth World Water Forum opening Monday in Marseille, southern France.
The triennial report, produced by the WWAP, highlighted the impact of urban population growth on water consumption, as the human demand for water mainly comes from urban communities requiring water for drinking, sanitation and drainage.
According to the report, the world's urban population is forecast to grow to 6.3 billion people in 2050 from 3.4 billion in 2009, representing both population growth and net migration from countryside to city.
China is one of the examples with not only a growing population, but a urbanizing population and growing urban centers, which put much strain on its water resources, Unver said.
"One definite answer is not to wait for the urban population growth to take place but to plan ahead," the expert said.
Cities need "not only plan for water resources, but integrate water resources, land use development, economic development, and industrial siting decisions all together," he said.
WATER SERVICE NOT FREE
"Water pricing is definitely a key component in responding to water issues," the WWAP coordinator said.
Although the water resource itself is seen in many cultures as a free resource, but providing water services has a cost, Unver explained to Xinhua.
"Definitely the operational aspects should be recovered for the service to be sustainable to start with, and for the administration of the water service to be able to continue operations," he said.
Water pricing is an important tool the decision-makers have, which props provisions for the poor and the disadvantaged, he said.
China can also learn from the "examples in which environmental issues and the cost of environmental issues are reflected in some sort of pricing for either the pollution or the usage," he added.
He pointed out two principles -- user pays and polluter pays.
"A country, a municipality or a community should be able to impose a fee," which could be in the form of tax or a direct fee or some other arrangement, he said.
Polluters should be asked either to stop polluting or contribute to the elimination and treatment of the pollution at a meaningful rate, which is high enough to be a deterrent for polluters, he said.
But water pricing has to be taken as a part of an integrated package, and not in isolation from other measures, Unver noted.
LIFESTYLE MATTERS
People's lifestyle matters for the reduction of water losses and wastage, Unver said.
"By changing or paying more attention to what we do, we can also make a good contribution to the quality and quantity of water resources, because the amount of water we use is not only what we drink or wash with, or in the food we eat," he said. "Water is in everything that we do."
The production of a car takes a substantial amount of water in the process and one kilo of meat spends more than 1,000 times of water than one kilo of wheat spends, he explained.
"We are strongly recommending that communities and countries look at their consumption habits and minimize losses and waste," he said.
Referring to the case study of China in the World Water Development Report, Unver said China is investing heavily in green technologies.
The country is taking important steps toward sound management of water resources in particular and natural resources in general, he said.
"China is being not only such a vast and diverse geography. It is also the fastest-growing economy. It has an urbanizing population. It's like an experimental field. China can do a lot," Unver said.
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