By Rod Mazinter
Soweto
Water, or rather the lack of it, is an issue that looks set to affect the lives of every person on earth. Governments and the media quite rightly give high priority to the consequences of the devastating droughts being encountered throughout the world, more recently in South Africa. Reliance on natural and traditional water resources is coming under increasing strain and this will touch every person living – rich and poor, first-world and third.
The water shortage in the world has reached such staggering heights that it has become a severe crisis. According to a statement published by the WHO and UNICEF in 2012, more than 1.5 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Other natural disasters have contaminated and even completely destroyed many sources of water.
We can no longer take the supply of water for granted. With over ninety percent of fresh water frozen at the poles and with no economical way to bring it to where most people are living, means we must rely on less than ten percent from rain, dams, rivers and lakes.
Water scarcity is a universal problem, yet the dangers facing mankind have not yet filtered down to all countries. Too many governments are influenced by current political considerations or just plain greed and either choose to ignore or are unaware of solutions that are being successfully implemented around the world in countries who do recognize the danger. These enlightened countries with the interests of their citizens uppermost, are doing something about it. However, even those countries cannot ignore the consequences of the looming dangers when they will be confronted by desperate nations, some of them armed with sophisticated weaponry, facing a survival situation.
According to Seth M Siegel, author of the seminal book on the subject, Let There Be Water, “Twenty percent of the world population − about 1.5 billion people − will be the first victims of this water crisis [affecting] global food markets…” Siegel goes on to list five “macro trends” that will impact on the crisis:
There is a frightening complacency that the problem is for someone else to solve and that it will just happen. It won’t. We have a looming catastrophe staring us in the face.
Wastewater Collection, Treatment and Reuse System (“SHAFDAN”), Dan Region, Israel
Afikey Emek Hefer (one of the biggest reclaimed water operation in Israel)
Crisis, What Crisis?
On the positive side, there is a solution if we were to put politics aside and work in unison. Siegel stresses that “Each of these challenges…can be overcome…” and have been in Israel.
In South Africa, where I live, politicians skirt around the problem mainly for political reasons. The BDS movement is in the forefront of a campaign to delegitimize Israel to the extent that the movement targets any cooperation with Israel for boycott – even if this is self-defeating!
In ‘How Israel Is Solving the Global Water Crisis’, The Tower Magazine writes: “Israelis have led the way in another revolution in water technology: By recycling waste water, 85% of highly purified sewage is reused for agriculture. Another 10% is used to increase river flow and fight forest fires. Only 5% is released into the sea. The country with the second-highest use of recycled water is Spain. They recycle about 25%.”
Water availability from rain, dams, lakes, rivers and aquifers are able to supply at best 38% of requirements for human consumption, household use and agriculture. The problem is that the population explosion accompanied by drought depletes this supply faster than it replenishes it.
To augment and secure supply into the future we must find ways to manufacture potable water to cover the 62% requirement shortfall. In Israel, this overall ‘manufactured’ water is recovered in the following proportions: 27% from seawater, 21% from sewerage, 11% from brackish water and 3% from storm water.
Countries throughout the world have adopted Israeli technology. The multinational business magazine, Fortune, hails the “engineering alchemy” that has allowed the country to rise to No. 2 in the “Change The World” list.
Clearly, it is not a matter of the cost of implementation; the issue is what will the cost be to the people living in their cities if action is not taken now?
We no longer have a choice – we are in the middle of a crisis.
Rod Mazinter is a Director of Monmaz, a property trust company and CPI, a property investment company. His main interests include education and has served as Chairman of the Parents’ Association of the Cape Province, Chairman of the Open Schools Association since its inception in 1988, past Executive member of the Federation of Parents’ Association of South Africa and a former Member of the Cape Provincial Educational Council. He has served on several governmental and provincial advisory committees relating to education. He remains an active member in Rotary, having held a number of high leadership positions. Rod lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
