The Commons of Freshwater

Freshwater and Global Sustainability

Freshwater is non-mineralized water potable for humans and vital for all plants, animals, and fish. The resource is only 3 percent of all water on the planet. While 97 percent of water is found in the oceans, freshwater can be found in lakes, rivers, streams, glaciers, and underground aquifers (WWF, 2019). Freshwater follows the water cycle through evaporation and transpiration. The resource transforms from a liquid to a vaporous gas accumulating in the atmosphere like clouds, eventually returning to the ground as rain. The rain replenishes the freshwater sources. As industrialized human development interferes and pollutes the water cycle, it threatens human development and the delicate balance that the natural depends upon to self-sustain (Gleick & Palaniappan, 2010).

Freshwater availability can refer to equitable access to potable water for human and agricultural uses. For human uses, freshwater is critical for hydration, cooking, and hygiene. Potable water is also essential for land crop irrigation and animal hydration. Freshwater over microclimates is crucial in the overall water cycle (WWF, 2019). Microclimates are dependent upon the evaporation and transpiration into the atmosphere of freshwater to renewal rivers and streams. As global industrialization increases, the demand for freshwater for human and agricultural uses increases, and industrial and construction uses. The level of human developmental growth and change not only depletes freshwater supplies but degrades them. Examples include the chemical fertilizer and pesticide runoff that damage rivers, lakes, and streams; the widespread use and global problem of plastic and microplastics pollute freshwater resources; atmospheric pollution enters the water cycle and causing the pollutants to dilute into the water (WWF, 2019).

From the sustainability framework, freshwater is a part of the plant’s life support systems (Kates, 2011). The link between human interaction and development and freshwater availability is a matter of conservation. While freshwater should be replenished through the water cycle, a growing volume is degraded through pollution and lost in industrial and commercial uses. The losses of freshwater availability make it an issue in sustainability science as it affects future generations and one of social justice as the problem affects the most vulnerable populations first (Kates, 2011).

The importance of Freshwater to Society

The availability of freshwater is a social issue. The lack of freshwater can mean life or death in many parts of the planet, where drought and water scarcity are a reality. Rockstr?m (2009) defined eleven planetary boundaries that must be preserved for a sustainable future where freshwater use of one them. The prevalence of drought in Central America is a driving factor of migration to Mexico and the United States (Barrett, 2019). Inclusive is a World Bank report that states that over 140 million people will migrate from the Southern hemisphere to the Northern hemisphere near 2050 due to drought and a lack of freshwater access. The lack of freshwater disproportionately affects traditional and subsistence cultures. They live closer to the land and do not have a widespread industrial safety net equal to the heavily industrialized nations (Stone, 2016).

The lack of freshwater also is a driver of conflict. In the Syrian Civil War, a continuous drought in Northern Iraq and Syria drove the rural population to urban centers that were already suffering from economic hardship due to low agricultural productivity (Gleick, 2014). The social pressure from the lack of rural freshwater plus the influx of political ideology caused a conflict that eventually was joined by global actors.

Within the United States, the lack of freshwater is a social justice and political issue. In Flint, Michigan, during 2013–2014, freshwater from Lake Huron was directed away from the city to a General Motors truck assembly plant. The company complained that water from the Flint River corroded their engine parts. The City of Flint sourced the non-potable water from the Flint River, which contained various dangerous chemicals and elements hazardous to human health, including lead (Hanna-Attisha et al., 2016). After several years of litigation and regulation, Flint residents went from bottled water and water filters to confusing statements on the water’s safety to continual confusion over their water safety. In 2016, Flint, Michigan, residents paid the highest prices for water for one of the lowest income cities in the United States (Wisely, 2016).

Freshwater Commons Adaptation and Resilience

Within the United States, action at the state and municipal level must be met with placing economic and social pressure on corporations and cooperating with them to change their product mix and production systems.

Improved water management strategies for all sectors from agricultural to manufacturing must occur. Water-intensive crops, such as almonds, must be limited or managed more efficiently. The way livestock is produced must be changed from a feedlot and barn operation towards a more open pasture system. From following along these lines, industrial, agricultural runoff problems into fresh and groundwater can be minimized. The switch to non-carbon-based energy supplies must increase as overall greenhouse gas concentration degrades the quality of freshwater, and in the extreme long-term, it will lead to its overall loss. There are three possible solutions for freshwater sustainability

Taxation and Regulation

Freshwater sustainability is a shared responsibility. While some in popular society may blame individuals for water misuse, industry is the primary freshwater user. As they freely use a universal resource, those that degrade the resource and use it irresponsibly should be penalized through taxation and regulation. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) highlights the importance of environmental taxation. The OECD finds: that the taxes will address the market failure of pollution; the taxes leave the business with the flexibility to find the most cost-effective way to correct its actions; and the taxes provide an incentive to improve environmental practices (OECD, 2011). The focus should be placed on these areas.

Industry leaders should Lead the Way Across Sectors

Industries and companies that utilize freshwater can improve the resource’s overall sustainability by applying the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s standards and the Water Footprint Assessment (A4WS, 2017; Hoekstra, 2012). It is of note that many industries and companies may participate in these frameworks. Others may also follow the United Nation’s Sustainability Goals related to water as part of an overall corporate social responsibility policy (UN-SDG, 2019).

The Alliance for Water Stewardship’s (A4WS) standards is based on its Theory of Change. The theory requires large water users to understand their water use, impact, and collaborate and transparently within, across, and outside their industry to ensure sustainable water use and management (A4WS, 2017). The Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Theory of Change is crystallized in its Standard. It is meant to be globally accessible and applicable to all sectors of society, i.e., from the for-profit sector to the non-profit, to any organization (A4WS, 2017). The A4WS Standard demands that organizations in each other’s periphery collaborate on water stewardship and management, making managerial cooperation in a shared resource central to their Theory of Change (A4WS, 2017).

The Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) is a mechanism to measure freshwater volume to produce a product over its entire supply chain (Hoekstra, 2012). The indicator shows water consumption over time and geographic location by volumes of polluted and non-polluted water (Hoekstra, 2012). The WFA considers water consumption as the loss of groundwater and loss as water evaporation to another water catchment area, an ocean or sea, or the mixture of water into a product (Hoekstra, 2012).

The WFA defines three water footprints, blue, green, and grey water footprints. The blue water footprint is the use of surface and groundwater across the supply chain of a product. The green water footprint is the use from rain; and the grey water footprint is the amount of water to absorb pollutants versus the surrounding level of pollutants in water and the natural level water (Hoekstra, 2012). The Water Footprint Assessment follows a similar methodology as the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Standard. The four-step assessment includes: defining the scope and goals of the assessment; perform an accounting of the organization’s water footprint; a sustainability assessment of the organization’s water footprint; and a formulation of a response to the organization’s water footprint (Hoekstra, 2012).

As with the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Standard, the Water Footprint Assessment is designed to be transparent, universal in its adaptation, and collaborative. The Water Footprint Assessment and the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s overall goals are also similar. It is of note that many organizations will integrate both methods into their overall water sustainability plans. The main difference is that the Alliance for Water Stewardship is more focused on organizational and physical management of water resources, while the Water Footprint Assessment is more concerned about the physical management of water resources.

By design, the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Standard and the Water Footprint Assessment is collaborative, universal, and transparent. By being more proactive in these actions, the Alliance for Water Stewardship and the Water Footprint Assessment can become more universally adopted. An example is Unilever, where they openly share their practices and technical innovations within and across industries to impact global sustainability (Unilever-Sustainable Living, 2019). At times one must forget about competition and profits, and focus on where the market comes from, the planet, and its population.

Changing Water Usage within a Business

If an organization cannot participate within the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Standard and the Water Footprint Assessment, it can still make a change. An organization can create an internal assessment of its water use. In many circumstances, water access is a utility and a business operating expense. The analysis of the use of water should be treated in the same way that some companies are now trying to reduce the amount of electricity they use. The Alliance for Water Efficiency outlines several change areas (AWE, 2019). An organization can also access the quantity of frivolous water use, such as the maintenance of a corporate lawn. Switching to a natural landscape that does not require artificial watering will go a long way. In industrial practices, water should be recycled where possible, and where not, it should be removed as many pollutants as possible before any reintroduction into the water system (AWE, 2019).

References

A4WS. (2017). Alliance for Water Stewardship.?https://a4ws.org/

AWE. (2019). Water Saving Tips: Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional Water Use. ?https://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/CII-tips.aspx

Hanna-Attisha, M., Lachance, J., Sadler, R. C., & Schnepp, A. C. (2016). Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Children Associated With the Flint Drinking Water Crisis: A Spatial Analysis of Risk and Public Health Response.?American Journal of Public Health,?106(2), 283–290. doi:10.2105/ajph.2015.303003

Hoekstra, A. Y. (2012).?The Water Footprint Assessment Manual: Setting the Global Standard. London: Earthscan.

Kates, R. W. (2011). What kind of a science is sustainability science??Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,?108(49), 19449–19450. doi:10.1073/pnas.1116097108

Magill, B. (2015, July 01). Water Use Rises as Fracking Expands. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/water-use-rises-as-fracking-expands/

Nestle-CSV. (2019).?https://www.nestle.com/csv/impact

OECD. (2010). A Guide to Environmentally Related Taxation for Policy Makers. doi: 10.1787/9789264087637–8-en

Rockstr?m, J. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity.?Nature?461(7263): 472–475.

Stone, G. D. (2016). Towards a General Theory of Agricultural Knowledge Production: Environmental, Social, and Didactic Learning.?Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment,?38(1), 5–17. doi:10.1111/cuag.12061

UN-SDG. (2019). Water and Sanitation — United Nations Sustainable Development. ?https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-and-sanitation/

Unilever-Sustainable Living. (2019). Sustainable Living. https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/

Wisely, J. (2016, February 17). Flint residents paid America’s highest water rates. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/02/16/study-flint-paid-highest-rate-us-water/80461288/

WWF. (2019). Freshwater Systems. https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/freshwater-systems