NBICS and water footprint.docx

NBICS and water footprint

The Choice is Yours

column by Gregor Wolbring

July 15^th, 2009

http://politicsofhealth.org/wol/2009-07-15.htm

In 2006 I wrote in my nanowater column, “More than 1 billion people in the world lack access to clean water, and 2.6 billion to sanitation, according to a recent United Nations Development Program report (see also). Halving the number of people without access to water and sanitation is on the list of Millennium Development Goals,” and “in principle Nanotechnology can be involved with water in numerous ways, including desalination, detoxification, sanitation, decreased use of water, hydrogen usage, and hydro-generated power, to name a few.”

In this column I want to introduce the concepts of water footprint and virtual water. The concept of water footprint was coined by Hoekstra and Hung in 2002. According to the Water footprint network the “water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.” Virtual water -- a related concept introduced by Tony Allan in the 1990’s -- is defined as the "volume of water required to produce a commodity or service”. The network believes that “human impacts on freshwater systems can ultimately be linked to human consumption, and that issues like water shortages and pollution can be better understood and addressed by considering production and supply chains as a whole”. The use of such terms makes sense, especially as freshwater is a commodity that will become scarce in the future if we go on consuming it as we do now. However the concept of water footprint only generates 80,000 hits in google and only 516 in google scholar so far. Furthermore the concepts of water footprint, water neutrality and virtual water did not make it into the Human Development Report 2007/2008 Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world which talks about the impact of climate change on such water related issues as flooding and scarcity. The invisibility might change soon.

The water footprint network was founded in October 2008 and in December 2008 it was lauched with the public. Its founding members are University of Twente, WWF-the global conservation organization, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the Water Neutral Foundation, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group) and the Netherlands Water Partnership. Sponsoring partners are: Alliance for Water Stewardship; Confederation of European Paper Industries; Directorate-General for Water Affair Netherlands; Ecolife; Five Winds International; Fundación Chile; Global Footprint Network; International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group); International Water Management Institute, Sri Lanka; Natura Cosméticos, Brazil; Netherlands Water Partnership; PepsiCo; Swiss Development Agency; The Coca-Cola Company; The Nature Conservancy, USA; UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education; University of Twente; Water Neutral Foundation, South Africa; World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Switzerland; WWF-the global conservation organization. Regular partners are: Beijing Forestry University, China; Bianconi Consulting, UK; Cadbury, UK; CESTRAS – Centro de Estudos e Estratégias para a Sustentabilidade, Portugal; CREM BV, Netherlands; CSE Centre for Sustainability and Excellence, Greece; CSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia; Dole Food Company, USA; Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland; Ecointesys - Life Cycle Systems, Switzerland; Ecological Society for Eastern Africa, Kenya; Ecologic: Institute for International and European Environmental Policy, Germany; Ecometrica, UK; EcosSistemas Sustainable Solutions, Brazil; Enzen Water Ltd, UK; Kingston University, UK; KWR - Watercycle Research Institute, Netherlands; Lafarge, France; Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering Potsdam-Bornim, Germany; National Ground Water Association, USA; Nestlé, Switzerland; Next Planet ASBL, Belgium; Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, USA; Partners for Innovation, Netherlands; PE International, Germany; Plant and Food Research, New Zealand; Royal Haskoning, Netherlands; SABMiller, UK; Safe Drinking Water Foundation, Canada; SERI - Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Austria; Unilever, UK; Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain; USAID – United States Agency for International Development,USA; Water Strategies, UK; Wildlife Trust, USA;

However the network has a lot of work in front of them. For example it is interesting that the Conference “Peace with Water” which was held at the European Parliament on 12 and 13 February 2009 generated a memorandum for a World Water Protocol (MWWP) which did not use the term water footprint.

So far I cannot find articles or reports that link nanoscale science and technology products and processes directly to the goal of minimizing the water footprint of individuals and communites. One could envision that the decrease would happen both through a decrease of water use in the various processes needed to generat products, and through the decrease in the consumption of products. Of course nanoscale sciences and technologies are envisioned to help decrease water use. One example of a concrete product is hydrophobic sand that is seen to significantly decrease the amount of water required for plant irrigation in desert regions. Nanowerk wrote about the use of nanotechnology in reducing water use in oilsand development. For other reports of nano and water by Nanowerk see here. However the concept of water footprint is not mentioned in the write ups that highlight nano use in water issues.

The Choice is Yours:

It is surprising that the concept of ‘water footprint’ is not utilized more. It would seem that if one wanted to prevent water scarcity and wars over water, the water footprint is an important measure.

Now I want to highlight an issue I already called attention to in my 2006 nano water column. It concerns a situation that has not improved since then -- the neglect and invisibility of disabled people with regard to water continues.

I highlighted in my nano water column that the first world water report ignored the different needs and insights disabled people have with respect to water and sanitation. The third edition of the world water report published in 2009 again ignored disabled people’s needs and insights with regard to water despite mentioning other marginalized groups such as “indigenous peoples, women in developing countries, the rural poor and their children”. A memorandum for a World Water Protocol (MWWP) was generated. It also omits the mentioning of people with disabilities. It states “Place particular emphasis on the participation, especially those groups of citizens that are under privileged, notably, women, young people and workers/peasants.” The Human Development Report 2007/2008 Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world covered water scarcity and floods in its report. It covered the impact on women, ‘the poor’, indigenous people, farmers and displaced people. It did not once mention people with disabilities despite the huge impact climate change and water scarcity and floods will have on disabled people and despite the fact that disabled people depend on and can contribute to human solidarity.

All of the "The Choice is Yours" articles till June 2009 can be found here, after June 2009 here

Gregor Wolbring is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary. He is Affiliated Scholar, Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University, USA; Part Time Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa Canada; Adjunct Faculty Critical Disability Studies, York University, Canada. He is a science and technology governance scholar, a disability/vari-ability/ability studies scholar, and a health policy and science and technology studies researcher. He is the Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People's International. He publishes the Bioethics, Culture and Disability website, authors a weblog on NBICS and its social implications and on Ableism and Ability Ethics and Governance and contributes to the What Sorts of People blog.