The Ven Te Chow Memorial Award Lecture
International Water Resources Association XIV Conference
Porto de Galinhas, Brazil
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Dr. Peter H. Gleick

Introduction and Thanks

I’m tremendously honored to be here at the IWRA’s 14th International Congress and to receive the Ven Te Chow Memorial Award. This is an honor on many levels for me. First of all, Ven Te Chow was a role model for all of us who are privileged to work on the issues of water, as I will touch on in a moment. Second, so many of the people who have given earlier Ven Te Chow lectures have been enormously influential in the world of water and I feel privileged to be in their company. The previous winners include:

2008: John Pigram
2005: Benedito Braga
2003: Asit K. Biswas
2000: Janusz Kindler
1997: Glenn E. Stout

Third, I understand this is the first Lecture to be held in Brazil, and I’m honored to be in this great country. Finally, I had the pleasure to serve on the Board of the IWRA many years ago, to be elected as an IWRA Fellow, and I’ve contributed over the years to the IWRA journal, Water International, including some papers that seem to have been popular, or, I hope, at least somewhat useful to you.

For those in the audience who are not familiar with Professor Ven Te Chow,
here are some thoughts on his contributions:

-Ven Te Chow (1919 to 1981) was one of the first hydrologists to work on the complex and intertwined characteristics of water in a truly interdisciplinary fashion.
-He created the field of watershed hydraulics.
-He produced one of the most widely used textbooks and his work influenced thousands of students to enter the field of water resources.
-He played an instrumental role in the founding of the IWRA in its early years, and served as its first President, because he understood that the science of water had to be combined with social aspects, and that water was a problem that crossed international borders and required international solutions.

It has been a pleasure to listen to many talks over the past several days that do just what Ven Te Chow would have liked; to hear technical talks; integrated, cross disciplinary talks; and to see the great advances that are being made around the world.

I only have a limited amount of time today, so I’d like to do just two things. I would like to tell you a story: to offer you a positive vision of the future. That requires that I present to you, not the 2011 Ven Te Chow Memorial Award Lecture, but the 2111 Ven Te Chow Memorial Award Lecture – one hundred years from now.

I would then like to come back to the present and talk about how we might move from where we are to where we want to be.

I do so with a caveat. My crystal ball is no clearer than yours and a famous philosopher, Casey Stengel said, “Making predictions is very difficult, especially about the future.” And please don’t misunderstand me: I am not predicting the future. A good future is NOT inevitable. Indeed, it may be less likely than the bad future we can see more clearly. But a story about where we WANT to be might help us see paths forward and new solutions. And it is more fun for me to talk about!

So, here is my Twenty-one Eleven (2111) Ven Te Chow Lecture:

“The End of the Water Crisis: A View from the Year 2111.”

I am tremendously honored to speak to you today at the 2111 Ven Te Chow Memorial Award Lecture. I’m sorry not to be able to be here in person, but I long ago used up all of my allotment of travel carbon credits. The good news is that the 3-D holographic projectors here in Porto de Galinhas permit you to see my computer-projected image as though I was with you. And anyway, none of you are physically here either, since you are all down on the beach watching this lecture on your internet sunglasses drinking your caipirinhas.

I am especially delighted to be able to offer this Lecture as a retrospective on how the sustainable management and use of water was finally accomplished in the 21st century. We solved the worst of the world’s water problems, and we should be proud. I know that it is hard for many of us to imagine today the horrible water crises that our ancestors a hundred years ago had to suffer.

Let me describe what it was like in 2011, for those of you who are not students of history. If you can believe it, in 2011, they were dealing with:

-Local water scarcity
-Water contamination
-Water-related diseases, from diarrhea to malaria to schistosomiasis.
-Challenges to the production of food, goods, and services
-Ecosystem degradation and destruction
-A growing conviction that climate change was going to force them to throw all of their old assumptions out the window; and
-Social and political challenges, including fundamental threats to national and international security, from disputes over water.

Perhaps the worst problem a hundred years ago was the failure to meet basic human needs for all for safe and affordable water and sanitation. In 2011, more than a billion people lacked safe drinking water; and more than two and a half billion people lacked adequate sanitation. As many as two million people, mostly small children, died needlessly from preventable water related diseases.[1]

It was barbaric and inexcusable, given even then, that the technology and money existed to eliminate the problem. Indeed, it wasn’t until the middle of the 21st century that sufficient effort, will, and technical and financial resources were applied, but now it has been fifty years since all humans on the planet were certified as having access to safe, affordable water and sanitation. Today, cholera and diarrheal diseases are relics of the past.

In 2011, some of the most serious water problems were related to the destruction of aquatic ecosystems because of the over-allocation and overuse of water by humans. Believe it or not, in the 20th century, society used water with no consideration of the needs of natural ecosystems for the same water. What could they have been thinking? And, of course, bad things happened.

We know better now, but we are still dealing with some of the ecological problems those short-sighted policies produced. The Aral Sea was disappearing, and even though it is newly restored, dozens of fish species are now extinct. The Colorado River, the Yellow River, and many of the other great rivers of the world dried up before reaching their deltas, but now all of them have been re-watered. We almost even killed the greatest river on the planet, the Amazon, but Brazilians rallied to save the river and the Amazon
Basin from destruction.

There was also actually serious violence over water a hundred years ago. Water and water systems were targets and tools of conflict; groups, and regions, and nations fought over access to water.[2]

In 2006, 40 people died in Kenya and Ethiopia in clashes over water, livestock, and grazing land. In 2007, thousands of people were forced to flee their homes in violence
precipitated by water shortages in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Cote D’Ivoire. In 2009, riots over water cuts in India led to deaths and injuries, and people were killed in a dispute over the ownership of groundwater in Ethiopia and Somalia. In 2010, water disputes in Pakistan led to over 200 deaths.

Today, the rules have changed. With access to safe water guaranteed, and with stronger institutions to handle disputes, water-related violence is a relic of the past. The Israelis and the Jordanians have a successful water-sharing agreement that has lasted a hundred years. Water from solar-powered Palestinian desalination facilities in Gaza is supplying the new computer server farms and nanochip factories there. South Asia has strong watermanagement agreements in place. I’m certain that as soon as the last U.S.
forces leave Iraq, there will be a water-sharing arrangement worked out between the Turks, Kurds, Shiites, Sunni, Iranians, French water companies, and Chinese over allocation and management of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

By 2011, it was increasingly clear to many water experts that effort had to be refocused away from the issue of water supply to improving the efficiency and productivity of water uses. Vast quantities of water were being used wastefully, in every sector. Part of the problem was the way water was priced. Some of the wealthiest water users paid almost nothing to use vast quantities of high-quality, potable water to grow patches of unproductive, ornamental grass outside their homes (I think they were called “lawns”), while some of the poorest people paid far larger amounts of water for unreliable supplies of water of dubious quality or to buy water from private
vendors. Some farmers paid almost nothing for water, which helped encourage production, but also led to waste and inefficient irrigation.

This grossly inequitable situation is now, of course, reversed. There has been a successful “Water Efficiency and Productivity Revolution.” Water is priced properly and equitably, so that water uses are efficient, and the human right to water is respected and all basic needs are met at an affordable price.

The productivity of water use has gone way up – water-using appliances are efficient; agriculture produces far more “crop per drop,” and our goods and services are provided with less waste and less impact on watersheds. The world made a huge investment in improving food productivity through efficient and inexpensive precision irrigation technology, followed by critical improvements in crop genetics that reduced crop water demands for both irrigated and rainfed agriculture.

It has, of course, helped all of our water problems to have shifted from a world of rising population to one of shrinking population. Many of the environmental crises of the 20th and 21st centuries were very closely tied to rising population pressures. Some of the new challenges – and, of course, opportunities – in the 22nd century are now tied to how to manage shrinking populations. I’m sure many of you prefer these new challenges.

Here is another water fact about 2011 to shock you: Things were so bad in many countries that people actually spent vast sums of money to buy small quantities of water in plastic bottles, even when they could get safe water from the tap at a thousandth the price. And most of these little plastic bottles were just thrown away.[3]

Today’s archeologists digging through the urban landfills of 100 years ago still find them in vast quantities. I have an example here, found by Brazilian archeologists exploring the ruins from the 14th IWRA conference that was held here in Porto de Galinhas from 2011.

Not all the news is good, of course, and I don’t wish to be a 22nd century Pollyanna. Some of the gains achieved by sustainable water management and use have been lost as climate changes got worse and worse.

-There are few people alive today who saw mountain glaciers with their own eyes. With only a few high-altitude exceptions, they are all gone, and the impact on local water supplies was especially severe in the watersheds of the Himalayas and the Andes.
-The last person to go downhill skiing in a resort officially created for that ancient sport is now a grandmother.
-We saved many coastal river deltas by restoring natural flows and function, but then lost them to inundation from the rising seas, along with coastal aquatic ecosystems and some major cities all over the world.
-Floods from increased precipitation and increased intensity of storms continue to be the leading killer of people worldwide. Fortunately, we are now moving aggressively to solving the climate problem as well, and all water managers and planners now understand that they must incorporate climate change into all infrastructure planning, design, and
operation.

As a result, we’re well along the path to sustainable water management. Perhaps, by the Ven Te Chow Lecture a hundred years from now, our own ancestors will look back at the follies of our own time, and shake their heads in wonder.

-

OK, welcome back to 2011 and to the beginning of this story. This vision of the future is, of course, an optimistic one. And I know that some people say that an optimist is just a badly-informed pessimist. I could, perhaps more easily and depressingly, have drawn a picture of a dismal future, where current trends continue and the bad things that are happening get worse, and not better. Perhaps we can see that future more
clearly. But that dismal future is a future we wouldn’t go to if we have a choice.

I’d like to spend the last few minutes arguing that we DO have a choice. We can define a positive future, a different “narrative” and we can begin to take the steps needed to reach it. The pieces are in place to move to a better future, to move along what I have
described as “the soft path for water.”[4]

Let me offer six critical steps along the soft path.

First, we must refocus our efforts and meet the basic water requirements for all humans as the top priority. Governments, international aid organizations, corporations, and private groups at all levels must join forces to meet the goal of providing these minimum basic human needs universally, as a fundamental human right. The Millennium Development Goals of the UN are a step in this direction but they are not enough. The economic costs of meeting these needs are far less than the economic costs of failing to do so.

Second, we must address the wrongs done to our environment in the name of water development. It is possible to move toward a more sustainable future where the basic water needs of the environment are met with the same priority as meeting basic human needs for water. We are also going to have to deal with global climate change and its
implications for the hydrologic cycle. We have built and operated our water systems assuming that tomorrow’s climate will be the same as yesterday’s. This is no longer true, and we must begin preparing for unavoidable changes, while simultaneously working to reduce the ultimate severity of the changes we face. The politicians do not seem likely to do much to slow the rate of climate change, and that means the rest of the world will have to do far more to adapt to unavoidable impacts.

Third, we must rethink BOTH “supply” and “demand” and become more productive in our use of water, in every community, in every use. There is inefficient, wasteful water use in every single sector of our economies, from industry, to commerce, to our homes, and to our farms. Our goal is not to “use” water, with few exceptions. Our goal is to get rid of wastes, and to produce goods and services, and to grow food. If we can do these things with less and less water, we will be better off. And that is already happening. The demand for water has always been assumed to be connected to population and economic growth. This is no longer true.

The United States uses less water today for all purposes than it did 30 years ago; on a per-capita basis, it uses much less than 30 years ago. Per-capita water use in the US has dropped 20 percent since 1980. Those of you who went to the special session on China will know that even the Chinese – with their traditional engineering approaches and efforts to expand supply with massive infrastructure – have launched what appears to be a major effort to improve water-use efficiency and productivity.

How can we do this? We’ve started to tap into the waste and inefficient uses throughout our society, though improved water-use technologies, education, regulatory approaches, pricing, and structural changes in our economy.

Examples in the U.S.: the water needed to make steel has dropped from 200 tons of water per ton of steel in the 1920s, to 20 in the 1980s, and to 3 in the best plants today. The water needs to process milk (in gallons of water per gallon of milk) has dropped from 6 to 3 to 1. Semiconductors used to require 30 gallons per sq.in, now they need less than 6.

But we must also think differently about “supply.” Even in the “soft path” in some countries, new concrete must still be poured, new facilities built, and existing infrastructure must be maintained and improved. The difference is that we must build our infrastructure to new and better standards, incorporating the true costs to our environment, cultures, and economies. And “supply” must now also mean thinking outside the box: Rather than taking more water from overtapped aquifers and rivers, we must look to smart conjunctive use of surface and groundwater. We must relearn traditional methods of rainwater harvesting. We must realize that treated wastewater is an asset, not a liability. We must look, in some cases, to new technologies such as desalination and advanced treatment.

Fourth, we must protect water quality. We must reduce both human and industrial waste contamination of our water systems. We must invest in upgraded and expanded treatment systems. We must improve our understanding of the health implications of new contaminants, and combinations of contaminants. And we must recognize that different water uses require different water qualities. There is no need to use potable water
to flush our toilets or water our lawns (if we are going to keep lawns). It no longer makes sense to contaminate vast quantities of freshwater with human wastes. It no longer makes sense to collect our wastewater, treat it to a high standard, and then throw it away. Let’s treat wastewater as an asset, not a liability. Often, the best way to deal with wastewater is to figure out how not to produce it in the first place.

“It is easy to throw anything into the river, but difficult to take it out
again.” Kashmiri proverb

Fifth, use smart economic to tackle our water problems. The failure to price water properly leads to overuse, underinvestment, and poor economic decisions. Most of us don’t pay enough for water. But water must also be fairly priced to reflect costs, encourage efficient use, and protect the poor. This also means eliminating some subsidies for water and redesigning others. The UN has finally recognized the human right to water but much more needs to be done to ensure that right is protected for all and that the responsibilities of nations, corporations, and individuals are clear and
satisfied. Water is both a human right and an economic good and we must learn to balance the two.

Finally, we must improve our water institutions and water governance: Charles Darwin said “If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

We must manage water for the 21st century, not for the 20th century. This means that our institutions must change; our universities are going to have to expand what they teach, and reach out to more than just engineers and men. I am personally thrilled at the number of women presenting at the conference this week and the numbers I see entering the profession. My institute – the Pacific Institute in California — has 25 employees working on global water issues and nearly four-fifths of them are women, and I hope someday that will be reflected in the keynote addresses, the Boards of our
professional water institutions, and the winners of the Ven Te Chow awards.

New thinking about institutions also means that utilities are going to have to change the way they do water planning and management, toward innovative environmental management systems. We need new collaborative efforts between farmers, environmentalists, industry, and water agencies.

Innovative efforts are underway to streamline government regulations without reducing the protections that these regulations provide and that people want. More work like this will be needed to address the challenges of the coming decades.

But a note of caution: Nelson Mandela said, actually referring to water resource management: “It is one thing to find fault with an existing system. It is another thing altogether, a more difficult task, to replace it with another approach that is better.”
[Nelson Mandela 16 November 2000]

So what will the future really bring? Can we reach a rosy future or are we condemned to a perpetual “water crisis” – a future we can see more clearly but don’t want? I believe that there are real, effective, affordable, and attractive solutions that can help us make the transition from where we are to that positive, imaginable, future where we want to be. I believe this transition is inevitable, but the challenge will be to make sure it happens fast enough to prevent the painful and disruptive impacts we all hope to avoid. I look to all of you to lead us to this future.

Thank you.

[1] World Health Organization. 2008. Water, Sanitation, and Health.

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/facts2004/en/index.html

[2] The Water Conflict Chronology. 2011. Pacific Institute.

http://www.worldwater.org/conflictchronology.pdf.

[3] “Bottled Water and Energy: Getting to 17 Million Barrels.” Pacific Institute, December 2007.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/bottled_water_factsheet.pdf.

[4] P.H. Gleick. 2002, Soft Water Paths.” Nature, 418, pg. 373, July 25, 2002.
See also, P.H. Gleick, 2003.
“Global Freshwater Resources: Soft-Path Solutions for the 21st Century.” Science, Volume 302, November
28, 2003, pp. 1524-1528.