World Water Scenarios
Presentation by
Olcay Ünver
Program Coordinator
William Cosgrove
Project Manager
World Water Scenarios
Project
World Future 2010
Boston MA
10 July 2010
1
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
 What is the current state of water resources in
the world: challenges and opportunities?
 What are the pressing water related issues
people face today?
 What are the major projects directed by UN –
World Water Assessment Program (WWAP) to
deal with these issues?
 Second Generation of World Water Scenarios
2
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
3
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
4
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Water Scarcity
5
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Water Scarcity
6
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Water Scarcity
7
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Cereal deficits or surpluses
8
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Cereal deficits or surpluses
9
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Cereal deficits or surpluses
10
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Water to sustain fragile ecosystems
Water stress levels of major river basins (Map 6.3)
Pressures on the resource: Fundamental
needs and rising living standards
Pressures on the resource: Fundamental
needs and rising living standards
Average national water footprint per capita, 1997-2001 (Map 7.3)
World Water Vision
In 2025 we will be living in a world with a population
of 7.5 billion people where everyone will have access
to safe water supplies. Agriculture would produce
enough food so that no one need go hungry.
Reduced global consumption by industry will
accompany substantially higher economic activity in
the emerging and developing countries. Similar
concern for freshwater and the environment will
have reduced the volume of waste from human
activity and led to the treatment of most solid and
liquid wastes before their controlled release into the
environment.
15
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Achieving the Vision
The Vision would be achieved through:
 Recognition of the crisis and the need for action
 Stakeholder representation in integrated water
resource management
 Full-cost pricing of water services for all human
uses
 More public funding for research and innovation
 Increased cooperation in international water
basins
16
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
17
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Global “Crises”
Water and the Global Energy Crisis
Historical and projected energy demand and oil prices show steadily rising
demand and rapidly rising prices (Figure 1.8)
Water and the Global Food Crisis
Wheat and rice prices have risen sharply in recent years (Figure 1.9)
Water and Climate Change
GDP growth tracks rainfall variability in Ethiopia (1983-2000) and Tanzania (1989-99)
(Figure 5.2)
Mitigation
deals with
carbon,
adaptation
with water
Climate change: processes, characteristics
and threats (Figure 5.1)
Climate impacts are greatest in poor countries
The costs of disasters as a share of GDP are much higher in poor
countries than rich countries (Figure 1.2)
Lack of information and data
at a time when we need it more than ever to
deal with increasing complexity
Distribution of Global Runoff Data Centre streamflow gauges (Figure 13.1)
The donor
community can
incorporate
water into the
broader frameworks
of
development aid
and focus
assistance on
areas where it is
needed most.
Invest
ing in
water
Water investment requires a holistic approach – links between pricing, financing
and stakeholders (Figure 1.4)
Water for Sustainable Development
Sustainable development as the framework
for water management
US government investments in water infrastructure during 1930-96
yielded $6 in damages averted for each $1 invested (Figure 1.3)
Water and the MDGs
29
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Opening
the “water
box”
Decision-making affecting
water (Figure 1.1)
What progress since 2000?
Some Progress:
 Importance of IWRM recognised at Johannesburg
Summit 2002
 Significant number of countries with WRM plans,
strategies and legislation
 Globally on track to meet drinking water objectives
of MDGs (with increased investment in sub-sector
following Camdessus report)
 Increased awareness and knowledge of groundwater
stocks and quality among water managers
 Industry increasingly aware of dependence on water,
implementing water conservation and pollution
reduction plans
34
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
What progress since 2000?
 Some progress (cont.)
 Approaches gathering data using satellite technology
and modelling can facilitate monitoring trends
 Community action often produces better results than
government
 Public contribution to decision-making using new
information technology
 Some less wealthy countries making better than
average progress by establishing financially and
politically autonomous, effective and efficient
institutions
35
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
What progress since 2000?
But as WWDR3 shows, not enough:
 Not on track to meet household sanitation targets
 Where there is household sanitation, frequently
wastes discharged to environment without treatment
 Global data mask lack of progress in many of poorest
countries
 MDGs do not reflect important role of water in
meeting all of them, including poverty reduction
through economic development
 WRM strategies and legislation often not translated
to action through institutional, financial and cultural
change
36
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
What progress since 2000?
But as WWDR3 shows, not enough (cont.)
 Investment in water infrastructure continues to be
inadequate and single-purpose in most cases
 Abuse and uninformed use of groundwater continues
 Leading actors from business and government often
not involved in public consultation
 When we need to know more about water resources
and their uses we are collecting less data
 Those knowledgeable about the impact on water of
decisions in other sectors often not at the table when
decisions are taken
37
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
A rapidly changing world poses
threats, offers opportunities
 Climate change is now a fact – and will continue
 Water-related technology:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Continual refinement of GIS with ability for real-time monitoring of
agricultural crops and water quality and quantity
Information technology permitting a global collective intelligence
system, hopefully public, to facilitate knowledge management and
decision-making
Nanotechnology to replace current water sensors, water
purification and desalination
Biotechnology to grow food plants, biofuels and trees using saline
or brackish water and to increase the yield, disease and drought
resistance of crops
Seawater-based food and biomass, including algal production
Plant-based meat substitutes and (in vitro) cultured meat
38
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
A rapidly changing world poses
threats, offers opportunities
 Socio-economic and cultural changes
 Human population now majority urban
 Tight weave of village society being replaced by the
anonymity of the city
 Anonymity thrives in the workplace too (how many
products are assembled from pieces produced in
different countries by colleagues who might never
meet?)
 Virtual connectedness is ordinary
39
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
A rapidly changing world poses
threats, offers opportunities
 Socio-economic and cultural changes (cont.)
 It is accepted that pre-eminence of the West could
end, while vigour and energy are transforming the
Third World
 Governments worldwide outsource public duties,
while private firms turned to public coffers to
socialize their risks
 There is growing awareness that present human
consumption levels amount to a massive
redistribution of wealth from future generations to
ours.
40
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
A rapidly changing world poses
threats, offers opportunities
 Globalisation
“For much of the world, globalisation as it has been
managed seems like a pact with the devil. A few
people in the country become wealthier; GDP
statistics, for what they are worth look better, but
ways of life and basic values are threatened. For
some parts of the world the gains are even more
tenuous, the costs more palpable. Closer integration
into the global economy has brought greater
volatility and insecurity, and more inequality. It has
even threatened fundamental values.”
Joseph Stiglitz in Making Globalisation Work
41
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Managing water under risk
and uncertainty
Climate change and other factors external to
water management (such as demography,
technology, politics, societal values,
governance and law) are demonstrating
accelerating trends or disruptions. Combined
with an inadequate database on water
quantity, quality and use, these create new
risks and uncertainties for water managers
and for those who determine the direction of
water actions.
42
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Managing water under risk
and uncertainty
 Responsive and responsible decision-making
increasingly complex and difficult
 Not just know where we are and past
trends, but anticipate uncertainties and
opportunities of the future
 Know the options we have
 Develop new styles of management able to
live with and benefit from uncertainty
 Avoid decisions whose impact we will later
regret
43
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
A rapidly changing world poses
threats, offers opportunities
Responses of UN- WWAP
 4th edition of World Water Development
report
 Indicators, Monitoring and Data Bases
 World Water Scenarios
44
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Why NEW scenarios?
 Existing global water scenarios need to incorporate
additional driving forces (among them climate
change, globalization and security issues) and use
updated information. Others are too partial,
incomplete or sectoral.
 Evolution of drivers and logic behind storylines
should be re-examined and possibly redone in light of
developments within and outside the water sector
since the 1990s
45
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Why NEW Scenarios? (cont.)
 Important new policy initiatives since the last world
water scenarios (for example, adoption of the MDGs
 Linkages are possible with other scenario processes
at the global level, e.g. new global environment
scenarios (GEO5) and new IPCC scenarios on climate
change.
 In most cases there are no existing water scenarios
at the national and sub-national levels.
46
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Four Phases:
1. Review and analysis of principal drivers including
identification of linkages, considering applicability of
drivers depending on major distinguishing
characteristics of groups of countries.
2. Review of drivers by Scenario Development Group
(SDG) and representatives of countries to outline
set of about four scenarios (possible futures) to be
developed through qualitative and quantitative
analysis (modelling) and used as background
material for the preparation of scenarios by local
actors.
47
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Four Phases:
3. Development of scenarios for selected transboundary
and country basins and for some countries and
states; review by SDG of the global scenarios to take
account of learning at local level.
4. Dissemination/outreach/training to strengthen the
capacity of water managers and professionals as well
as people in other sectors at the local, national,
transboundary and regional levels. Will also inform
political decision-making and address risks and
uncertainties linked to global changes.
48
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Phase 1 nearing completion:
Drivers:
• Climate change and
variability
• Water resources,
including groundwater
and ecosystems
• Governance and
Institutions (including
the right to water)
• Technology
Economy and Security
Agriculture
Infrastructure
Demography
Ethics, society and
culture (includes
questions of equity)
• Politics
•
•
•
•
•
49
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Phase 1 nearing completion: (cont.)
 Six driver reports being discussed in Real
Time Delphi exercises
 Four reports to be reviewed by groups of
experts for completeness and priority
setting
 Phase 1 summary report to be presented at
World Water Week Stockholm September
2010
50
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
World Water Scenarios
Tentative Overall Schedule:
Phase
Phase
Phase
Phase
1:
2:
3:
4:
Sept. 2010 (input to WWDR4)
Dec. 2011 (input to World Water Forum)
Mar. 2013
Mar. 2014
51
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
3rd Edition UN World Water Development
Report
http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap
World Water Vision
http://www.worldwatercouncil.
org/fileadmin/wwc/Library/W
WVision/TableOfContents.pdf
Thank you!
53
4/9/2015
The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme