Pictures of the Future      Spring 2005

Water: The Elixir of Life

The world is thirsty. More than 4,000 trillion liters of water—that’s 4,000 km³—are drawn from rivers, lakes and underwater aquifers every year. Of that amount, 70 % is used in agriculture, 20 % in industry, and the rest in private households. According to the Swiss company Sustainable Asset Management (SAM), the amount of water needed is increasing by 2.5 % annually—faster than global population growth. The main reason is the spread of the Western lifestyle, which isn’t known for its prudent use of natural resources. So it’s no wonder the worldwide water market is booming. Corporate consultants at Helmut Kaiser Consultancy in Tübingen, Germany, estimate the volume of the water and wastewater market will grow from $287 billion in 2004 to $412 billion in 2010.

According to SAM, desalinization will become an increasingly important technology for supplying drinking water. The market value of desalinization technologies will soar from about $3 billion today to $70 billion in 2020. Today there are 13,000 desalinization plants worldwide, and they convert 30 mill. m³ of salt water into potable water every day. Even some industrial countries, such as those along the Mediterranean, suffer from periodic water shortages. Water tables are sinking, especially in areas serving large cities, because water is being removed faster than it’s being replenished. In many places, sewage systems are crumbling, and not all water purification plants fulfill legal require­ments, which are becoming increasingly strict in the EU and the U.S.

_{The market for membrane bio­reactors in the U.S. and Canada is growing by 15 to 17% annually Source: Frost & Sullivan, 2004}

After decades of stagnation, new technologies are gradually taking hold. Membrane processes used to be considered too expensive or too energy-intensive; but today, thanks to technical improvements, they’re much more affordable and are being increasingly used for wastewater treatmentand water purification. Analysts at Frost & Sullivan predict the U.S. market for membrane bioreactors will grow by 15.6 % annually until 2010. Use of ultrafine membranes as filters for complex pollutants is on the rise, gradually replacing traditional charcoal filters. According to estimates, use of UV and ozone processes to disinfect water will cut the market share of chlorine-based methods from 85 % to 50 % within the next decade. SAM also predicts water monitoring will become an increasingly important quality control method, more geoinformation and satellite systems will be used for water management, and rising prices will increasingly force industrial companies to purify their own wastewater.

In many developing countries, though, even the most basic necessities are lacking. More than one billion people don’t have reliable access to clean drinking water, and UN statistics indicate a third of the world’s population is forced to live without an adequate hygiene infrastructure. In developing countries, 90 % of municipal wastewater and 70 % of industrial wastewater is not treated at all, with disastrous results. Every year, 2.2 million people die of diseases such as cholera and dysentery, which could be avoided through better sanitary installations.

One tremendous problem, especially in Asia, is the megacities, where waste­water from households and industry and untreated chemicals and rubbish are still often dumped into rivers, poisoning the water downstream. Especially in China, observers expect to see major investments in the needed infra­structure—sewage treatment plants, water purification facilities and water supply lines. Helmut Kaiser Consultancy estimates the environmental market in China will grow by up to 17 % annually over the next decade. According to one of its studies, "Water shortages, waste and pollution are the key problems of the region."

Beijing, the 14th-largest city in the world with nearly 11 million inhabitants, intends to demonstrate its command of modern water management by 2008, when it will host the Olympic Games. The Olympic sites will feature water treatment methods similar to natural processes, membrane-based systems and adsorption processes. Plans also call for treating half of the wastewater produced in this enormous city by 2008.
                                                                                                                        Ute Kehse