Can science and technology be the real solution to water scarcity, environmental change, and industrialization?

Water is abundant on Earth, but the amount available is limited. The problem of water scarcity is exacerbated by environmental change and industrialization, and low-cost, high-efficiency technologies are being proposed to address it. Can technological responses be a fundamental solution? Political conflicts and technological limitations must also be considered.

 

Blue gold, one of the most abundant resources on the planet, is also one of the most scarce. It’s a substance that humans have used since the beginning of time, and one that we’ve only recently begun to realize the importance of. It’s one of the most visible manifestations of the imbalance in the distribution of resources, with some people having unlimited access to it, while others fight wars to secure the minimum amount they need to live. More than 70% of the planet’s surface is made up of water, but less than one-hundredth of it is available to humanity. The blue gold, in other words, is water.
Humanity has recently been experiencing a severe water shortage crisis. To be fair, it’s always been there, but we’ve only recently begun to recognize it. Since the dawn of agriculture, and even before, human history has been driven by the need to control water. The agricultural revolution that led to settled human life would not have been possible without the technology to organize and manage water, including irrigation and water measurement. However, water has always been considered a scarce resource because it is difficult to store in sufficient quantities, and technologies have been developed to manage it efficiently. Although humans have been making great efforts to resource water since ancient times, the issue has recently come into the spotlight again due to rapid environmental changes such as desertification and water pollution caused by industrialization in developing countries. This is especially true in Central Africa, where desertification is occurring rapidly, and in Southeast Asia, where rapid industrialization has contaminated water sources.
Many approaches have been proposed and tested to address the severe water shortages in some of these countries. The simplest and most widely practiced is to invest financial resources to import water, or to improve irrigation and increase storage capacity. However, these are not easily adopted because most countries facing water scarcity are developing countries that lack sufficient financial resources, and importing water is not a solution to the underlying problem, while overhauling irrigation systems requires long-term follow-up. Politically and diplomatically, it has been suggested that unbalanced water resources should be distributed equally, but this would require unraveling the complex web of national interests. In recent years, a variety of alternatives to traditional approaches have been proposed, with technological solutions gaining significant traction.
Given that the main beneficiaries of the technology are developing countries, it is particularly important that the technology to solve this problem is low-cost, highly efficient, and does not require special follow-up. This is often referred to as appropriate technology, meaning that a well with a mechanical hand pump is more effective than a well with an electric pump, which can be costly to install and expensive to operate.
Technologies to address water scarcity are being researched in two main directions. One is water purification, including seawater desalination, and the other is transportation, which involves conveniently transporting water from a safe source. One example of an appropriate technology for convenient water transportation is the Quadrum, a doughnut-shaped water container that makes it easy for a child to carry 50 liters of water.
Water purification technologies, including seawater desalination, have already been studied and large-scale desalination facilities are under construction in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, in order to achieve a high level of water purification efficiency, it is essential to build a large-scale desalination facility that requires a large initial investment, and it is also expensive to operate, so it has been considered difficult to apply to less developed countries. However, recent research has shown the possibility of a desalination device that uses electrohydrodynamics instead of conventional solar power, is small enough to be portable, and can operate on the power of a single battery, and research is currently underway to improve its performance and commercialize it. Other areas of active research include artificial rainfall and groundwater-based irrigation to address water scarcity in severe droughts.
But can these technological advances be more than a temporary fix, or the ultimate answer? Some are wary of technological cure-alls, saying that these technological approaches have clear limitations and cannot be the ultimate answer, and that other alternatives must be found. However, the fact remains that scientific and technological approaches to water scarcity are the closest we have to an answer at this point.
The limitation of technological solutions is that political conflicts in water scarcity cannot be solved by technological solutions. Most water-scarce countries are concentrated in Africa and South Asia, where the same water resources are often shared by multiple countries. Inevitably, water conflicts arise, and some countries weaponize water resources to monopolize water that could be shared with enough neighbors. The water disputes between countries bordering the Nile River are a prime example. There are a total of eight countries bordering the Nile River, but only two countries, Egypt and Sudan, actually monopolize and benefit from the upstream water sources. Therefore, the rest of the countries want to build dams on the upper reaches of the river to share the water, and Egypt and Sudan, who have been benefiting from the water, are opposing the idea, claiming that there is not enough water in the Nile.
But solving individual water scarcity doesn’t necessarily have to involve political conflict. It doesn’t matter as long as the focus of the technology is on the individual and not on larger units like countries or organizations. The portable desalination devices mentioned earlier are an example of this. Furthermore, it’s more accurate to say that water scarcity is caused by political conflict situations rather than that political conflict situations are caused by water scarcity. So, instead of solving political conflicts to solve water scarcity, solving water scarcity will naturally solve conflicts over resources.
Technology also allows us to get to the root cause of water scarcity – there is not enough fresh water in circulation for 6 billion people. Whether through desalination of seawater or artificial rainfall, it is proving to be technologically feasible to provide sufficient water resources in areas where fresh water is not circulating.
The many problems that science and technology have solved in the past also provide historical evidence for the hope that technological advances can fundamentally address water scarcity. Advances in medicine have largely eliminated the fear of epidemics, and advances in communication technology are breaking down time and distance barriers that have existed since the beginning of time. In addition, we have already developed technologies to manage water efficiently and have used them as a springboard for progress.
Of course, there are always risks in relying on science and technology as a silver bullet. However, the role that science and technology can play in addressing water scarcity has been vastly underestimated to date, and it has not been treated as a fundamental solution to the problem. Nevertheless, it has succeeded in achieving more tangible results than other, more focused approaches. We can once again count on science and technology, which has always played a decisive role in human survival over the past decades and centuries.