Keynote Speech
Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen;I am indeed delighted and honored to address this distinguished gathering this morning. And what an appropriate setting to hold such a conference, in Singapore, the city/state that continues to be an inspiration to the world in every aspect, and especially in the water area, where Singapore combines cutting edge technology with superb Demand Management, and in the process, shows the world that with such a combination, so many new resources can be tapped. Before going into why such a combination is so vital to our survival and prosperity in this world, please allow me to point to the following:
1. Although we live in a watery planet, and for all its
apparent abundance, the supply of fresh water is limited, about 99% of
the earth’s water is either saline or frozen, the remaining
one percent, most of it is ground water and soil moisture. Thus
the net availability of fresh water for all human use is one-hundredth
of that one percent.
Along the same lines, Sandra Postel, Director
of Global Water Policy Project, Amhurst, Massachutes, writes in
an article, titled "Troubled Water", featured in the Best American
Science and Nature Writing for 2001, and I quote "Observed from Space,
our Planet seems wealthy in water beyond measure. Yet, most of
the earth's vast blueness is ocean, far too salty to drink or to
irrigate most crops. Only about 2.5% of all the water on earth is
fresh water, and two thirds of that is locked away in glaciers and ice
caps. A minuscule share of the world's water – less
than one hundredth of 1 percent – is both drinkable and renewed each
year through rain fall and other precipitation. And although that
fresh water supply is renewable, it is also finite. The quantity
available today is the same that was available when civilization first
arose thousands of years ago. And so, the amount of water that
should be allotted to each person has declined steadily with
time. It has dropped by 50% since 1950, as the population climbed
from 2.5 Billion to 6 Billion, and will fall an additional 33% within
fifty years, if our numbers reach 8.9 Billion, the middle of the
projected range.
2. Global demand for water doubles every (35) years, and if 40% of the water required to produce an acceptable diet for the 2.4 Billion, expected to be added for the next (30) years, has to come from irrigation. Agriculture water supplies would have to expand by more than (1750) Cubic kilometer per year, equivalent to roughly 20 Nile Rivers or 97 Colorado Rivers.
3. According to the UN World Water Development report released in 2003, the most serious challenge facing mankind in the 21st century might not be war or hunger or disease or even the collapse of civil order, but it may be the lack of fresh water. The report continues; “population growth, pollution and climate change, all accelerating, are likely to combine to produce a drastic decline in water supply in the coming decades.” Further the report makes an alarming prediction, by the middle of the century, in the worst case, no fewer than seven billion people in 60 countries may be faced with water scarcity, although if the right policies are followed, this may be brought down to two billion people in 48 nations. The report concluded by stating that “of all the social and natural crisis we human face, the water crises is the one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet earth.”
4. According to a study by the International Water Management Institute, a leading global water organization, “one third of the world’s population will experience severe water scarcity within the next 20 years". Water sources, that supply the world’s wells, lakes, and rivers are disappearing globally, IWMI predicts that to meet the 2025 water needs, the world must develop 22% more primary water supply.
5. WHO estimates that more than 5 million people die each year from diseases caused by unsafe drinking water.
6. In a testimony before the U.S. Congress, John F. Turner, Assistant Secretary of State, said and I quote “The statistics are stark". Today an estimated 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water; 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation. Each year, over 3 billion people suffer from water related diseases resulting in 3-5 million deaths—most in children under five. The economic impact of the health related aspects related to unsafe drinking water is estimated at $380 billion per year. In agrarian-based developing countries (countries that often lack water storage capacity), GDP often correlates directly to rainfall - when there is rain, the economy prospers; during droughts it falters. In some countries, water mismanagement and water pollution can reduce GDP by more than 2% - enough to keep a country in poverty, or if remedied, set it on a path towards economic growth. Water related disasters, between 1992 and 2001 in developing countries, accounts for 20% of the total number of natural disasters and over 50% of the all disaster fatalities. As populations continue to grow and current freshwater sources degrade, conditions are expected to worsen. The CIA reports that, by 2015, nearly half of the world’s population will live in countries that are water-stressed (i.e., have less than 1,700 cubic meters per capita per year).
7. Two hundred scientists in 50 countries have identified water shortage as one of the two most worrying problems for the new millennium (the other was climate change) and up to 50% of urban water and 60% of water used in agriculture is wasted through leaks and evaporation.
The afore-mentioned 'stark statistics', Ladies and Gentlemen, brings us full circle to where we started, i.e. "Technology and Demand Management". If the world has been living and thriving on less than the one hundredth of one percent of the water on our planet earth, think what a break through it will be if we can tap the 97.5% which is mostly at our door-step through advancement in desalination technology that could make it economically feasible. In 1961, U.S. President, J.F. Kennedy, noted that if humanity could find an inexpensive way to get fresh water from the oceans, that achievement, and I quote "would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishment" It would be a real break through indeed, and hence, Ladies and Gentlemen, the importance of such a gathering, which hopefully brings us closer to achieving the goal of limit less supply of fresh water.But while we are waiting for his miracle to happen, we have to deal with reality. Fortunately, we have a very simple and readily available solution named “Demand Management”. Demand Management, if administered properly, can double the availability of water in both the sectors, i.e. Municipal and Agriculture. It continues to amaze me, how some countries are willing to spend top dollar to increase their domestic supply while tolerating 50% plus leakage on their supply net work, and whose remedy will cost less than 10% of the extra supply cost. It is equally astonishing to note that, reducing irrigation needs by a mere one tenth, would free up enough water to roughly double domestic water use worldwide. Conservation, once viewed as just an emergency response to a sudden shortage or drought, has been transformed in recent years into a sophisticated package of measures that offers one of the most cost effective and environmentally sound ways of balancing urban water budgets. Slowly, the idea is spreading that managing demand rather than continuously striving to meet it, is a surer path to water security, while saving money and protecting the environment at the same time.
To show vividly the potential of demand management, I would like to share with you one aspect of this route which we are implementing in my country - The kingdom of Saudi Arabia - For the last eight months, we have been going through a water conservation campaign, by distributing free of charge water saving devices, mainly composed of faucet & kitchen aerators, displacement bags, and leak detection tablets. The distribution is intended to cover 3.5 Million house holds, Government and Commercial sectors. So far, the results have exceeded even our ambitious expectations, savings on an average of 30% were achieved, while pay back for the distributed devices did not exceed, on average, five days, i.e. we have recovered our investment in less than five days. Consumption of water in our capital city Riyadh, which has a population growth rate of 5%, actually dropped by more than 100,000 m3 when comparing 2005 by pre-installation year 2004. Not only, that economical results were startling, but results were achieved almost immediately. A case that could not be realized by capital projects even if capital is available.
I have no doubt that by the end of this conservation program in all its aspects, we will drop our daily domestic consumption by more than 50% and hence we will double our supply at a fraction of the cost of equally achieving the same results by tapping new resources. And so, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest to our beloved IDA to add to its award list an award, timed with their biannual conference, and awarded to individuals and organizations who contribute most to the area of Demand Management. Having said that, I would like to point out that growth in the water industry and desalination in particular, shows no sign of abating.
According to the Global Water Intelligence (GWI), the forecast of the world desalination capacity will boom from the existing (31) million m3/day at the year 2005, to reach 62 million m3/day at the end of the year 2015.
The Gulf Countries' existing production of (14) million m3/day will increase (94%) to reach (27) million m3/day, during the same period.
Saudi Arabia will reach (11.9) million m3/day from the existing (6.5) million m3/day, an increase of 5.4 million m3/day with a capital expenditure expectation of (7.4) Billion US Dollars.
On the basis of these forecasts, it is possible to predict that, total expenditure on new capacity – capital and operating – will reach $48 billion (excluding interest costs) during the decade. Additionally, there will be estimated expenditure of approximately $42 billion operating and maintaining existing facilities. Around $5 billion may be spent on the rehabilitation of aging facilities.This gives a total spend of approximately $95 billion between 2005 and 2015.
As for the water industry, as a whole, according to Elizabeth Mackay, a chief investment strategist at Bear Stearn, "is the best sector for the century"
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope, I have driven the point home that unless we speed up our technical advancement in the desalination area, and go full throttle in the area of demand management, unless we do so, we are in for a very rough time indeed.
Before concluding, I would like to go back to Sandra Postel and to a quotation from her book "LAST OASIS", published in 1997, I quote "The good news is that desalination is feasible and use of the process has grown enormously. More than 7500 desalting plants of various kinds and sizes now operate worldwide, collectively turning 4.8 Billion M3 of saline water into fresh water each year. The sobering news, however, is that despite its rapid growth, desalination still produces just one tenth of 1 percent of the world's total water use – and its contribution to global water supplies is likely to remain small for the foreseeable future"
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, let us prove Sandra wrong!
Thank you so much