The public and private sectors along with financial institutions and NGOs must coordinate efforts to enable implementation and investment in nature-based solutions to help stave off the threat of global water shortage, according to analysts.

In a joint study released this week, analysts from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and green group WWF stressed the need for a new approach to water management if the world is to avoid having more people go without safe drinking water, more food production regions suffer from water scarcity, and more biodiversity loss from pollution.

“Traditionally, governments and companies have taken a reactive, risk-based approach to water management, one that focuses on mitigating the economic consequences of floods and droughts but pays little consideration to environmental impacts,” the study said.

“Now is the time to change this outdated approach to water management by investing more in the power of nature-based solutions (NbS), which protect and enhance ecosystem services, to help manage water with resilience and for the long term.”

For governments, businesses, financials, and NGOs, that means prioritising water as a key lever for adapting to climate change and becoming nature positive as well as fostering nature-based, locally-led innovations across the water value chain, according to the study.

They must also implement NbS for water security as part of infrastructure projects and scale up NbS investments to increase water security and create resilient ecosystems.

DIFFERENT ROLES

Each of the four types of actors can play different roles in ensuring NbS can fulfil its potential in improving global water security, according to BCS and WWF.

Governments can put in place policies that enable NbS across infrastructure engineering, procurement, and constructions, they can stimulate investment through blended finance solutions, value water more correctly through classification systems such as the EU taxonomy, and enable collective action through public-private partnerships, the study said.

Private companies can begin to measure, report on, and set targets for their impacts on nature, invest in supply chain resilience, develop water resilient business strategies, and invest in new technology and data, the analysts added.

Financial institutions are in a position to play a key role as well, by screening their portfolios for NbS opportunities, improving their ability to identify and scale better investments, and prioritising financial innovation to promote market-based mechanisms for NbS.

Meanwhile, from NGOs it would be an important contribution if they generated guidance to improve NbS impact metrics for water, improved capabilities to identify clear revenue streams for NbS, and derisked NbS projects by convening stakeholders early in the process, according to the analysts.

“The recent UN Water Conference underscored the urgent need to find bold solutions to the global water crisis,” said Torsten Kurth, BCG managing director, referring to last month’s summit that generated a Water Action Agenda and billions of dollars pledged by governments and companies.

“But it’s time to stop admiring the problem. It is critical that we shift from an outdated, reactive, risk-based approach to water management to implementing and scaling resilient, nature-based solutions to water challenges.”

DIRE OUTLOOK

The analysts found that global water demand is set to grow by 1% annually every year to 2050, which would far exceed sustainable supply.

Most of that demand is set to come from the so-called BRIICS – Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, and South Africa.

If there is no large scale, impactful intervention, the world will see 1.6 billion people without access to safe drinking water by 2030, 23% of rice production areas and 42% of wheat production areas facing high water scarcity risks by 2050, and a 26% increase in harmful pollutants into river basins and a 6% drop in areas with high aquatic biodiversity by 2070, the report said.

“Drastically scaling up investment in healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands is fundamental to ensuring water for all in an increasingly water stressed world,” said WWF’s global freshwater lead, Stuart Orr, in a press release accompanying the study.

“But protecting and restoring healthy freshwater ecosystems will do more than keep the taps and pipes and pumps flowing. Our freshwater life support systems are central to food security, adapting to increasing climate change-related droughts and floods, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.”

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com

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