Securing water resources: a global necessity

In 2022, 2.2 bil­lion people will still not have access to infra­struc­ture provid­ing drink­ing water. Yet the UN’s Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal 6 (SDG 6) aims to ensure uni­ver­sal and equit­able access to afford­able drink­ing water by 2030.

It is essen­tial to under­stand the com­plex­ity of the sub­ject of access to water, due to its com­plete trans­vers­al­ity. We are now aware of the need for integ­rated, con­cer­ted water man­age­ment. This resource is needed for many pur­poses, almost all of which are in com­pet­i­tion with each oth­er: energy pro­duc­tion, agri­cul­ture, industry, biod­iversity, recre­ation, and vital needs. Even if we put all the neces­sary tech­no­lo­gic­al, social and reg­u­lat­ory advances on the table, it will be impossible to provide uni­ver­sal access to water without adapt­a­tion because of the changes we are going through.

Water resources are under a triple pres­sure: rising pop­u­la­tion growth, cli­mate change and increas­ing urb­an­isa­tion. Today, we need to sup­ply water to 8 bil­lion people – 10 bil­lion by 2050 – for drink­ing, wash­ing, eat­ing, health­care, cloth­ing, hous­ing, etc. Water con­sump­tion auto­mat­ic­ally increases with the emer­gence of middle classes around the world. As for urb­an­isa­tion, it is a ver­it­able time bomb if left unchecked. In the coun­tries of the south­ern hemi­sphere, urb­an growth rates are stag­ger­ing and infra­struc­ture is inad­equate. Faced with such an increase, any coun­try would find it extremely dif­fi­cult to provide func­tion­al water and san­it­a­tion systems.

Action is needed at vari­ous levels. We need to work on the social aspect. It can, for example, help to over­come reluct­ance to imple­ment cer­tain tech­nic­al solu­tions, such as the reuse of wastewa­ter. In the west­ern world, water has become a com­mon­place com­mod­ity. This is not the case in the coun­tries of the Sahel, for example, where the value of water is often cent­ral to the con­struc­tion of these soci­et­ies. West­ern soci­et­ies need to redis­cov­er this value. Finally, I think that pro­gress­ive water pri­cing (known as “eco-solid­ar­ity”) is an import­ant lever: in Dunkirk, it has reduced house­hold con­sump­tion by 8 to 10%¹.

We have made enorm­ous pro­gress in this area. By using digit­al tech­no­logy to optim­ise irrig­a­tion (using drones, sensors and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions), we are able to reuse treated wastewa­ter, arti­fi­cially recharge ground­wa­ter, slow down run-off, encour­age infilt­ra­tion, and so on. Sci­ence can provide solu­tions for every situ­ation, but all too often it is ignored.

Gov­ernance is one of the essen­tial levers for secur­ing resources. All over the world, we need to imple­ment solu­tions that take account of loc­al con­straints: the geo­lo­gic­al con­text, the nature of activ­it­ies, demo­graph­ics, and so on. For example, in the fast-grow­ing cit­ies of the South, the lack of infra­struc­ture is lead­ing to pol­lu­tion of water resources. More strin­gent reg­u­la­tions on indus­tri­al waste would undoubtedly make it pos­sible to lim­it these effects. To achieve this, how­ever, we need clear polit­ic­al will.

Polit­ic­al decision-mak­ing must take place with­in struc­tures where loc­al play­ers can con­sult each oth­er, make trade-offs, decide on invest­ments, etc. Con­sulta­tion is abso­lutely essen­tial, par­tic­u­larly in a con­text where resources are becom­ing increas­ingly scarce. Trade-offs have to be made between the dif­fer­ent water uses. The United Nations has iden­ti­fied 300 places in the world where shared resources could be a major source of con­flict. This dia­logue must take place at both loc­al and region­al level. The Nile, the Euphrates and the Tigris, for example, are major sources of ten­sion in the regions they cross.

Yes, this is the case with the Niger basin. This river is an essen­tial resource for Ben­in, Burk­ina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Niger­ia and Chad. All these coun­tries are involved in dis­cus­sions with­in an inter­gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tion, the Niger Basin Author­ity. Set up in the 1960s, it has helped to avoid all water-related con­flicts. Sim­il­ar struc­tures exist around the Seneg­al River, Lake Chad and the Volta Basin. With­in these region­al gov­ernance struc­tures, decisions are taken on the basis of sci­entif­ic and tech­nic­al data, with the aim of dis­trib­ut­ing water equit­ably across bor­ders. The con­tinu­ity of hydro­lo­gic­al meas­ure­ments across bor­ders must be ensured, and this is an essen­tial prerequisite.

Integ­rated water man­age­ment is also being imple­men­ted in France. Although the sys­tem is com­plex – the Court of Aud­it­ors has high­lighted the prob­lems asso­ci­ated with the count­less con­sulta­tion struc­tures – it is cur­rently work­ing rather well.

It’s also essen­tial: it’s the last level on which we need to work. Water affects the whole of human­ity, and it is essen­tial that the United Nations – which is a form of glob­al gov­ernance – takes up this issue. In March 2023, the United Nations Con­fer­ence on Water noted the dif­fi­culty of meet­ing the tar­get of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal 6. This under­scores the urgency of the situ­ation, and sets things in motion, such as the forth­com­ing, and long-awaited, appoint­ment of a Spe­cial Envoy for Water.

The United Nations Con­fer­ence on Water in 2023 was the first since… 1977! It’s quite incred­ible, but the examples of the COPs (cli­mate, biod­iversity) show that it is pos­sible to set up such struc­tures. But even these organ­isa­tions can­not deal with the issue of water: the role of this resource (which has been par­tic­u­larly hard hit by cli­mate change) is ridiculous.

Water suf­fers from a lack of polit­ic­al con­sid­er­a­tion and invest­ment. One of the main prob­lems with access to water is the lack of infra­struc­ture. We see this even in France: 20% of drink­ing water is lost through leaks in the French drink­ing water sup­ply net­work. On the Afric­an con­tin­ent, the situ­ation is even worse. And the same applies to data: data acquis­i­tion net­works have col­lapsed. Pro­found changes in polit­ic­al will and invest­ment are essential.

Interview by Anaïs Marechal