Sustaining Water Resources: Environmental and Economic Impact

• Published in: ACS sustainable chemistry & engineering 2019-02, Vol.7 (3), p.2879-2888
• Main Authors: Alexandratos, Spiro D, Barak, Naty, Bauer, Diana, Davidson, F. Todd, Gibney, Brian R, Hubbard, Susan S, Taft, Hessy L, Westerhof, Paul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; water conservation; water sustainability; water-energy nexus; watershed management
• ISSN: 2168-0485; 2168-0485
• DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b05859

Water is essential to human health and economic development due to its utilization in sanitation, agriculture, and energy. Supplying water to an expanding world population requires simultaneous consideration of multiple societal sectors competing for limited resources. Water conservation, supply augmentation, distribution, and treatment of contaminants must work in concert to ensure water sustainability. Water is linked to other sectors, and the quantity and quality of water resources are changing. The efficient use of water in agriculture, the largest user of water worldwide, via drip irrigation is described as is the use of energy-intensive reverse osmosis to supplement freshwater supplies. Efforts to manage watersheds and model their responses to severe weather events are discussed along with efforts to improve the predictability of their function. The regional competition for water resources impacts both energy and water supply reliability, which requires that nations balance both for sustainable economic development. The use of water and energy in the US is described which provides a lens through which to both rethink the interrelationship of water and energy as well as evaluate technological developments. Advances in nanotechnology are highlighted as one emerging technology. These results underscore the multifaceted nature of water sustainability, its interrelationship to energy and economic development, and the need to develop, manage and regulate water systems in a concerted manner.