MEASURING WATER USE IN A GREEN ECONOMY - UNEP

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Foreword Without doubt water and its abundance or its scarcity will define human well-being, environmental sustainability and economic activity in the 21 st century. The world is awash with reports warning about water stressed areas now and in the future; the relative demands of competing industries locally and regionally and fears that without sustainable management, cooperation and improved and more efficient use water resources may become a driver and an escalator of tensions and conflicts over the coming years and decades. Meanwhile a raft of important studies and assessments have equally underlined the importance of water to wider society in terms of its role in maintaining healthy ecosystems whose services not only underpin economic activity but the viability of the planet as a home for seven billion people, rising to over nine billion by 2050. This report by the <strong>UNEP</strong>-hosted International Resource Panel marks a serious and critical analysis of the way societies are managing water supplies including how those supplies are allocated across sectors, interests and the environment. It provides a critique of the various regimes and systems that have evolved over time alongside new and evolving initiatives that together may illuminate a pathway to the ultimate goal of decoupling resource use—in this case water—from economic development and growth and environmental degradation. Importantly it makes a case that at some scales and linked with globalization water must be considered as a global issue, rather like the atmosphere: not least because water is being traded and used across continents as a result of the shipment and exchange of goods and products—so called ‘virtual water’. There are clearly many interesting and innovative ways of achieving the adage—if you can measure it, you can manage it. The report looks at Water Registers and Water Footprinting up to Life Cycle Assessments backed up by case studies of places and countries where such management regimes have been piloted and tested including in Australia’s Murray Darling River Basin and within river basins in China to innovative approaches by a company like Volkswagen in respect to car manufacturing. 2
Measuring water use in a green economy The study also looks at countries where national circumstances are already triggering the kinds of comprehensive management, policies and technological innovations that are leading to ‘decoupling’ of per capita water use: Singapore being a case in point. The Measuring Water Use in a Green Economy report is the first of a triumvirate of assessments by the International Resource Panel on this issue and an important contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals that are likely to emerge from the Rio+20 process post June 2012. I would like to thank the members of the Panel for taking on this complex but important task and in particular Jacqueline McGlade of the European Environment Agency who has been the lead author and intellectual engine-room behind this work. Achim Steiner UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (<strong>UNEP</strong>) 3
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Water is an essential resource for
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MEASURING WATER USE IN A GREEN ECONOMY - UNEP

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