Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

P R O M O T I N G C L E A N E R I N D U S T R Y F O R E V E R Y O N E ’ S B E N E F I T / 2 2 7INDUSTRY IS AN ESSENTIAL ENGINE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH. As such, it is key to economic and social progress andthus contributes positively to two of the three components that must develop in harmony if sustainabledevelopment is to be achieved. All too often, however, the need to maximize economic output, particularly indeveloping countries and countries with economies in transition, has excluded the careful and balanced considerationof the third component – environmental protection – from the planning process. Adequate water resources of goodquality, for example, are not only important for sustaining human communities and natural ecosystems but alsorepresent a critical raw material for industry. By this approach, short- and medium-term economic gains have beenmortgaged against long-term environmental harm and may ultimately be rendered unsustainable.In recent decades, the large-scale transfer of manufacturingindustry from developed to developing communities hasexacerbated this imbalance. Water-intensive industries, such astextiles, originally located to take advantage of abundant andwell-managed water supplies, may now find themselvesrelocated to communities where they compete for scarce orunderdeveloped water supplies. In this way, the economicbenefits derived from lower manufacturing costs are achieved inpart by placing additional burdens on local supply-side watermanagement or are offset, at least in part, by additional, andunplanned charges. Changes arise from the need to overcomeinadequate supply and interrupted working, impaired waterquality and increased product spoilage, and, in many cases, toavoid additional capital expenditure as enterprises take directcontrol of their water supply management.Water and Sustainable IndustrialDevelopmentThe international community has recognized the important roleplayed by water in the framework of sustainable industrialdevelopment for many years. The Dublin International Conferenceon Water and the Environment stated in 1992 that ‘humanhealth and welfare, food security, industrial development andthe ecosystems on which they depend, are all at risk, unlesswater and land resources are managed more effectively’.Agenda 21, which was released the same year, gaveconsiderable attention to water and industrial development whilesetting out the necessary framework for sustainable development.Chapter 18 implicitly highlights the need to promote cleanerproduction methodologies and ‘innovative technologies … to fullyutilize limited water resources and to safeguard those resourcesagainst pollution’. Chapter 30 is completely dedicated tostrengthening the role of business and industry as crucial drivers ofsocial and economic development, but at the same time itrecognizes that, all too often, industry uses resources inefficientlyand is responsible for avoidable spoilage of those resources.Industry impacts on water may be considered two-fold.■ Quantity: Water, often in large volumes, is required as a rawmaterial in many industrial processes. In some cases it may be adirect raw material, bound into the manufactured product andthus ‘exported’ and lost from the local water system when theseproducts are sent to market. In other cases, and perhaps morecommonly, water is an indirect raw material, used in washingand cooling, raising steam for energy, cooking and processingand so on. In the latter case, the wastewater may be returnedto the local water system through the sewerage system ordirectly to watercourses.■ Quality: Although industry requires water of good quality formanufacturing, the water it discharges may not meet the samequality standards. At best, this represents a burden on treatmentplants responsible for restoring water quality to appropriatestandards and suitable for recycling. At worst, industrial wastewateris discharged without treatment to open watercourses reducing thequality of larger water volumes and, in some cases, infiltratingaquifers and contaminating important groundwater resources. Thisendangers downstream communities that rely on those resourcesfor their primary water supply.In many developing countries, industry is effectively taking advantageof weak local water governance; passing liability for demand-sideconsiderations either to already overburdened local utilities or tolocal communities and water users. Typically, the additional financialand environmental costs borne by the local water systems, or directlyby other water users, are not taken into account in the preparationof statistics to demonstrate national economic development. Indeed,governments may show the capital costs of water supply andwastewater treatment as development advances rather than as costspassed to government by industry investors.Although both precautionary and the polluter pays principles arewidely adopted by governments, lack of resources within watergovernance means that they are not yet fully implemented. So theprinciples are not providing the protection and benefits originally