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 3 3In many cases, industrial managers in middle- and lower-incomecountries are unaware of where and why water is being used intheir enterprises. Its consumption may not be measured beyond itsinitial entry point so that management of its use at individualstages in the production process is not possible. For these reasons,water consumption is taken as an ‘inevitable’ cost, rather than asone of the array of manufacturing inputs that can, and should, bemanaged to maximize efficiency and minimize waste.Encouraging change within industry cannot be done effectivelyby government-imposed regulation and licensing alone, particularlyin developing countries where there are limited resources to monitorindustrial performance. Rather, such policies need to be reinforcedby schemes to improve the skills of managers and production staffso they are aware of both the environmental and economicadvantages of using water resources carefully and efficiently. Sucheducation, combined with the introduction of simple systems todetermine water use and distribution, can lead to dramaticreductions in volumes consumed, often with little capital investmentand initially without technological changes.Of course, in many middle- and low-income countries, a largeproportion of total employment and industrial effort may beconcentrated in small- and medium-scale enterprises drawing waterfrom domestic supplies. It is likely that this water demand is largelyuncontrolled and unmeasured. Schemes to improve the watermanagement skills within enterprises operating at these scales need tobe integrated in general entrepreneurship development and may beparticularly pertinent to women’s groups as these are well representedamongst small-scale entrepreneurs and stand to gain most by releasefrom water-gathering chores or from reductions in water pollution.In a similar way, pollutant loadings of water discharged byenterprises can be significantly reduced by raising awareness of thevalue of raw material inputs being discharged as waste; capturingand recycling dyes from textile rinsing waters will, for example,reduce the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of discharged watersand increase the efficiency of dye use within the enterprise –thereby providing both environmental and economic gains.Inevitably, pollutant loads cannot be eliminated by suchmethods. End-of-pipe treatment will remain a requirement. Thecapital investment for such plants can be derived, at least in part,from efficiencies made through the introduction of cleanerproduction methodologies and the progressive introduction ofenvironmentally sound technologies and management practices. Inthis manner, industry is positively engaged in approaches to thesustainable use of water and other natural resources.Monitoring industrial development and industrial impactson water resourcesMonitoring and developing indicators can be powerful tools to reviewand benchmark current environmental and economic performance atglobal, regional and local scales. They need to be able to evaluatetrends and to indicate areas of concern where appropriate policies,assistance and investment strategies need to be developed. Dataavailability and reliability are necessary precursors to the derivationof robust indicators of current patterns of industrial water use.At the global scale, present data relating directly to industryimpacts on water resources may not be adequate for this purposeas they:■ are available for too few parameters;■ have been collected at different times and by different methods;■ represent estimates derived from a range of indirect data sources;■ do not adequately discriminate between industrial and other usesfor water; and■ do not adequately discriminate between gross and net waterconsumption, which is particularly important with regard to waterused in cooling thermoelectric plants, the bulk of which may bequickly available for reuse.World Development Indicators 2001 tables of freshwater resourcesand industrial water pollution probably represent the most completeset of industry- and water-related data at the global level. The WorldWater Resources and Their Use database provides valuable data onrenewable water resources and water use by region. Within thesedatasets, many of the individual data points require qualification,reducing the value of overall assessments; definitions of industrialuse are inconsistent and vary from country to country while waterquality data, for example, may refer to any year from 1993 to 1998and are estimated as the product of estimated sectoral emissions perunit employment and sectoral employment numbers.Other data sources, such as AQUASTAT and data published in TheWorld’s Water web site, 1 provide information on freshwater andindustrial withdrawals share, but these sources do not significantlychange the global picture of water demand. Industry impacts on waterare not yet adequately discriminated within other systems, such as thatoperated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the GlobalInternational Water Assessment (GIWA) and the Global EnvironmentMonitoring System, Freshwater Quality Programme (GEMS/WATER), bothmanaged by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).1. http://www.worldwater.org/