How do we get to Renewable Water?

Water is renewed by removing contaminants.

Contaminants in water are nutrients that drive Biomass formation. That is because the Sun provides a constant Energy source that drive photosynthesis in any aquatic environment. Understanding and managing the dynamics at this Water-Energy-Biomass nexus (the WEB Nexus) is critical to achieving Renewable Water.

The inflow of a high level of contaminants/nutrients into a water body can result in two possible outcomes

  1. The water body becomes eutrophic, causing the nutrients to be directed into the formation of excess Biomass in the form of algae and cyanobacteria as it reverts to “primordial soup”
  2. The nutrients are directed into a productive biodiverse Food Chain, eutrophication is prevented and water is renewed.

If the water body becomes eutrophic, water quality is degraded and usability is impaired because high levels of algae and cyanobacteria clog filters, increase the amount of chemicals needed in the purification process, and increase the level of carcinogenic by-products (such as TTHMs) in purified drinking water produced.

The solution lies in aligning and optimizing the Water Cycle and the Nutrient Cycle to ensure that the aquatic biome is one that directs nutrients into sustaining a productive Food Chain.

The solution therefore clearly does not fall into the domain of conventional science and engineering. So Renewable Water does not look like conventional concrete and steel infrastructure projects that defy and conquer Nature by overcoming the constraints of topography, natural water flow, gravity and climate.

Renewable Water is about supporting Nature to withstand and overcome the impediments that our historic approach to water resource management has placed upon it.

Renewable Water is a new layer of technology; Biotechnology, that must be incorporated into water resource management. It operates out of a different scientific paradigm to the Newtonian science that governs conventional engineering. So an important part of Integrated Water Resource Management is integrating these two scientific and technology domains to address both quantity and quality requirements.

Renewable Water is focused on quality rather than quantity, but because it addresses quality in a manner that improves the efficiency of the Water Cycle and improves reusability, the effect is to increase the quantity of available water too.

This is the benefit of progressing from a linear supply chain model to a circular economy model that leverages the principles of recycling, replenishing and renewing.

This has implications for the type of infrastructure development required because the focus shifts from disposing of treated wastewater to understanding that discharge becomes recharge because it replenishes water resources and it becomes more cost effective to reuse than to extend the water logistics supply chain to source new water. So instead of discharging wastewater downstream, you want to discharge it upstream, back into your reservoir so that you can use it again.

This is why the only way to get to Renewable Water is by developing an Integrated Water Resource Management strategy that has Renewable Water as its explicit objective.

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