The impacts of our changing climate are being felt globally across different geographical areas, ecosystems, and population sectors. According to the World Bank Group (WBG), 90 percent of natural disasters are water-related, affecting food, energy, urban, and environmental systems. WBG asserts that to achieve climate and development goals, we must center climate adaptation around water.[1]
This week’s New Tech Tuesday takes a high-level view of the global freshwater scarcity being compounded by climate change and some of the proposed solutions and technology being used to help mitigate this global crisis.
For the most part, renewable energy has garnered much of the climate change discussion, while the declining global freshwater supply has been largely ignored. While the absence of electricity would significantly hinder progress, potentially setting humanity back centuries, water is fundamental to the survival of all living organisms. Climate change and the added stress that population growth, urbanization, and modernization have on our rivers, lakes, water tables, and aquifers are leading to global freshwater shortages. Also, water scarcity has far-reaching effects beyond health, poverty, and disease. Water is essential for the global food production. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals, and this is only expected to rise as the world population grows (Figure 1).[2]
Figure 1: Scenes like this drought-stricken cornfield are becoming more frequent as climate change continues to intensify freshwater scarcity. (Source: Scott Book/stock.adobe.com)
In 2021, the World Economic Forum (WEF) revealed that water scarcity was among the top five global risks affecting people’s wellbeing. They stated that in water-stressed areas, the situation was grim and that conventional sources like snowfall, rainfall, river runoff, and easily accessible groundwater were being affected by climate change, with water supplies shrinking as demand grew. The WEF listed five unusual methods to harvest Earth's untapped water sources: catching fog, cloud seeding, minimizing evaporation, desalinating seawater, and iceberg harvesting.[3] While some of these methods merit consideration and possibly implementation, some are too costly or require extensive resources to fully realize their benefits, and their feasibility could take years or perhaps decades.
Thankfully, the fusion of existing with emerging technologies is now offering more viable solutions for the world’s freshwater crises that focus on delivering water to where it’s needed—the end users. Companies like Source, Aquaria, A1RWATER, Watergen, and others offer atmospheric water generators (AWG). AWGs extract water vapor from the air, utilizing solar power in some applications to provide a sustainable, self-sufficient source of clean drinking water. This technology can reliably supply homes, commercial buildings, schools, and outdoor dispensers with renewable water at scale.
Another operational option is the use of low-cost solar-powered irrigation water pumps to help support remote farming efforts in places like Bangladesh,[4] one of the most densely populated countries in the world that is tackling a food insecurity problem but counters with lots of flat terrain and abundant sunshine.
Both tech-driven options make them an important solution in areas with limited access to freshwater or in situations where other water harvesting options are too costly.
This week’s New Tech Tuesday spotlights the nRF54L system-on-chip (SoC) from Nordic Semiconductor. The nRF54L SoC boasts a 2.4GHz radio with up to +8dBm Tx power and -98dBm Rx sensitivity for 1Mbit/s Bluetooth® Low Energy. It supports all Bluetooth 5.4 features, Mesh, Thread, and Matter, and can adapt to feature Bluetooth specification updates. The nRF54L15 series features a double-power Arm® Cortex®-M33 processor running at 128MHz, making it extremely suitable for various wireless applications such as healthcare, smart home, industrial IoT, gaming controllers, and other IoT applications.
Addressing the global freshwater scarcity being exacerbated by climate change is crucial for sustaining life, agriculture, and development. While conventional solutions are being stressed, emerging technologies like atmospheric water generators and solar-powered irrigation systems offer promising, scalable alternatives. By integrating these innovations with global adaptation strategies, we can mitigate water scarcity, enhance resilience, and help secure a more sustainable future for all.
Sources
[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/overview [2] https://earth.org/solutions-to-water-scarcity/ [3] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/02/water-scarcity-shortage-sustainability-climate-change-innovation-resources/ [4] https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2015/09/08/solar-powered-pumps-reduce-irrigation-costs-bangladesh
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