Peter Gleick: How We Can Avoid a World Without Water

By Tara Lohan, The Nation. Posted February 19, 2009.

TL: What China has done with water, seems to epitomize what you call the "hard path" for water. But you advocate for the "soft path." Can you explain what that means?

PG: The idea of a soft path for water is most simply to move toward a long-term, sustainable management of our water system. The old way, the "hard path," was the way we managed water in the twentieth century -- with centralized infrastructure, big construction projects, and narrow management by a small number of specialists. The hard path brought benefits, substantial benefits, to many parts of the planet. But the idea that infrastructure alone -- and that style of management alone -- is enough to solve our water problems is I think obviously wrong. We need to rethink demand for water and efficiency; and we need to rethink distributed water systems, rather than centralized systems; and we need far more transparent decision-making and institutions.

TL: One of your points on the soft path is about matching the quality of water with its use so that we are no longer flushing our toilets or watering our lawns with potable water. How can we begin to make this transition?

PG: We are making it. The places that are really water scarce are making that transition faster than other places. Water re-use has been going on for many years in Namibia. Singapore is moving very aggressively to something called NEWater, which is a state-of-the-art water treatment that is not used for direct potable re-use right away but for other demands for water. We can treat any quality water to potable standards. We have the technology. There is a psychological barrier and an education barrier and an expense barrier, but we are seeing it more and more. Another barrier is that we have one set of pipes that come into our homes. We don't need potable water for flushing our toilets, but often that is the only water we have. So part of the challenge is changing our infrastructure, so we can use different qualities of water for different purposes. That takes investment: money, time and education.

TL: So who should be doing this? Cities? States?

PG: In general, we want our water to be managed and regulated at the lowest possible level: the most local. We want communities making decisions about water management, where appropriate. But there are things we want at the federal level -- like efficiency standards and water-quality standards. One of the key points of the soft path is to manage water at the proper level.

TL: You've mentioned that new technology like desalination should be used "where appropriate." Since desal has some serious drawbacks in its use of energy, its impact on marine ecosystems, and hazardous brine waste, where would an appropriate place or use for it be?

PG: Compared to most water alternatives facing us, desalination is very expensive, environmentally and economically. But, there are places where we are willing to pay a lot for water. It is also possible to build a bad desalination plant that harms marine systems -- we've built plenty of them around the world. But it is possible to build them in ways that don't harm them, and I just think it ought to be mandated. It makes the water more expensive, but so be it. Too much of the twentieth century was built while ignoring the environmental impacts. That's why we have a climate problem -- these externalities have been ignored.

TL: Right now an enormous amount of attention is focused on energy issues. You mentioned at a recent talk in Berkeley that some of the cheapest ways to save energy are actually through water efficiency. Can you explain the interconnection?

PG: It takes a lot of water to produce certain kinds of energy -- oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear. Thermal plants, in general, all require a lot of water for cooling. And in the US probably the single largest use of water is for power plant cooling. Whereas, solar and wind and other energy systems require very little or no water. If energy is an issue and water is an issue, let's think about the two together.

But conversely, it also takes a huge amount of energy to collect and treat and move water. There is a big energy cost in our water systems, but it turns out that some of the cheapest remaining energy efficiency options for us are not saving energy per se, but are saving water. So, a simple example is front-loading washing machines, which save water, detergent and energy. And so, that is a no-brainer. We should be seeing more of these kinds of things implemented to save both.

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Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.

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