The Surprising Solutions to the World's Water Crisis
Summary
TLDRThis video explores the global water crisis, focusing on drought-stricken regions like Northern Kenya, where nomadic tribes face severe water shortages due to climate change and resource mismanagement. The video highlights innovative solutions, such as solar-powered water extraction and reclaimed wastewater systems in Singapore. It discusses how water scarcity drives conflict, impacts livelihoods, and threatens national security, emphasizing the critical role of technology and new approaches in addressing water scarcity. The video urges viewers to recognize water's value as a finite resource and the need for urgent global action to secure it.
Takeaways
- 🌍 The nomadic tribes in Northern Kenya, such as the Turkana people, have lived off the land for thousands of years, but the area has now become a parched desert due to climate change.
- 💧 By 2025, half of the world's population is expected to face water scarcity due to factors like growing populations, water mismanagement, and climate change.
- 🚰 Water is a finite resource cycling through Earth, but human activities, such as damming rivers and over-extraction of groundwater, are disrupting this natural cycle and affecting the planet's balance.
- 🔥 Climate change is making water patterns more unpredictable, with more intense rainfall in some areas and prolonged droughts in others, severely impacting communities reliant on consistent rainfall.
- ⚔️ In regions like Northern Kenya, violent conflicts over scarce water resources and pasture have become common, with hundreds losing their lives annually.
- 👩🌾 Women in these affected regions, traditionally responsible for water collection, face dangerous conditions when digging for water but have become central to agricultural solutions when access to sustainable water sources is secured.
- 🌞 Solar-powered water storage systems are providing a more reliable water source for communities, enabling them to grow crops and stabilize their food supplies.
- 📉 Water scarcity is not only a humanitarian issue but also a threat to national security, with regions like Iraq experiencing social unrest due to diminishing water supplies.
- 🔬 Scientists are using satellite data from NASA’s GRACE mission to track water depletion across the globe, showing a direct correlation between water scarcity and social unrest in vulnerable regions.
- 🏙 Even cities like London are facing increasing risks from both water shortages and flooding due to outdated infrastructure, with experts warning that the reservoir system could run dry within 25 years.
Q & A
What are some of the main environmental changes affecting Northern Kenya?
-Northern Kenya, once a dense, flourishing forest 60 years ago, has transformed into a dry, resource-poor desert due to the effects of drought, water mismanagement, and climate change.
How is water scarcity expected to impact the global population by 2025?
-By 2025, half of the world's population is predicted to face water scarcity due to growing populations, climate change, and mismanagement of water resources, leading to rising global tensions.
How are people in Northern Kenya adapting to the changing climate?
-The nomadic tribes of Northern Kenya, such as the Turkana, are heavily affected by the drought, which impacts their livestock-dependent lifestyle. Some communities, with the help of organizations like Practical Action, are adapting by using solar-powered water systems and engaging in farming, which has shifted the local economy.
What traditional practices have been impacted by the changing environment in Northern Kenya?
-Pastoralism, the tradition of raising livestock while moving across grasslands in search of water and pasture, has been severely affected due to the lack of rain and pasture caused by climate change.
What role do women and girls play in water collection in these communities?
-In the Turkana community, water collection is culturally assigned to women and girls. They used to travel over 10 km to the river, and when it dried up, they would dig deep scoop holes to access water, risking fatal collapses of these holes.
How has the introduction of solar-powered water systems changed life in these communities?
-Solar-powered water systems have allowed communities to access underground aquifers, reducing the need for dangerous water collection methods. This has also enabled women to farm, providing food for the community and extra income, which has improved their quality of life.
What potential risks do these new water systems face?
-Despite the benefits of solar-powered water systems, they are vulnerable to long-term risks such as the depletion of aquifers, the breakdown of solar panels, or other unforeseeable challenges, leaving the sustainability of these systems in question.
How is water scarcity linked to conflict in certain regions?
-Water scarcity often leads to violent clashes over access to water points and pasture, as seen in regions like Northern Kenya. Darnish Massud Ali notes that water deprivation can exacerbate existing social unrest and even lead to international conflict, as seen in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
How are satellites being used to monitor water scarcity?
-NASA’s GRACE Mission uses satellites to track changes in the Earth's gravitational field, which vary as water saturates the ground. This data helps scientists map water movement and depletion, offering insights into regions at risk of water scarcity and potential conflict.
What lessons can be learned from Singapore's approach to managing water scarcity?
-Singapore has successfully addressed water scarcity by creating a closed-loop system called 'New Water,' where wastewater is treated and purified through advanced filtration processes and reintegrated into the water supply. This approach has helped Singapore secure its water needs and serves as a model for water-stressed regions.
Outlines
🌍 The Changing Landscapes of Northern Kenya
The video introduces the arid landscapes of Northern Kenya, which were once lush forests just 60 years ago. It highlights the severe droughts impacting the people of the Turkana tribe, who are on the front lines of the global water crisis. Growing populations, water mismanagement, and climate change are exacerbating water scarcity worldwide, and by 2025, half the global population may face shortages. The narrator, Professor Hanf Frry, explores how human activity, from blocking rivers to over-extracting groundwater, is drastically altering Earth’s natural water cycle and causing significant environmental and social stress.
💧 Climate Change, Water Scarcity, and Nomadic Struggles
The harsh reality of water scarcity is brought to life through the struggles of the Turkana people, especially women and girls who risk their lives digging deep scoop holes for water. As drought worsens, violent clashes over water and pasturelands increase. Practical Action, a development group, is introducing sustainable water systems using solar power to tap into underground aquifers. This solution is transforming women’s roles from water carriers to farmers, providing food security, education, and a sense of empowerment, though concerns remain about the long-term sustainability of these solutions.
🔬 Data, Conflict, and Water Scarcity
Water scarcity is not just a humanitarian issue but a potential cause of conflict. Technologist Darnish Massud Alivi explains how access to water is being used as leverage and sparking unrest in regions like Iraq, where upstream dams in Turkey are reducing water supply. Using data from NASA’s Grace satellites, scientists are tracking water depletion globally. The findings reveal that water stress often correlates with social unrest, and as climate change accelerates, competition for water will increase, leading to more geopolitical tensions.
🏙️ Urban Water Systems and Future Drought Risk
Dr. Anna Mi discusses the aging water infrastructure in London, which was built for a different time and is now vulnerable to modern climate extremes, including flash flooding and drought. Despite London’s reputation for frequent rain, Southeast England is surprisingly dry and at high risk for future water shortages. With growing demand and erratic weather, London’s reservoirs could run dry within 25 years. The video emphasizes that both flooding and drought are symptoms of the same problem: an overstressed water system struggling to adapt to climate change.
🔧 Singapore’s Water Revolution: From Crisis to Innovation
Singapore faced its own 'Day Zero' over 60 years ago, running out of water entirely. Since then, the country has prioritized self-sufficiency by recycling wastewater into drinkable 'new water.' Engineer Harry Seer explains Singapore’s advanced water purification process, which uses microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and UV treatment. Now, 40% of Singapore’s water comes from recycled sources, with a goal of over 50% by 2060. The success story illustrates how technological innovation and a cultural shift toward valuing water can prevent future crises.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Water Scarcity
💡Climate Change
💡Nomadic Lifestyle
💡Aquifers
💡Water Conflict
💡Scoop Holes
💡Solar-Powered Water Systems
💡New Water (Singapore)
💡Day Zero
💡Water Cycle
Highlights
Northern Kenya, home to nomadic tribes for thousands of years, is now facing drought due to deforestation and climate change.
By 2025, half of the world's population will face water scarcity, with growing global tensions over access to water.
Professor Han Fry explores how humanity’s interference with the water cycle and climate change is destabilizing water resources.
Human activity, like damming rivers and extracting groundwater, has even shifted Earth’s rotational axis by 80 cm.
Drought is now a constant concern in Northern Kenya, impacting the nomadic lifestyle and leading to violent clashes over resources.
Women and girls face life-threatening conditions as they dig deep scoop holes for water in dry riverbeds.
Innovative solutions like solar-powered water pumps and underground aquifer access have transformed women's lives, turning them into farmers instead of nomadic water carriers.
Over 2 billion people currently live with water scarcity, and by 2030, 700 million people could be displaced due to lack of water.
Darnish Masud Ali analyzes water-related conflicts using satellite data to predict where future tensions may arise.
The GRACE satellite mission uses gravitational changes to map global water movement, showing severe water depletion in places like Iraq.
Water scarcity is increasingly becoming a national security issue, with countries leveraging water control as political power.
In Southeast England, London's outdated infrastructure struggles with both water shortages and flash floods due to extreme weather patterns.
Singapore faced 'Day Zero' over 60 years ago, and now relies on innovative water reclamation and purification processes to meet its needs.
Singapore’s 'NEWater' system treats and recycles sewage water, providing 40% of the nation's water needs, with plans to increase to 50% by 2060.
The global water crisis requires a fundamental shift in how we value water, with Singapore serving as a model of self-sufficiency and sustainable water management.
Transcripts
[Music]
these expansive lands in Northern Kenya
have been home to nomadic tribes for
thousands of
years if we go to the culture TR we
might have a chance to to see the
livestock done this
way but as recently as 60 years ago this
place was a dense flourishing Forest now
it has dried into a resource poor
parched desert the area is really
suffering the impact of
drought the people of takana and their
livestock are on the front line of a
battle beginning to play out all over
the world a battle to secure
water growing populations water
mismanagement and climate change mean
that by 2025 half of the world's
population will face water
scarcity and Global tensions are
rising I'm Professor hanf frry
mathematician and
writer I want to explore why the world
is toying with catastrophe over
dwindling access to water and where the
technology can help secure our future
needs
this here is part of the rift valley
sometimes known as the Cradle of
humanity because this is where the
earliest humanlike fossils have been
found well some of them at least and the
people who still live here they have a
very nomadic lifestyle they move around
looking for pasture in search of
water searching for a supply of fresh
water used to be the ultimate prior
majority of our
ancestors but today over half of us live
in towns and cities where we expect the
water to come to us
instead and while it might seem like an
unquenchable resource every drop that we
use is taken from an interconnected
cycle that's responsible for all life on
Earth Earth remember is a giant Rocky
wet blob floating in space all of the
water that we have ever had and ever
will have is already here cycling
endlessly around our planet when rain
falls it goes into rivers and lakes but
it also seeps into sediments and cracks
forming these vast underground aquifers
out at sea water evaporates becom in
clouds that drift back over land to fall
again becoming a new store of fresh
water this cycle has been happily stable
for thousands of years but now 8 billion
humans are interfering Ing we are
sucking up water from the rivers we are
damning them blocking off the supply
Downstream and we have extracted so much
water now from deep underground that
we've managed to shift the Earth's
rotational axis by about 80 cm and on
top of all of that is climate change we
have got more intense rains more erratic
weather patterns and prolonged spells of
drought the amount of water on Earth
that hasn't changed but where the water
is and when and how it moves is becoming
more and more
unpredictable the people here were never
strangers to Drought but now it is a
constant unrelenting
concern Joel and June work for practical
action an International Development
Group that is responding to the CRI Cris
in the region we identify areas with
serious challenges in terms of access to
water access to food we chose this place
because of the problems that the
community was
experiencing here the men practice
pastoralism a tradition of roaming
across grasslands raising livestock to
keep their families fed but this is a
way of life reliant on rain for pasture
to grow and that has left these people a
among the first victims of the effects
of climate change can you remember what
it was like when he was a boy how have
the rains changed since
then the pressure on the posture
does that ever result in
conflict is he angry about this about
how things have
changed the
[Music]
there are now routinely violent clashes
over livestock water points and pasture
hundreds lose their lives each year
here the strain is not only felt by the
men responsible for hurting the
livestock but also by the women and
girls of the
community water is a function that is uh
culturally left for the women they used
to go to the river which is more than 10
km from this
place when the rivers run dry women and
girls have to dig what's called a scoop
hole to extract the water Satur ated in
the river
bed how deep are we talking 10 m yes
where you're having a three people from
one person to the other handing over the
buckets of water you take from me you
take from me up to the service wow yes
most of the time it collaps in on them
collapses in is it only sand yes we have
heard incidences where the scopal do
collapse and we have fatalities as a
result
around here getting hold of water means
accepting these Unthinkable
risks something practical action have
been trying to change these storage
tanks are full of water drawn up from
deep underground aquifers using solar
power it's enough of a supply of water
to mean it can be used to grow crops in
the rich soil laying down roots in the
most literal sense means that these
women are no longer no mic water
carriers they are farmers and these
allotments have become the center of an
astonishing shift in this community's
[Music]
livelihood Susan is one of these women
who grows and tends to her crops in the
allotments the harvest gives enough to
feed the community with leftover produce
the farmers can sell earning money to
pay for school for their daughters and
your children could they go to school
[Music]
before and how about for you how has
your life Chang
they used to face malnutrition problems
a lot it's women so her life has changed
greatly if you can see from how she's
looking because that's how she has said
it she's
glowing I mean there is quite a lot of
work now for for the women though right
I mean if you're taking care of the
water but now also the food has it
changed the power Dynamic slightly
between the women and the men
here the people who live here their
lifestyle is having to change it's
having to adapt to the changing climate
but I think there's something amazingly
positive about what can happen when you
give a community
access to a sustainable supply of
water I think the only question mark
that I'm left with is how
longterm this solution can be I mean the
B hole could run dry the the solar
panels could break there could be all
kinds of things that happen that are
totally outside of anybody's
control and I do wonder what happens to
people who live in places like
this in that kind of a future
today over two billion people live with
some degree of water scarcity and this
could cause 700 million people to be
forced from their homes by
2030 but in the Region's most affected
access to water is now more than a
humanitarian
issue it's a threat to National Security
[Music]
darnish massud alivi is a peace and
security technologist interested in how
water deprivation is impacting different
regions water is this resource that we
all need of course and it's the kind of
thing that can easily become a source of
contestation it can be used as leverage
it can be the very cause the root cause
of conflict so in the context for
example of The Tigress Euphrates Basin
turkey is damning the river Upstream but
that's having Downstream consequences in
a place like Iraq where now with the
absence of water you're having
significant social unrest because
temperatures are rising quickly and the
water flow is not the same in a way then
I mean I think that the idea of say oil
being a source of conflict I think that
that makes sense to a lot of people but
the way you're describing it is that
that water is this
absolutely critical pinch Point almost
nothing Works without water nothing at
all to predict where water scarcity
could lead to conflict darnes is using
data collected from
space NASA's Grace Mission has two
sister satellites which orbit the earth
precisely tracking their distance to one
another but this distance is affected by
gravity so as water saturates the ground
the density and hence gravitational pull
changes causing the satellites to move
closer together or further
apart tracking this over time means that
scientists can construct maps of where
water is moving around the planet so if
we look at Iraq here this is how things
looked in
2007 now when we look at it 9 years
later in
2016 it's a sea of red we're able to
look at how quickly water is being
depleted in a particular country and we
take all that information that's freely
available to us as raw data and compare
it to all kinds of other information so
for example one of the things we're
interested in is social unrest and in
particular how social unrest correlates
with how quickly water is being
diminished and what do you find we find
that there is a correlation in many
instances in a situation that's already
stressed already difficult you add in
issues around water and it makes things
worse danes's aim is to provide
governments and authorities with data to
better equip them for where conflict may
arise in the future so when you're able
to have these kind of empirical ways of
measuring how much water is there you
can have a conversation that's grounded
in a set of facts different countries
have different ideas around how they
want to use water and it becomes a
sovereign matter understandably a
sovereign matter on a resource that's
not not I mean who owns it exactly and
we're going to see more and more of
these challenges as climate change
begins to affect us more when you look
at the Amazon rainforest 20% of the
evaporant from the Amazon rainforest
falls on us agricultural land whose is
it right the food security of the United
States is directly tied to the Amazon
rainforest if someone comes along and
says well I'm going to chop down all the
trees that has a direct consequence on
us food security the level of water
stress is only increasing and the need
for sharing resources is becoming more
and more
[Music]
acute when you're using water as we all
are without necessarily seeing the much
bigger
picture I think it's quite easy to
forget this view that Danes offering
there right this very Stark image of us
from space with this limited and finite
resource that will move around whether
we want it to or
not it isn't just water scarce conflict
zones that are suffering even here in
London a City built on a river trying to
control this wild natural resource is
becoming a problem Dr Anna Mi is an
expert in water infrastructure
systems if I turn on a tap in London
where does that water actually come from
around 80% of the water in London is
coming from the river temps and then we
have around 20% of water coming from the
subsurface so from the groundwater
resources London's water system is fed
by rainfall groundwater and rivers that
Supply a network of
reservoirs from here water is sent to
treatment plants before being pumped
into the Taps across the
city the sewage is then treated and made
safe before being discharged back into
the environment the entire cycle relies
on rainfall to replenish the supply so
that London can continue to
operate but this is a system that was
originally built for a very different
time the reservoir is date from the
beginning of 20th century the SE system
has been built
yeah exactly 1860s and we are now
dealing with different weather patterns
which bring different amount of water a
different times and bigger extremes and
bigger extremes with very different city
I mean if we look around us you I mean
just see how many construction sites are
around
us one of the biggest dangers is flash
flooding the Aging infrastructure cannot
cope with the more extreme rainfall
that's feeding into the already
overburdened sewage
system and while too much water is a big
problem for the city now not having
enough is a growing danger for the
future I guess we're quite lucky in
London that it rains all the
time well it rains but it's actually
relatively dry part of the UK southeast
of England you know London are at a
quite high risk of of
droughts surprisingly Southeast England
has a lower average rainfall than Perth
and South sedan combining those twin
issues of growing demand and longer
periods without rain mean that even here
in 25 years the reservoir is risk
running dry one thing that really struck
me about what Anna was saying is that
drought and flooding are two sides of
the same coin it's essentially the same
problem that you're dealing with the
stresses that this water system is under
and the way that that's only going to
get worse I I can't help but wonder
whether that would be much higher on the
political agenda if it was the other
side of the coin that we were worrying
about if we were concerned that one day
you would turn on the tap at home and
there wouldn't be any water there at
all day
Zero the day the Taps run
[Music]
dry Mexico City bangaluru and Cape Town
have all been pushed to the brink as the
city's reservoirs and Wells fell to
critical levels forcing emergency action
to be taken to save
lives but it was over 60 years ago that
Singapore fell victim to day zero its
residents no longer had access to a
single drop of clean water and ever
since securing the country's water has
been a national priority
[Music]
where do you rank in the world in terms
of how water stressed you are we as dry
at the Middle
East Harry Seer is an engineer for
Singapore's National Water Agency and
has been solving the country's water
problem for nearly three
decades Tropics you're blessed with a
lot of rain right and and surrounded by
water yeah I just R plenty of water it
rains every few days and you should be
ample water the issue in Singapore
because we are so small is a land
constraint issue we don't have luxury
like countries like UK or us where we
can afford to have huge lakes and
reservoirs you know ours is a tiny
place this lack of space LED Singapore
to develop new water a project Harry has
been working on since its
Inception every draw water is precious
to us we we collect every drop water
after it's been used clean it and return
back into the
system like London Singapore gets some
of its drinking water from reservoirs
and sewage is collected treated and
released back into the environment but
here treated Wastewater is also pumped
to new water factories where it is
purified and then sent back to feed
water hungry Industries and top up
reservoirs creating an artificial M
cycle this is high level
magic go then tell me the high level
magic okay a magician doesn't usually
reveal his Secrets but okay fine so this
is the first stage micro filtration just
imagine a filter the water molecules can
pass through but the larger contaminants
cannot does bacteria get caught at this
stage yes yeah bacteria gets caught in
the
stage microfil ation is the first step
of the three-stage purifying process the
Second Step reverse osmosis forces water
molecules through tiny pores in a
membrane filtering out larger
contaminants and finally a blast of UV
radiation kills any remaining microbes
that might have squeezed through and
it's ready to
drink I think I sort of imagine that
you'd be like chemically treating it
you'd be like adding stuff to the water
but you're really just doing fancy siing
that summarizes it perfectly
yeah fancy filtration yeah and you're
left presumably with water that doesn't
taste like sewage in the end spot on
well there's only one thing left to do
how long ago was this sewage 24 hours
ago this was probably still in the
sewage oh that tastes like water it is
just water that is
amazing currently the National Water
Agency say that reclaimed new water
supplies Singapore with about 40% of its
water needs and they hope to provide
over half of it by
2060 in the decades since Singapore hit
day Zero it has learned the importance
of
self-sufficiency they're no longer
beholden to the unpredictable movement
of
water I have to be honest with you I was
a little bit screamish before coming
here but but it's very persuasive how
quickly did people get on board if in
the UK suddenly the government says by
the way we're going to put sewage water
back into the TXS what happened there I
think in the element of trust although
it's high is something that's easy to
lose one mistake overnight is yeah that
does really strike me as something that
you've sort of cracked though that
people here do see the value of water
the principle is that water is not only
for drinking is for for life right if
you valued water then things will change
your philosophy your thinking your
approach all will
change the future of the world's water
supply is
uncertain we will continue to be faced
with too little too much and battles
over who owns it technology can help us
to find it and hold on to
it but the most powerful change we can
make in our relationship with water
might just be the way we think about
it I think for a lot of people saving
water feels like a bit of a wishy-washy
environmental concern you know like not
using plastic
straws and I don't think we've realized
certainly not in the way that Singapore
has that water is this issue of National
Security concern and here they have to
go right to Rock Bottom before they
Chang their ideas about the value of
water as a resource and and now the only
thing I'm hoping for is that the the
rest of the world learns that lesson
before we get that far
[Music]
[Music]
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