Water Strategies
National governments and major corporations have been paying increasing attention to their water supply and use and, in doing so several have developed and are now implementing major water strategies. Led by the likes of Australia and Singapore, which have established water stress challenges, now more countries are rapidly developing their own water strategies.
Water strategies address all aspects of the water cycle from resource development to demand management. Reuse of water, the collection and treatment of rainwater and alternative sources of freshwater have all been included as key components of government water strategies:
- Singapore has a unique political driver to ensure that its water dependency on neighbouring Malaysia is reduced. The Singapore Public Utilities Board is focused on four tasks – increasing water available from the local catchment area, reclaiming and treating wastewater so that it can be reused by industry, managing the import of water and building new desalination plants.
- In Australia, drought, rising populations and increasing urbanisation are major drivers for the water industry. The National Water Initiative is one of several activities being driven by the government’s National Water Commission. Other programmes include the Australian Government Water Fund and Raising National Water Standards.
- The UK water strategy, recently launched by DEFRA, will affect everyone in the country either directly or indirectly. It will influence policy on how water is supplied, consumed and utilised and addresses direct water use as well as activities that impact the quality of water in the environment.
As more nations develop their water strategies, so do companies: Across industry from food to energy, FMCG to transportation leading organisations such as Nestle, BP, Unilever and Toyota are all planning for a changing future business water landscape.
Singapore: http://app.mewr.gov.sg/web/Contents/Contents.aspx?ContId=960
Australia: http://www.nwc.gov.au/www/html/7-home-page.asp
UK: http://www.defra.gov.uk/Environment/water/strategy/
Corporate Ambitions: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24c3fc26-cdd0-11dc-9e4e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 |
