What is water worth? There is no easy answer to this deceptively simple question. On the one hand, water is infinitely valuable – without it, life would not exist. On the other, water is taken for granted – it is wasted every single moment of the day and night.
According to economic theory, the value of a good is determined by scarcity – the gap between limited resources and unlimited needs. Humans certainly use water as if it was limitless: an estimated 80% of all industrial and municipal wastewater, for example, is released into the environment without prior treatment.
But fresh water is in fact disappearing from the face of the earth in its purest form. Over 2 billion people already live in areas subject to water stress. Some 3.4 billion people, 45% of the global population, lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities. According to independent assessments, the world will face a global water deficit of 40% by 2030. This situation will be worsened by global challenges such as COVID-19 and climate change.
More importantly, economic theory is not the only way of determining worth. Cultural values are equally, if not more, significant. This is the case in New Zealand, where the Te Awa Tupua Act, passed in 2017, recognizes the Whanganui River as “an indivisible and living whole from the mountains to the sea”. The Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, in India, are also considered living entities with the same rights as human beings. For these groups, bodies of water are like loved ones, and therefore priceless.
How, then, should we value water? The 2021 World Water Development Report focuses on this crucial issue. It assesses the ways water in which is valued across different sectors and identifies how this process can be improved, with a view to better evaluating what water is worth to our societies. It is time each one of us organizations, corporations and individuals need to contribute and take a step towards attaining some if not all of the Sustainable Development Goals layed out by the UN.
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