ADB-sponsored summit seeks answers to Asia’s water needs

SOME 600 representatives from 53 countries gathered yesterday to discuss ways to address Asia’s water needs as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) kicked off an international conference in Manila.

“Asia’s water world has gone past its tipping point. The challenge now is to urgently halt, if not reverse, the decline in freshwater availability,” Arjun Thapan, ADB’s Special Senior Adviser for Infrastructure and Water, said in a statement.

The multilateral financial institution added that water stocks in many countries were now in a critical state due to growing populations, rapid urbanization and competing water demand from agriculture, energy, industries and urban areas.

“What makes matters worse is that the fragility of our water resources is occurring at a time of Asia’s most impressive economic performance. Paradoxically, it is occurring because of it,” Mr. Thapan said in welcome remarks.

He added that the Asian industrial sector’s “water footprint” had not declined despite advances in technology, and that high rates of industrial growth and rapid urbanization required more water in different ways.

“Around 80% of Asia’s water is used to irrigate crops but much of it is used inefficiently, while many of the region’s most water-stressed countries lose large volumes of treated water through leakage in urban water supply systems. It is estimated that the region loses as much as 29 billion cubic meters of treated water a year, conservatively valued at $9 billion,” the ADB noted.

It added that large investments in infrastructure would be needed, with at least $8 billion required to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal regarding safe drinking water and sanitation.

“The conference will examine how to design and implement better demand management solutions by minimizing the water draw, and recycling and reusing wastewater,” the ADB said.

It noted that the conference would look at new approaches for water use in irrigation “to improve productivity, measures needed to strengthen water governance, and pricing policies that can make the cost of supplying water fair and financially sustainable.”

“Asia needs to aggressively adopt measures that dramatically improve water use efficiencies and safeguard the region’s food and energy security,” Mr. Thapan said.

The ADB said that the draft of its Water Operational Framework for 2011-2020 would also be discussed in the conference, which will run till Friday. The framework is about “supporting increased efficiency of water use, enhanced application of science and innovation, promotion of wastewater management and reuse, and the development of a corporate outlook in delivering water services.” — Jo Javan A. Cerda, Businessworld