Water

• [New] After the next leasing round for offshore wind licence areas, there could be up to 10 GW in Scottish waters in the coming years.
• [New] Leaders must adopt and implement a target to fully and highly protect at least 30% of the global ocean and 30% of land areas and inland waters by 2030 through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative, and well-connected systems of protected areas.
• [New] A hundred cities worldwide, including 30 in India, face the risk of 'severe water scarcity' by 2050.
• [New] Sixty percent of the global population will live in cities by 2030, with 90% of urban growth in the coming decades likely to occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• [New] Two ambitious water goals are to provide safely managed drinking water to 300 million people in need and save 50 billion cubic meters of consumable freshwater by 2030, which is why a lot of innovation is going on.
• 3.5 billion people may face water stress by 2025; already today temporary water stress has dramatically increased in Europe due to climate change and increasing demand.
• Five missions shape the incoming Horizon Europe framework, which will begin in 2021: Carbon Neutral and Smart Cities, Soil Health and Food, Protection of Oceans and Inland Waters, Adaptation to Climate Change - and the Fight Against Cancer.
• The number of water AMI endpoints in North America will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.5% to reach 70.1 million units in 2025.
• The total number of communicating utility water meters - including both AMI and AMR - will at the same time grow from 132.4 million units in 2019 to 204.6 million units in 2025.
• Today, more than 600 million people lack access to safe drinking water and estimates show that with current practices, the world will face a 40% shortfall between forecast demand and available supply of water by 2030.
• The WWF's Risk Filter analysis has said 100 cities that hold importance in national as well as global economies and are home to 350 million people are set to face the greatest rise in water risks by 2050 unless urgent action is taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
• Most of Chennai's more than four million-strong population is now relying solely on government tankers to provide their water: Others are paying large sums of money for private companies to supply water to their homes: Even then, it can take up to four days for the tanker to arrive.
• In addition to the impact on households, American businesses most reliant on water will spend $250 billion in 2039 on water service disruptions.
• The effects of climate change throughout New Zealand in the next four to five decades could have severe effects on necessities such as water supply and primary industries.
• The $90 trillion infrastructure investment required by 2030, for a high-carbon economy, across transport, energy, water systems and cities, would only need to be marginally increased by an estimated $270 billion per year for a low-carbon scenario.
• By 2030, 600 million Indians will not have access to sufficient water, a direct result of climate change.
• Depending on the fuel source, fuel cells could play a key role in decarbonizing the world economy over the coming decades.
• We will use zero water for cooling for more than half the year, leveraging a method called adiabatic cooling, which uses outside air instead of water for cooling when temperatures are below 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Based on recent studies, projected changes to storm tide climatology in New York City will contribute a relatively minimal (below 10% relative) impact on changing extreme water levels compared with SLR by the end of the 21st century.
• Globally over the past 50 years, some 11,000 disasters, attributed to weather, climate and water-related hazards, claimed over 2 million lives and cost the world economy $3.6 trillion.
• Again in 2020, extended drought - 20-plus years - is making water scarce and threatening the Colorado River Compact, a 1922 agreement defining how Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada will share the Colorado River water.

Last updated: 22 November 2020