A new study that looks at the water competition between cities and agriculture has found that urban water demand in 482 of the world’s largest cities will increase by 80% by 2050, leading to an acute urban surface-water deficit.
READ Land: SA’s real watershed moment Recent studies have estimated that between 3,5 billion and 4,4 billion people are expected to live with water scarcity in 2050 because of climate change and increasing water demand for human activities.
More than one billion urban residents may face water shortage in the future due to urbanisation and climate change.
Urban-rural comparison A new study, ‘Water competition between cities and agriculture driven by climate change and urban growth’, has assessed urban water provision amid climate change impacts and socioeconomic changes by 2050.
The study also provides estimates of the urban surface-water deficit, highlighting the competition between urban water provision, agricultural water demand and environmental flow requirements.
The study quantifies the urban surface-water deficit as well as additional withdrawals from groundwater resources (urban groundwater footprint) in the future by testing two scenarios.
Globally, under the urban-first priority scenario, about 14 000km2 of irrigated area will be at risk of crop-water deficit in transfer of water, showing that urban surface-water withdrawals decrease water security for people who live far from the city centre.
Reducing urban water deficit Altogether, 40% of the cities (409 million people) are vulnerable to urban surface-water deficits under the last-priority scenario because of competition with water abstractions for irrigation.
Urban water demand could be met in these basins by improving water-use efficiency of the agricultural sector as a soft-path measure to reduce irrigation-water withdrawals.
A moderate increase of 10% in irrigation water-use efficiency (0,3%/year over a 50-year period), could reduce the urban surface-water deficit by about 2,62 billion cubic metres and therefore help 78% of the vulnerable cities and their 236 million urbanites to overcome water deficits in the future.

As water supplies become scarce in certain regions as a result of a changing climate and increased demand from a growing population, the role companies play to help ensure sustainable water supplies is growing.
In California, as many as 1 million people do not have access to safe drinking water from their faucets.
Most of these individuals live in areas served by small water districts.
Jerry Brown and supported by many in the agriculture, environmental and business communities that would help struggling water districts afford water treatment costs.
The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund being considered in legislation (Senate Bill 623), as well as in the governor’s budget as an alternative legislative path, would attach a nominal fee of less than the cost of a pack of chewing gum each month to household water bills and slightly more to business facilities like ours to help assure safe and affordable drinking water is available to everyone in California.
Growers in our supply chains, employees and customers may very well reside in the communities facing clean water shortages.
So, one of our water goals is to help ensure availability of clean, safe drinking water.
We know that our companies too can make an impact by taking action within our supply chains and operations.
This policy proposal on safe drinking water is a clear example of doing so.
We urge legislators to advance the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund act that would help make clean water a reality for all who reside in this great state.

The government plans to implement a water storage programme to increase the number of Kenyans connected to safe piped water by nine million by 2022.
The countrywide programme, unveiled by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday, is expected to increase the proportion of households with access to safe drinking water from 60 to 80 per cent in the next five years.
The programme will have a special special focus on informal settlements and arid areas, said the President.
He spoke at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) Nairobi, where he launched the Ministry of Water and Sanitation’s Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) cycle 2018.
The president said provision of water to Kenyans was an underlying enabler for the attainment of his administration’s Big Four development agenda “which is the future I see.” Besides the water reservoirs, Mr Kenyatta announced that the Kenya Towns Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Programme — supported by the African Development Bank — will soon be launched in 22 urban centres across 28 counties.
Strategic plan The president said under the water strategic plan, construction of Itare and Siyoi Muruny dams in Nakuru and West Pokot counties have started.
Others like Thwake (Kitui) and Thiba (Kirinyaga) dams are in their final stages of stakeholder engagement.
Later in the year, said Mr Kenyatta Mwache dam (Kilifi)-with a supply capacity of 186,000 cubic metres of water per day – will be launched to address shortages in Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties.
Additionally, plans to implement the Mzima 11 (two) pipeline are at an advanced stage to supply 105,000 cubic metres of water per day to Taita Taveta and other coastal regions, said President Kenyatta.
Other dams to be launched soon under the new strategic program are Bosto (Bomet), Bonyunyu (on Kisii and Nyamira borders) and Karemenu 11 in Kiambu.

Today, more than 3.5 million small businesses in the state of California – more than in any other state in the nation – account for 98 percent of all businesses.
That means, more than 6.5 million Californians and their families depend on a small business for their financial wellbeing.
The average small business in California has 5.8 employees, all of whom often wear many hats during the day to make ends meet – including sales, operations, human resources, finances, legal and more.
The list is endless.
Small businesses have fewer resources or employees to make our voices heard and less ability than larger companies to adapt to new fees, taxes and regulations.
As small business owners, when a problem arises, we can’t simply fix it by raising our prices.
A case in point: While a vast majority of Californians have access to safe drinking water, a Brown Administration budget trailer bill proposes to create a new tax on drinking water in order to increase water security in primarily rural, disadvantaged communities currently lacking safe water.
UCAN recently joined with more than 150 other businesses, chambers of commerce and water agencies to instead look to existing funding sources to address this dire need.
This same principal can certainly be applied in Sacramento.
Yes, every Californian absolutely deserves access to safe drinking water and with a little ingenuity and resourcefulness it can be done within our means and utilizing existing funding sources –not by implementing a water tax.

Dakine has partnered with the Rob Machado Foundation, Mizu Bottles and Reef to bring clean drinking water to public schools.
The group kicked off the initiative with a recent event at Haiku Elementry School in Maui, HI, focused on keeping single-use plastic out of watersheds while giving children access to purified water.
Albee Layer and Paige Alms, both surfers on the Dakine team and Haiku School alumni, helped distribute reusable bottles to use in the recent installation of purified water stations—funded by Dakine, Reef and Skyline Eco Adventures—throughout the school.
Staff from Dakine, RMF and Mizu, along with fellow pro surfers Kai Lenny, Tai Simpson-Kane and Jesse Richmond, spent the afternoon providing awareness and education on the importance of drinking clean water, as well as the risks of contamination to water sources caused by single-use waste from plastic cups and bottles.
Partnering with RMF and Mizu is the first of many environmentally focused initiatives for Dakine in 2018.
Since joining the brand in July 2016, Dakine CEO Ken Meidell has initiated a companywide movement to support efforts regarding mitigating the effects of climate change, better public land recreation policy within the U.S. and supporting clean water, healthy ocean and coastlines and accessible beaches for all.
Meidell was recently appointed to the board of directors of The Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves and beaches, as well as Public Land Solutions, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing comprehensive recreation planning and stakeholder coordination to support effective and sustainable public land solutions.
For more information on Dakine’s sustainability efforts, please visit dakine.com/en-us/respect/.
Photo courtesy Dakine

A little over $1 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will go to supply water to residents in the area of Roberts Road in the town of Dunkirk.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed announced that the town received $1.3 million in funding as part of the North County Water District project, specifically for the Roberts Road Service area No.
1 district.
It’ll connect to the existing water main that serves the city of Dunkirk.
Work is underway to place approximately 12 miles of water main from the western town line of Portland to the village of Silver Creek.
The project also includes two new water storage tanks and a pump station to Brocton.
The project is anticipated to be complete this summer.
County Executive George Borrello said he appreciates the congressman’s continued efforts to advocate for funding for critical projects like the North County Water District.
“The district is supplying critical water infrastructure that is not only key to supporting future development, but also ensures that all north county communities have safe, reliable drinking water into the future.” Dunkirk Town Supervisor Richard Purol said he’s looking forward to completing the district now that funding’s secured to supply water to Roberts Road.
“It’s been three years working on it,” he said.

Tuesday, selected reporters were blocked and an Associated Press reporter was forcibly removed when they tried to cover the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Leadership Summit on Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances(PFAS) — a critical drinking water issue.
But less attention has been paid to the public health threat underlying these stories.
As with many Pruitt scandals, there are real world consequences for American families.
From Hoosick Falls, New York; to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina; to Kent County, Michigan; to Meridian, Mississippi; to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, local communities and states are struggling with how to handle drinking water contaminated with PFAS — a class of chemicals for which they have insufficient information and guidance from the federal government.
Despite the troubling actions by Pruitt and his appointees, EPA career staff, state leaders, and other participants were able to hold important, substantive discussions.
PFASs are a class of chemicals widely used in consumer products, industrial and manufacturing processes, and firefighting foams — and testing has indicated widespread exposure in humans.
Most of the health research has focused on two varieties, the compounds PFOA and PFOS.
In 2016, EPA issued a drinking water health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for these two chemicals because studies demonstrated that exposure to them may result in a number of adverse health effects, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, cancer, immune effects and thyroid effects.
This week, the Environmental Defense Fund released environmental assessments of three PFAS substances that we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Food and Drug Administration.
Administrator Pruitt’s heavy-handed tactics at the PFAS summit were, sadly, indicative of his approach to assessing the safety of chemicals.

That’s the longest it would take to detect a leak and shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) should the crude oil within begin escaping into the North Dakota prairie or the Missouri River.
In more than 300 pages, the document details many issues that the government never fully investigated when conducting its environmental review in 2016.
"You have a possibility of a huge leak that goes on over time," said Archambault.
He tells me over the phone that he’s currently gazing out over a frozen Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River where the Standing Rock Sioux get their drinking water.
The Standing Rock Sioux and three other tribes continue to fight ETP in court.
Before approving the project, the Army Corps didn’t exactly identify what’s at stake if DAPL ruptures—something the pipeline has already done at least five times since its oil started flowing last June.
DAPL crosses beneath Lake Oahe just north of the Standing Rock Sioux tribal lands.
Last June, after the Standing Rock Sioux and three other tribes took ETP to court, Judge James Boasberg mandated that the Army Corps revise its environmental assessment to "more adequately consider" the effect an oil spill would have on the Standing Rock Sioux’s hunting and fishing rights, as well as issues regarding environmental justice.
The Army Corps will now meet with all four tribes before June 1 and then complete a new environmental review.
Archambault, for one, hopes the tribe’s own report will help push the company to better protect the Standing Rock Sioux’s land and people from disaster, one way or another.

Environmental Health & Engineering Director Billy Hix said in Delaware County the program is working on a waterline extension for Rural Water Dist.
11, constructing a water treatment plan in the southern part of the county and working on a water loss project near Kenwood.
Southern Delaware County Regional WTP Hix said this project is in the Flint Ridge community and consists of a new 2 million gallon per day water treatment plant, two water storage tanks, three pump stations and 3.6 miles of 12-inch waterline.
He said the plant and other infrastructure would provide water to Flint Ridge, West Siloam Springs, Colcord, Kansas and the county’s RWD 11, serving approximately 2,500 homes with about 1,100 being Cherokee households.
“All of the communities served by this project had various issues with water quality or quantity.
We worked with them to prepare a feasibility study to see if a regional water treatment plant to serve them would work,” Hix said.
When completed the authority will provide water to the communities.
“The Kenwood Water District had problems with high amounts of water loss.
Muskogee County RWD 7 waterline extension Hix said about 2 miles east of Fort Gibson and 1.5 north of Two Mile Road homes had issues with water quality and quantity that existing wells produced, so approximately 4,300 linear feet of waterline and a booster pump station are being added.
The project is receiving $93,500 from IHS and $13,500 from CN and is expected to be done in July after about four months of construction.

More than 70 per cent of Aussies have access to fluoride in their drinking water and in New South Wales that percentage almost rises to 100.
But a few councils in New South Wales have repeatedly voted against putting fluoride in their water — one of which is Oberon, a town of less than 3000 people.
At a recent council meeting, the residents of the central NSW town passionately debated about putting the mineral in the water supply.
In 2013, both Byron Shire Council and Lismore City Council on the north coast of NSW decided to not fluoridate its water.
The dental health of kids on the north coast of NSW has now become one of the worst in the state, according to dentists working in the area.
Representatives from the Australian Dental Association attended the meeting, giving the dozens of locals concrete evidence about how fluoride actively prevents tooth decay.
Australians born after 1970, when the majority of water fluoridation programs started, have half the level of tooth decay.
Source:Supplied The previous petition with 672 signatures against adding it to the water — more than a fifth of the town — indicates the strong sentiment.
That is a comparison we can make weekly in Bathurst and Oberon,” Ms James, a NSW Health worker, told the publication.
Most other states have been adding it to their water supplies since the 1950s and 1960s.