Dry Take
by Sonam VelaniI don’t know about you, but my #climatetwitter feed has been dominated this week with some grim photos: The Chongqing River in China, The Loire River in France, The Colorado River in the US, and the list goes on. The before and after images are striking.
In the city of Chongqing, China, the water level dropped to reveal previously submerged Buddhist statues thought to be about 600 years old.
Here at home, 21 counties across New York are on a drought watch by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation - unfortunately this fate will likely become the norm as the world heats up. Public water utilities are conserving water supplies and urging people to reduce water use for everything from morning showers to industrial processes.
Across New York State, over 9 billion gallons of water are withdrawn EVERY DAY from the lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries, and groundwaters, primarily in upstate New York (fun fact: NYC’s water comes from a giant network of 19 reservoirs and 3 controlled lakes as far away as the Catskills). We use this water for all sorts of things: thermoelectric power generation, agriculture, industrial factories, aquaculture, drinking water, and even to keep the greens on the golf courses, well, green.
Total water usage in New York State by category. Chart from NY Department of Environmental Conservation.
The fact of the matter is that most of us take water for granted; the reality on the ground proves otherwise. We must grapple with the consequences of climate change and shift our consumption patterns - thereby reducing the use of this precious resource. Lower water use is beneficial for all - from reducing our energy footprint to our greenhouse gas emissions, and keeping our water bills affordable in an increasingly unaffordable city.
So, what can you do? On an individual level: Take shorter showers (a 10 minute shower uses about 9 gallons of water), buy fewer things (1800 gallons of water goes into the production of a single pair of jeans), and do full loads of laundry in an energy efficient washer (EPA certified washers can save you up to 7,000 gallons of water every year. Want to learn more interesting water facts to drop at the next cocktail party, check out a full list from ThinkH2O here!
The good news is that there are several new climate tech solutions hitting the market to help us manage our water resources. Cambrian Innovation from Boston uses bioelectric processes to treat wastewater and simultaneously generate biogas energy, and each reactor can handle about 20,000 gallons daily. TaKaDu from Yehud, Israel offers monitoring and analytics as a cloud service, and has prevented 1 billion liters of water loss across the Unitywater utility system in Australia. Desalination pioneer WaterFX from San Francisco uses solar panels to remove the salt from drainage water from farms in California’s Central Valley, producing 8 gallons per minute of pure water from the saline discharge.
WaterFX has debuted its Aqua4 Concentrated Solar Still, which can produce 65,000 gallons of freshwater a day just by using solar energy.
Our friends at Imagine H2O are on the case! The organization runs annual competitions to support early stage companies applying new technologies to the water problem - everything from precision agriculture to wastewater processing. So far, more than 250 startups have participated!
Over 1.8 billion people live in regions that face absolute water scarcity - and unfortunately this number will continue to grow. There’s significant room for new climate tech companies to provide solutions across the board to better manage this resource. Reach out to us and share your ideas – we’ll include them in upcoming newsletters. Every drop counts!
by Sonam Velani