Climate change reached the water economy.
Supply the citizenry with immaculate drinking water at any place and at all times is considered the core of the local public utility services. In fact it is therefore a task for society as a whole.
Man-made climate change affects the entire German water economy, including GELSENWASSER AG, with concrete challenges. The necessary subsequent adjustments must follow now, in order to be effective in due time, as long as the problems have not yet escalated. Especially in areas with adverse conditions for water economy, infrastructure definitely needs to be developed. Neither is this lack of a fully developed water infrastructure a result of neglect by water suppliers or politics nor is it in contradiction to the principle of ‘local water supply’ grounded in the (German) Water Management Act. But rather does it complete the same and is simply owed to the fact that resources and topographic conditions are unevenly distributed. “Going on tour in the desert, one should bring a second bottle of water.” – Admittedly, an undue picture.
Public Utility infrastructure – Today’s projects
Some discussions lead to the impression that we look at a process of decades. This is not the case. In contrast to politically driven decarbonisation in other sectors, is this timeline not controllable – in long-lasting dry phases this summer and the forthcoming ones, the water supply needs to function at any time. Measures looking at the solution to this problem must be accelerated considerably, political attention and approval processes need to focus on this goal.
Drought periods and heavy rains: extreme weather increases
In the end strategies and institutes will be evaluated by the people by their concrete measures and noticeable improvements.
Climate change is measurable everywhere. In Germany a temperature increase between 1.5°C and 3.5°C until 2100 is expected. Precipitation in winter will increase while decreasing in summer. Summers will become hotter and drier, and weather extremes such as long-lasting drought periods and heavy rains will occur more often.
Ground humidity will drop at large.
Considering all experts’ opinions, the summers of 2019 and 2020 will by no means remain occasional. Flood events, such as in the summer of 2021, are increasingly more probable. The groundwater recharge rate decreased nationwide; the groundwater levels sunk drastically, at least in some regions, which was impressively proven several times in the summer of 2022 by the state agency for nature, environment, and consumer protection in North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV NRW).
At the same time the agricultural sector tends to irrigation and emerges more and more as competition for the remaining groundwater resources. Fountains cannot hold permitted water quantities in some regions due to sinking groundwater levels.
Reinforcement of infrastructure for security of supply
As a countermeasure, politics and the water sector discuss several instruments such as water rights expansion, new river dams, (elevated) reservoirs, waterworks, and the introduction of smart water rates. But in the end the reinforcement of water supply infrastructure on top of addition to the local supply is the only option, which will be able to provide the consumers with new resources with considerable amounts of water. Also, [the improperness to implement] water reuse, which must be rejected due to hygienic risks, rivalry in usage or prohibitions of usage due to fundamental encroachments into health protection, leaves no other option than specific expansions of water supply infrastructure as the only sustainable solution.
Such undertaking is not easy to implement. Politicians may fulfil their mandate to provide public services by accelerating approval procedures and precisely articulated acceptance for these projects. Also, apposite support measures can ensure the affordability of humanity’s most important resource – water.
It assures the confidence that both at the federal level and state level in the North Rhine-Westphalia water supply is mentioned. The national water strategy meanwhile will be tackled in the cabinet only in the end of the year – too late for the upcoming summers. Furthermore, a water institute on the state level also needs to be “brought on stream” before it can deliver. In the end strategies and institutes will be evaluated by the people by their concrete measures and noticeable improvements.
