Keep Taps Flowing In A Thirstier & Hotter World

Keep Taps Flowing In A Thirstier & Hotter World – SIWW Spotlight 2023 took place earlier this month and we were happy to be a part of it as events like this help keep taps flowing as the world gets thirstier and hotter – average global temperatures at the start of June were the warmest ever on record.

So, this month we bring you the juiciest snippets on the future of water from our in-person conversations in Singapore including one-on-one interviews with global leaders including the Water Ambassador for the South Australian government, close to home Hong Kong’s WSD Director and the Executive Director for water at NEOM. Plus, check out our key takeaways to see how this Spotlight was different and what the hot topics were.

Climate change and its reverberating impact on all of us through water was even more of a focus than at SIWW 2022 (see our newsletter on that here). As clearly put by Karlene Maywald, South Australian Water Ambassador at the South Australian Government, “water change is climate change”.

Maywald oversaw the Millennium Drought as South Australia’s Minister for Water Security and the River Murray, which she said taught her an awful lot. See what she has to say in our interview including why even with good data spanning over 100 years, they weren’t ready for the Millennium drought, which was worse than any modelled worst-case scenario.

Hearing this, we couldn’t help but wonder how secure is Hong Kong’s future freshwater supply? Fortunately, we were able to do an extended interview with Tony Yau, Director of the Water Supplies Department to talk about this and much more.

Does a drought along the Dongjiang River like the one in late 2021 mean Hong Kong will need to ration water in the future like others did? What is the WSD doing to build resilience? According to Yau there’s a lot, so get on top of it all, including the new Tseung Kwan O desalination plant.

The majority of utilities and cities have to update or retrofit to mitigate and adapt but what if we started from scratch today? What would that look like? Well, NEOM is doing just that – not often do we get to build futureproof systems from the start that are ready for climate risks ahead.

NEOM is a new region in the Northwest of Saudi Arabia that is being developed with a focus on liveability. We chat with the Executive Director for Water at NEOM, Gavin Van Tonder, about what global models they’ve used, the challenges of building with 100-to-200-year timelines in mind, sea level rise and more.

SIWW Spotlight 2023 was a highly-engaging three days, from the inaugural Utilities CEO Roundtable to the plenary sessions, networking and partner events, such as Imagine H2O Asia: Startup Demo Day and technical site visits. Hotly discussed topics included climate resilient and net zero utilities; see what else made the list in our key takeaways.

The Summit this year also comprised of two plenary sessions that started with the presentation of three case studies. All the cases had major learning points, both positive and negative. It was refreshing to hear honest presentations.

With the recent disappointing preparatory talks in Bonn for COP28, CO2 reaching record breaking levels, and temperatures breaking multiple records too – more than 45˚C in India and Shanghai had it’s hottest May day in 100 years – it’s getting harder to keep taps flowing in a thirstier and hotter world but we must. Water must be at the top of the climate agenda.