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Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth SeriesHarnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for WaterSeptember 2018World Economic Forum 2018 All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.About “The Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth” seriesThe “Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth” is a publication series highlighting opportunities to solve the worlds most pressing environmental challenges by harnessing technological innovations supported by new and effective approaches to governance, financing and multistakeholder collaboration.About the World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost business, political and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.World Economic Forum 91-93 route de la Capite CH-1223 Cologny/Geneva Switzerland3Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for WaterContents Preface The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the EarthPreface: The Fourth Industrial 3 Revolution and the Earth Foreword 4The Fourth Industrial Revolution and 5 the agenda for change Obtaining a complete, current and accessible picture of water supply and demandProviding access to and 6 ensuring the quality of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) servicesManaging growing demand 7Ensuring water quality 8Building resilience to climate changeTransforming business as usual in 11 water 21st-century water infrastructure systems and managementEnhancing operational excellenceThe shift towards 12 decentralized or off-grid systemsReal-time, interoperable water 13 dataEmpowered communities and consumers Redesigning supply chains 14Diversified sources of supplyRisks or challenges to manage 16FundingUtility sector digital technology innovation adoptionCybersecurity 17Open-access data and informationAccelerating innovation and 18 impact: Opportunities and recommendations Priority 1: Promoting the rise of an innovation environmentPriority 2: Shifting towards 19 agile multistakeholder governance modelsConclusion 20Annex I 21Acknowledgements 22Endnotes 23The majority of the worlds current environmental problems can be traced back to industrialization. Issues such as climate change, unsafe levels of air pollution, depletion of fishing stocks, toxins in rivers and soils, overflowing levels of waste on land and in oceans, and loss of biodiversity and deforestation are negative consequences of industrialization.As the Fourth Industrial Revolution gathers pace, innovations are becoming faster, more efficient and more widely accessible than before. Technology is becoming increasingly connected, and we are now seeing a convergence of the digital, physical and biological realms. Emerging technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling societal shifts by seismically impacting economies, values, identities and possibilities for future generations.We have a unique opportunity to harness this Fourth Industrial Revolution and the societal shifts it triggers to help address environmental issues and transform how we manage our shared global environment. The Fourth Industrial Revolution could, however, also exacerbate existing threats to environmental security or create entirely new risks that will need to be considered and managed.Harnessing these opportunities and proactively managing these risks will require a transformation of the “enabling environment”, namely the governance frameworks and policy protocols, investment and financing models, the prevailing incentives for technology development, and the nature of societal engagement. This transformation will not happen automatically. It will require proactive collaboration among policy-makers, scientists, civil society, technology champions and investors.If we get it right, it could create a sustainability revolution.This “Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth” series is designed to illustrate the potential of Fourth Industrial Revolution innovations and their application to the worlds most pressing environmental challenges. It offers insights into the emerging opportunities and risks, highlighting the roles various actors could play to ensure these technologies are harnessed and scaled effectively. It is not intended to be conclusive, but rather to stimulate a discussion among diverse stakeholders to provide a foundation for further collaborative work. This paper looks at the Fourth Industrial Revolution and water.4 Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for WaterForewordOver the course of history, scientific discoveries and technological advances have helped tackle the worlds most complex and daunting challenges, and enabled innovations that have enhanced our quality of life. Vaccinations now exist for diseases that previously eradicated entire populations. The worlds information and knowledge are now available to anyone with an internet connection. The invention of sanitation systems alone helped to extend our lifespan by 40 years.1Just as these discoveries helped open new chapters of possibility and opportunity, todays rapidly emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data and nanotechnology what the World Economic Forum has coined the Fourth Industrial Revolution are enabling similar transformations across systems such as healthcare mobility and education worldwide. A comparable opportunity exists today to open a new innovation chapter for the water sector, as the world struggles with the rapid and painful transition from believing that water was plentiful and free (or, at the very least, inexpensive) to facing the impacts of water scarcity, poor water quality and the variabilities of hydrologic events from climate change. Already, too many water crises have unfolded in cities, including: Flint, Michigan; Cape Town, South Africa; Bangalore, India; and So Paulo, Brazil. What the world is now experiencing can no longer be framed as “normal”. The past can no longer be used to predict seasonal weather events and precipitation. There is a pressing need for new public policies and business strategies as well as for innovations in technology, financing and partnerships to thrive in the 21st century. These developments will be possible only with better-quality and more accessible data, and the creation of more useful information. This is a role that technological advancements can play in supporting leaders from all sectors. Imagine the potential of harnessing the power of remote sensing to provide vastly improved predictions of droughts and flooding, real-time monitoring of water quantity and quality within watersheds, improved water-utility asset management, off-grid and localized solutions coupled with “frictionless” water-trading platforms. Digital technologies such as connected devices (IoT), predictive analytics and artificial intelligence are emerging as powerful tools in achieving sustainable, resilient and equitable access to water.Admittedly, Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies alone will not solve water-security challenges. They can support and help inform decision-makers from governments and other sectors only if these solutions are designed together with the engagement and commitment of diverse stakeholder groups incumbents, start-ups and entrants from other sectors. Through the World Economic Forums Global Water Initiative and its Water Security Rewired platform, these stakeholder groups are converging to explore the applications of Fourth Industrial Revolution solutions for the water sector, with aims of accelerating adoption, rapid expansion of competitive choices, new investment into innovation and potential leapfrogging to solve 21st-century water challenges.As a community, we have a tremendous opportunity, as well as a responsibility, to embrace the potential technology and innovation at our fingertips, and to create the right infrastructure, financing and policy mechanisms to not only prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, but to make the most of what is possible for our agenda today.We hope this Fourth Industrial Revolution insight paper on water will be another milestone on this continued journey.Dominic Waughray Head of the Centre for Global Public Goods, World Economic ForumUsha Rao-Monari Senior Adviser, Blackstone Group5Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for WaterThe Fourth Industrial Revolution and the agenda for change Water challenges are complex and interrelated, which is why water is often framed as a “wicked problem”. In general, this refers to “a complex problem for which there is no simple method or solution, there is no single answer and every attempt can matter, because it affects the things people depend upon. Wicked problems are often socially complex, and they have to deal with changing behaviours and outcomes that are unforeseen.”2For seven consecutive years, water issues have ranked among the top five global risk factors in the World Economic Forums annual Global Risks Report.3In 2018, of those global risks perceived to have both the highest likelihood to manifest and the highest impact on the world in the next decade, all but one can be linked to water. Over this period of time, while other risks have emerged and disappeared including the financial crisis and chronic diseases water has remained. While the challenges are well known, and progress has been made, it is sobering to see that finally solving the water challenge continues to elude us.“Business-as-usual” approaches will not be able to address the risks presented by water insecurity, nor will these approaches be enough to sustain the worlds water needs for much longer. However, technical advancements and new capabilities emerging from the Fourth Industrial Revolution could fundamentally disrupt the status quo and spark new ways of tackling the global water challenge. This section outlines five of the most pressing water-related challenges where new solutions are needed. Obtaining a complete, current and accessible picture of water supply and demandAt the heart of water resource management are decisions about how best to allocate a finite resource across multiple competing users with increasing demand. With a projected 40% gap by 2030 between global water supply and demand under business-as-usual practices (e.g. public policy and technology), competition for already scarce water resources will intensify, leading to difficult and painful allocation choices affecting the public sector, businesses, civil society and ecosystems.4Balancing these trade-offs requires an understanding of the quality of the water, how much water can be sustainably used, and an accurate picture of current and projected water demand from human as well as economic use (water used for agriculture, energy generation and industrial use). Unfortunately, issues of data access and quality prevent leaders at every level of society from comparing priorities for water, evaluating potential solutions and making informed decisions that balance economic, social and environmental interests. A related challenge is that where data does exist, it is often scattered across multiple government departments and stakeholders, and is also not readily compatible (or interoperable) with other data sources. From rural communities to multinational corporations to city planners and national governments, decision-makers struggle with the confines of isolated and fragmented information.The potential impact of technologyThe Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies have the potential to assemble more complete, current and accessible information on water supply and demand. Satellite imagery and other earth observation tools are delivering profound new insights on water supply in parts of the world where conventional ground-based methods to measure water supply are not feasible or practical. As an example, in 2021 the Surface Water Ocean Topography mission (SWOT) a joint satellite mission between NASA and France will use radar technology to provide the first global survey of Earths water and measure how bodies of water change over time. According to NASA, the satellite will survey at least 90% of the Earth, studying lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans roughly twice every 21 days.5Another effort, Digital Earth Africa, is working to employ emerging technologies such as cloud computing, advanced satellite imagery and advanced machine learning to deliver 6 Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for Watera unique continental-scale platform to democratize capacity to process and analyse satellite data. Advanced satellite monitoring technologies, such as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), are also helping to fill in data gaps relating to groundwater management. InSAR is a mapping technique that identifies earth surface deformations using radar imagery from orbiting satellites.6In contrast to conventional satellite imagery, which uses visible or infrared light to ascertain images during the day under a cloudless sky, InSAR radar technology can be applied regardless of weather conditions or time of day while providing insight within a centimetres precision of the elevation changes of the earths surface.7In cases where groundwater is being over-extracted or recharged, InSAR can observe the development, and potentially use artificial algorithms to fill in data gaps, thereby enabling water managers to understand the status of an aquifer better.8This degree of hydrological insight can provide an unprecedented understanding of groundwater usage, helping to address issues of neglect, over-extraction and assumptions about capacity. Virtual sensors are also being deployed to help improve our understanding of water usage, bringing improved efficiency and lower costs than traditional physical sensors. These virtual sensors employ artificial intelligence (AI) software that uses deductive reasoning to process information from various machines to determine what a physical sensor output would be. The results are transcribed in a real-time configuration that is understandable and accessible for water managers and stakeholders alike. Virtual sensors are particularly useful when physical sensors cannot withstand harsh environments, are too expensive, or if abnormalities persist in physical sensor readings. Providing access to and ensuring the quality of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services Currently, the statistics regarding access to WASH services are grim, with approximately 4 billion people living in water-scarce regions, and more than 2 billion people still living without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation services.9,10Water-borne dise
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