Water makes us happy, let’s understand its true values!

An amount of around $US 15 trillion, about a trillion less than India’s and China’s GDP put together, is currently being spent globally in COVID-19 recovery. This figure is rising, and we are still unsure when we will recover completely from this pandemic. CovID is part of the larger climate crisis. As the economies struggle to recover from this unprecedented crisis to humanity, each penny spent on the recovery is essential and is an opportunity at our hands to align the investments to the Paris Climate Agreement goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is also an opportunity to mend our ways and approaches to development to not tamper with nature anymore. We all need to reorient ourselves so that we can love nature and cohesively co-exist with it. Current development models have made us grow at the cost of nature, and that is why these cannot be called sustainable models. While people like us have been asking for a change in the way we view the economy, the UN has recently recognised this thought process. A new UNEP report, ‘Making Peace with Nature’, says that the global economy has grown nearly fivefold over the last 50 years, primarily due to a tripling in the extraction of natural resources and energy that has fuelled growth in production and consumption. Realising the unsustainability of growth, the UN has just adapted a framework that includes nature’s contributions when measuring economic prosperity and human well-being. Adopted by the UN Statistical Commission, this new framework called the System of EnvironmentalEconomic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) marks a major step forward beyond the commonly used statistic of gross domestic product (GDP) that has dominated economic reporting since the end of World War II. It is stated that this measure would ensure that natural capital such as forests, wetlands and other ecosystems are recognised in economic reporting. The human race has already emerged as a

Ranjan K Panda

Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network

competitor of nature, and we do not know whether any such new thinking or reporting would help us from the doomsday we are heading to. However, these are undoubtedly new hopes and can be used to reorient the policymaking and reorganise our economies so that the chances for survival of other species in the short run grow and that our survival is better in the long run. Things are moving at a pace that we shall first destroy all other species before facing a mass extinction period ourselves. We have polluted our rivers, water bodies, oceans, and most places to a huge extent, but we have also been very slow in finding solutions to these problems created by us. We have made plastic pollution land in the Atlantic, deep inside the oceans. We have made our forests vulnerable to such an extent that their capability as a carbon sink has been going down drastically. The generation shift and a hope

The good thing about us is that we still have some species among us thinking to live in harmony with nature. We have been slow in finding solutions, but the hope is that we are trying. Another hopeful thing about this world is, it is getting younger in so far as the number of youth population we have now. If we can make these youths understand the value of nature in their lives and future, we can find opportunities for the civilisations to stay alive, happy and prosperous. Let us start with World Water Day that gives the right call to raise awareness of water’s true values.

Water has socio-cultural, ecological and economic values. Human bodies are composed of a huge share of water, which also means our health and wellbeing are dependent on water. While water policies and programmes cater to specific areas of water, such as irrigation/livelihood, WASH, fishery, and so forth, it is yet to be considered in its holistic value. Most importantly, the thought processes of the people, as well as the principles of water resources policy and practice have been narrowing down to pricing of water as compared to this holistic value.

We are fast transforming from a generation that lived happily with water resources to consider water as a commodity for exploitation. The youths and children – a substantial portion of them, especially in urban areas - are starting to believe that water comes from bottles and taps. While many of them derive happiness from visiting water bodies and forests, during picnics and at other times, they cannot connect the fact that these are the same sources that bring them the water vital for their survival. Such a lack of knowledge and understanding would impact the conservation of the resources and sustainability of the services and happiness linked to water. There is an urgent need to work towards regaining the real values of water in people’s minds. And if we can tap the youth power in this, we can make a lasting change.

A European way of valuing water

Recent collaborative research involving the University of Exeter and the University of Stirling that used data from thousands of visits to water bodies from across European countries has tried to analyse the economic value of these ecosystems through a new lens: costs incurred by Europeans to visit rivers, lakes, waterfalls, beaches and seaside promenades.

The assessment found that people across Europe spent above £700 billion annually in trips to water-based settings. This research has further pointed out that people have shown a greater interest in visiting natural spots ever since CovID-19 struck. Access to natural areas has been a priority of the people as they have realised the importance of the same, more so due to CovID.

Another critical dimension of this study was assessing the loss of people who did not want to visit sites with bad water quality. The study estimates the total annual loss for such reasons has been well over €100. We are water creatures

Not only that, our body is composed of a significant portion of water; almost 90 per cent of the world’s population lives within six miles of a surface water body; most often than not, that freshwater comes from a river. However, the same rivers bear the maximum brunt of our toxic wastes. We discharge to the rivers and water bodies pollutants, most of which could be recycled and reused. That is criminal negligence. That shows we do not value our water resources in their totality. We are just happy pricing the water we use, be it through taps or bottles. Commodifying water has cost us, dear. As in the European study, quantifying the value are good ways to show people the amount of money they spend to stay happy. However, water gives us happiness in many ways, many often which are not countable. The very feeling of being water secured is happiness. Millions still go to bed thinking about the next morning’s problems they would face if there is no water supply. The Cape Town residents went through that for years. The Californians have been going through the same. In India, we have many pockets where women have to walk miles to fetch water for their families. All this has to end if we want to call us human civilisations. We have to understand the real value of water. We have to be happy!

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]