Veolia Water, the global parent company to Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (locally represented by Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies South Africa), is helping companies and governments around the world get one step closer to sustainable water management with Veolia’s internally developed indicator that enables a pragmatic and comprehensive assessment of the impact of human activity on water resources using a ‘cradle to grave’ approach. Coined the Water Impact Index, the formula expands on existing volume-based water measurement tools by incorporating multiple factors such as resource stress and water quality.

“Unlike oil, fresh water has no substitute and cannot be transported from a water-rich region to high-demand areas viably – considering the volumes necessary for day-to-day agriculture, manufacturing, energy production and household use,” says Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies South Africa’s MD, Dr Gunter Rencken. “It’s projected that fresh water availability could become the world’s main growth limitation factor, which means businesses and governments need to find ways of becoming smarter at managing water – beginning with holistically understanding the impact we have on water as a limited resource, and by making better decisions as to how we use, waste, pollute and reclaim water.”

The Water Impact Index takes into account water stress factors specific to a particular region and considers contributors like rainfall, groundwater levels, reservoir levels and overall water demand – among others. One of the main reasons for this is that water-inefficient practices are much more serious in arid or desert environments than in areas with abundant and consistent supply.

“In South Africa for instance, the average percentage of fresh, high-quality water that’s wasted due to leaking infrastructure fluctuates from province to province. This wastage places additional pressure on available resources to compensate for the loss, which also cannot be billed by municipalities – costing potential revenue and contributing to long-term water problems. These factors are an example of how water stress is different to each scenario and how, by only factoring consumption and the officially-declared water availability into decision making processes, insufficient data and a lack of holistic understanding could lead to less than ideal water management,” says Rencken.

Veolia further takes into consideration the quality of water withdrawn from and released into the environment, along with numerous other factors relating to the functional requirements of water. “Not all manufacturing or industrial processes require potable quality water to maintain maximum output, and in situations where this drinking water can be better utilised elsewhere, such practices can have a negative effect on the water index – even if maximum care is taken to discharge only high-quality process water into the environment. The Water Impact Index likes to see water quality match the water requirement,” says Rencken.

In Durban, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies South Africa helped the municipality improve on its water index by designing, building and operating a water re-use plant that reclaims between 30 to 40 mega litres of domestic wastewater per day to ‘grey water’ status for use by the Mondi Paper and SAPREF refineries. This helped the municipality to redistribute large volumes of fresh drinking water to previously un-serviced communities throughout the region. 

“This is an example of how the Water Impact Index can help us evaluate how we use our water. Once we have a full understanding of our effect on water resources, we can move on to the next step, which is matching the water quality with the water requirement using available technologies and innovative concepts,” says Rencken.

The Water Impact Index tool brings attention to what’s necessary to effectively mitigate the risk of inefficient resource management and, in many cases, can help municipalities and companies save money. Veolia offers more than 350 proprietary technologies and systems that enable greater water sustainability and improve on water index ratings, along with dedicated project management, operations and financial services – making the company the world’s largest water services provider.

“We would like to help South Africans become world leaders in water sustainability management and we encourage companies, municipalities and even individuals to have their impact indexes evaluated. Only by having a complete understanding of where we are right now, as a water-scarce country, can we look at implementing cost-effective and practical ways of mitigating the risk of less than ideal water management in the future,” concludes Rencken.

For more Water Impact Index information, please go to http://www.veoliawaterst.com/sustainability/water-footprint/water-footprint-indicator/