[0:10]Imagine a winter day in the Netherlands in 2040. It has been a very rainy season and the rivers have reached the highest water levels ever recorded. Cities like Amsterdam or Maastricht are already partially flooded. As you wake up, there is breaking news. A storm will hit the country in the next four days and you are rushed to go to the highest regions or to the mountains. The Netherlands is a has a territory that is one third below the sea level, and 60% of the land is vulnerable to floods. Where will you be safe? In the same day of the same year, imagine now in Cape Town that the mayor of the city in South Africa declares day zero. The city water taps will be closed indefinitely. The poor amount of water that fall during the winter did not fill up to underground reservoirs of the city. And the high temperatures in summer have dried up the rest of the water in the underground, but also in the lakes and rivers nearby, which are too far away and also polluted. Citizens are restricted to use only 20 liters of water, which is less than your four-minute shower. Businesses close doors. Farmers reduced their crops to one third and see their cattle starve and die. Big trucks rush into the city, bringing water from the neighboring cities and people line up to fill up their water cans. Will it be enough for the 6 million people living in Cape Town by 2040? Well, after these catastrophic scenarios, you might be wondering, are we running out of water? The answer is no. But are we running into a water crisis? Yes, we are. The total amount of water on the Earth planet is about 1.3 cubic billion kilometers. That sounds like a lot of water. But actually it is not. If the earth was an apple, the total amount of water on earth is less than the skin of the fruit only. And how much of this water is actually accessible to us? Well, 90% of this water is salty water, in ocean, it's oceans. 2% is in the form of ice. And only 1% is available to us as fresh water in rivers and lakes. And this 1% is not even equally distributed throughout the world, because it's highly dependent on geographical and climate conditions. But the most important thing is that the total amount of water is conserved. It keeps circulating from one form to the other, but it is preserved by the water cycle. So our planet will never run out of water. But we are disturbing this water cycle, and we will suffer the consequences of it. In fact, we are already suffering from it. About 3.5 billion people, half of the current population, already experiences water shortage for at least a full month in the year. And it is not only happening in undeveloped countries. Cities like Barcelona, Beijing or Sao Paulo are already experiencing water shortage in the last five years and they have to import water from the neighboring cities. And at the same time, we also see much more unpredicted rainfalls and storms and hurricanes that lead to floods and destruct infrastructures and contaminate fresh water. And again, this is happening all over the world, but also in very unexpected places. So you may remember the summer of 2021 this year, where there were unexpected floods in Europe that killed about 230 people in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium only. The day zero scenario that I also drew in the beginning for Cape Town was only 60 days away in 2018. Fortunately, it rained.
[5:03]So, what are we doing wrong with water? Let me remind you quickly about the water cycle before I tell you what we are doing wrong. Water evaporates from the oceans, goes into the atmosphere, also from transpiration of plants and animals, and in the atmosphere it turns into rain and snow. Rain will come to the Earth, will infiltrate and fill up to underground reservoirs, and also the rivers and the oceans. And snow will melt and go to the rivers and the oceans. Evaporation and transpiration keep going, and the cycle keeps turning. How are we disturbing this cycle? Wrong way number one, we are fully depleting our natural water reservoirs. How are we doing this? Because a single person only drinks about 2 liters of water per day on average. Well, we need 3,000 liters for each person in one day to fill up all their daily activities, including to grow our food. We are using about 70% of the water available for agriculture and cattle feed stock.
[6:26]And we are growing massively cattle and edible plants in specific regions of the globe only, where the water underground reservoirs were once abundant, but not anymore. Because to keep this massive exploitation of growing food, we are depleting the underground reservoirs very fast, and they cannot be replenished by the water cycle. And we also deplete the nearby lakes and the rivers as well, so we create more arid areas and we expand the deserts. At the same time, we cover our lands with impermeable materials, with asphalt roads and concrete buildings. And we also deprive the soil. We remove all the green plants and all the trees. These man-made materials do not allow the water to infiltrate into the underground reservoirs. But the rainfall has to go somewhere. So it will run directly into the sewers, from the sewers to the rivers, from the rivers to the oceans and the water level will rise. Wrong way number two, we are creating very dense clouds.
[7:42]I will assume by now that many of you accept that we are already facing the climate changes, and we have just heard on how the our growing society based on fuel sources, oil sources, will lead into the increase of gases in the atmosphere, namely carbon dioxide, and that will this all this will impact our planet in a catastrophic way if we don't take action in the coming years.
[8:10]So we will create more gases in the atmosphere, that will increase the temperature. But let me tell you how this influences the water cycle and vice versa. If the temperature will increase, it will impact other very big water reservoirs, which are icebergs. They will melt faster. They will release a very large volume of water in a very short time, and this water will not infiltrate into the underground reservoirs. It will run very fast into the rivers, into the oceans and the water level will rise.
[8:51]The increase of temperature will also accelerate the evaporation to the atmosphere. And then we have more dense clouds from CO2 and all the gases, but also from water vapor. So the climate conditions will become very unstable, and we will see more floods, more storms, more hurricanes. And this water comes fast and furious. It will not go to the underground reservoirs, it will run into the rivers and to the oceans, and then you know the water level will rise. And yet another worrying aspect. With the increase of temperature and more gases on the atmosphere, we are going to create an enhancement of the greenhouse effect. So the temperature will just keep increasing. We are creating a series of repeating events, which we nowadays call as positive feedback loops. On each, every action reinforces itself on a cycle.
[9:58]Well, I am sure that some of you are thinking by now, wait a minute. It's a cycle, and the water is preserved. So these events might compensate or should compensate each other somehow, right? Well, you are right. They will compensate, and water will find its ways, but will not care if we like it or not. A new cycle might be established, we might never be able to disrupt it. But this new cycle might not support the life conditions that we currently have, or might not even be suitable for life on Earth. And the most important question that you should be asking right now, so what is the solution? Or are there solutions? Water is part of nature. And we can learn from animals and plants on how to handle water sustainably, and interfere as less as possible with the water cycle. Trees and green plants are true water mediators. They promote evaporation, they provide abundant rain, even on dry places. They fixate the water in the soil, and they also fixate CO2. So they reduce the greenhouse effect. On the top of that, they have very clever strategies to handle water. They have structured leaves and cheap points, tree points that conducts the rainfall into the soil. They also have cups to collect water for the drier days. Other inspiring example is little creatures living in the desert. The Namibian beetle that leaves in the desert has evolved into a body that can collect tiny water droplets from fogs and dew, and has it tilts forward, this water rolls on its body into its mouth and that's how it drinks water in the desert. Well, this beetle has actually inspired my research, my own solution to approach the water crisis and start to restore the water cycle. I am doing research on materials that can collect water locally from the atmosphere, from the air. I have developed a fabric which has fibers covered by a smart material, an active material that can collect small amount of water from the air, so tiny water droplets from fog and dew in the evening when the temperature is lower, like a sponge. And as the temperature goes up, it spontaneously releases the water, and this keeps ongoing has the day and night temperatures change. So it is a self-sustained material that can collect local water from the air. With this type of materials, we can irrigate plants in more arid areas, and we can create more forests to positively or start restoring the water cycle also in the drier areas. And in a wish come true, I would really like that these materials can also provide one day drinking water for local communities, so that they can leave on their own land without having to migrate for the search of water. So just like the beetle, they could live in the desert taking just enough water that they need from a local source. So my solution to approach the water crisis, it's only one of the possible solutions. And unfortunately, there is no universal big solution, because it's a complex problem. We definitely need stricter water managing strategies, policies and regulations. But what I want to tell you today, it's something different. I want to tell you that each of you can take local action to start restoring the water cycle. And it will matter globally, because it's a cycle, remember?
[16:22]So I hope that you will never again think that water is just a cheap, infinite and regular commodity. It is the regulator of the equilibrium of our planet, and it is the reason why we can live on earth. We may continue misusing water. But it will find its ways either we like it or not. So which actions are you taking today to restore the water cycle? Thank you.
