We in the Netherlands act as if we are heading for a physical shortage of drinking water, Jan Willem van de Groep observes. "Especially the construction industry, which loves new problems, likes to embrace that image. But water doesn't run out. Drinking water can be made everywhere."
We can desalinate, deepen, recycle and even turn wastewater into drinking water that is cleaner than what many European countries get from the tap. So availability is never the problem. The only problem is that those techniques are expensive and generally not environmentally sound. When we make water more expensive, we get rid of any scarcity. But every liter you gain by doing so pays back in energy use, CO2 emissions and ecological impact.
Water is kept cheap in the Netherlands because it is a basic need. But a basic need does not mean that water should be offered below cost. That is a political choice. If we want to keep water cheap, we have to accept that tax money goes to it. If we don't want that, then we have to accept that the price goes up and we have to invest in more expensive production, more robust infrastructure and new sources. The affordability debate is legitimate. The debate about availability is misguided. Scarcity is a financial and environmental issue, not an availability issue like renewable energy.
This makes the term water congestion primarily a managerial frame. It suggests that the water grid is reaching a physical limit, when the real problem is years of undercharging, delayed investment and deteriorating source quality. Water congestion sounds like a technical bottleneck beyond our control, but it is essentially the outcome of political choices. Water is not scarce; the room to make it sustainable and the will to price it realistically are.
Fleming is no less thirsty
The irony is that in the Netherlands we don't have too little water, but too few incentives to use it wisely. We consume 124 to 128 liters of drinking water per person per day. In Flanders, it is 84 to 90 liters. Not because the Flemish are less thirsty, but because for years they have been doing two things there that the Netherlands refuses to do. Water there is volumetrically priced and thus taxed higher the more you consume, without hindering access to basic necessities for lower incomes. In addition, cisterns are mandatory in new construction, feeding toilets, washing machines and gardens. That combination ensures that water-saving techniques pay off behind the front door. In the Netherlands, those techniques don't pay off, because water is too cheap to recoup and, of course, there are always legal barriers.
We have now identified two approach routes. The first route is for meters. Make water more expensive, which frees up money for new sources, more intensive treatment and additional infrastructure. With that, you can invest away any deficit. But we must also face the environmental damage of that route. Desalination and extensive purification cost a lot of energy and generate waste streams. Extracting deep groundwater causes desiccation and subsidence. Treating wastewater to drinking water quality requires high technology and sustained energy consumption.
The cause of Water Congestion
The second route is behind the meter. Technology that reduces demand before source extraction is needed at all. This may be due to a higher price, or it may simply be mandated, as in Flanders. Rainwater harvesting, gray water systems, economical shower technology and households that structurally reduce dependence on drinking water quality for applications that don't need it at all.
Interestingly, that behind-the-meter technology directly prevents water companies from having to invest billions to scale up supply. Every gallon that isn't purified and pumped around is infrastructure you don't have to build. And therefore environmental damage you don't have to accept. This creates a clear choice. Either we keep water cheap and mandate water-saving technology behind the front door, as Flanders has been doing for 20 years. Or we let the price rise and accept that we continue to make water with energy-intensive techniques. But the current path, in which water remains cheap, consumption high and investments insufficient, is the worst-case scenario. That is the real cause of "water congestion.
Water becomes scarce if we treat it like it's worthless. And water becomes sustainable when we treat it as if it has value. That requires not panic about shortages, but a mature choice about price, technology and ecology. The scarcity is not in the water. The scarcity is in the way we value it.
This article was written by Jan Willem van de Groep, programmer, future thinker and publicist. He is known, among other things, for the government program Building Balance.
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