MWH, now part of Stantec, has commissioned Peter Kingsley, an expert in agenda-setting foresight and innovation, to collaborate in the development of fresh thinking about the future of the water industry and to write a series of eight essays exploring the critical uncertainties, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. “Water Futures – Water, Energy and Agriculture to 2035” is the result of that collaboration.
Each essay tries to make sense of often conflicting signals and reflects the deep uncertainty about the long-term future. These essays are intended to raise questions to stress-test strategies and generate fresh, innovative options.
Over the coming weeks, we will share the content of this book online, asking you to join us as we take a journey from planetary-scale questions of climate at one extreme, to potentially game-changing applications of nanotechnology at the other.
The first essay, to be released on March 23, explores the uncertainties surrounding the global and regional climate, together with the relationship between human action and natural ecosystems. As global leaders and local communities alike attempt to turn towards a resource efficient, sustainable world, we examine whether political, social and economic security can be maintained during the transition.
The second, on March 28, looks at the demographic, social, economic, security and political factors driving the growth and potentially decisive role of megacities to lead global innovation and development. We also explore how many coastal megacities and ports—the so-called ‘littoral states’—are vulnerable to a changing climate.
Third, on March 30, we explore the possible decentralisation of water, energy and agriculture to create distributed networks – increasing the viability of localised self sufficient communities that take large numbers of people ‘off grid’, making them less dependent on large-scale utilities for everything from production to distribution.
The fourth Water Futures essay on April 4 will look at the emergence of systems integrators with the vision and power to act across multiple systems and deliver new forms of ecosystem design and engineering. We ask if systems integrators, capable of bringing together strategic design and multiple innovative technologies, will make distributed networks a reality.
Fifth, on April 6, is an essay that discusses the emergence of digital intelligence, new forms of real time decision support, pervasive sensors, the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and more important, simulation and predictive analytics.
On April 11, our sixth essay examines how desalination, which is currently energy inefficient and costly, will benefit from significant cost reductions. Contributing to these reductions will be advances in nanotechnology and brine mining—enabling operators to extract valuable minerals, producing potentially significant revenue and reducing the costs of waste disposal.
On April 13, our seventh issue discusses precision agriculture, which is already leading to vastly improved crop production and security, but also to step changes in water efficiency.
Our eight essay will close out the series on April 18 by looking at nanotechnology and new materials science that is emerging, for example around graphene, that has the potential to transform water filtration, purification and waste management at all scales.
The Water Futures book and this online series present illustrations of how these developments and technologies are gaining traction and how accelerating development cycles may change the landscape sooner than many anticipate.
Scenarios are embedded throughout the essays, essentially raising two questions:
The first is ‘what might happen?’ The second, critically, is about strategic options in the here and now: ‘what might we do?’
At the end of the series, we will make “Water Futures – Water, Energy and Agriculture to 2035” available in its entirety as a free eBook. Please contact us now to register to receive your copy and visit the Water Futures Website now
