Through a glass darkly

Imagine a world without perfume. No manufactured fragrances to delight the senses or pretty bottles to line dressing room tables; no Frenchmen wafting aromas around in Grasse, no billboards promising everlasting desirability with a squirt of eau de parfum. Now imagine a world without water: a world where plants and animals wither; where farming is impossible and industry has ground to a halt; where ecosystems are collapsing and people perish under extreme and widespread drought.

Yet, how often do we open a bottle of cologne and let it run down the drain while splashing some on our faces, as we do with water? This disparity between the usefulness of something and its relative value has been a topic of debate for centuries - one which economist Adam Smith described as the 'diamond-water' paradox. Why are items relatively useless for survival, like diamonds or perfume, valued so highly, while a substance essential to life on earth is not considered worthy at all?

In an age with access to more information than ever before, we as individuals possess so little about the way we use fundamental resources.

Lezette Engelbrecht

The answer involves several convoluted economic theories, but also hints at a scary reality, given the state of the world's water supplies: value is very subjective, and as soon as the satisfaction we get from having a glass of water supersedes that of owning a diamond, the price of water will go through the roof. Not because it suddenly possesses a greater ability to quench our thirst, but because it is now seen as more important to meeting our needs.

Economist Carl Menger famously theorised that the value of goods is not inherent, but arises from their perceived relationship to our wellbeing. If you've ever had the experience of being desperately thirsty, you'll know you'd happily trade any decorative bauble for a few glugs of water. For now, however, it's still considered a cheap and abundant resource - a belief that's cultivated terrible habits that are set to prevent water from being either available or affordable in future.

The topic of water scarcity has steadily been making its way onto government, developmental and business agendas, as it becomes clear it's no longer something we can take for granted. Water's centrality to almost every process, from flushing toilets to fuelling factories, means there are grave consequences for every region, industry sector, and individual if current trends continue.

According to a recent PricewaterhouseCooopers report, water withdrawal worldwide rose sevenfold during the 20th century, with projections through to 2025 consistent with that trend. A number of regions are already suffering water stress and scarcity, including Southern, Saharan and Northern Africa; the Middle East; central Asia; India; and parts of China. With an estimated 90% of the two billion people joining the global population by 2050 set to live in developing countries, a further squeeze on supplies could be catastrophic. If current water usage trends continue, two-thirds of the world's population will be vulnerable to water shortages by 2025.

This isn't the kind of challenge that can be tackled by a single entity. It is going to require massive changes on a massive scale across multiple platforms. Take business - more than 20% of the world's fresh water is currently used in industrial applications. And the hi-tech industry is a particularly intensive user of water. Semiconductor and circuit board manufacturing accounts for around half of all water use in the hi-tech sector, and a large semiconductor plant can consume a few thousand tonnes of water a day - as much as a small city. Given the rising demand for technology, water management is going to have to become a priority for these plants - and for every company - if they are to stay afloat in the next decade.

Businesses are already being warned about the risks they face. The recent Water Disclosure Report SA notes that 85% of water-intensive users among the JSE Top 100 companies are exposed to water-related risk. About 70% of these say risks could occur within the next five years. However, many companies have not assessed the true value of water due to lack of data, and still need to calculate the impacts of climate change, supply disruption and inefficient water use.

Lack of data is not limited to companies. Say what you will about food labelling, but it does make it pretty hard to kid yourself about what's going in. With everything broken down into exact numbers, ignorance is no longer an option. If only the same could be done with water. Imagine the litre-count of every activity clearly displayed on taps, bathtubs, showers, toilets, garden hoses and so on. Bright blue letters telling you it took 11 litres to flush that tissue down the toilet, instead of throwing it in the bin. Or five litres every time you brush your teeth and leave the tap running.

It is startling to realise the gap between the necessity of water and our relative ignorance of its consumption. Do you know how much water you use each day? I didn't, but a quick search revealed it's probably around 150 litres. I also didn't know that an average South African family uses between 300 and 800 litres a day, or that in a mid to high-income household, almost 40% of the water used comes from flushing the toilet.

That's just the direct use of water. We also use thousands more everyday in 'invisible' litres required to produce the numerous goods we consume. The t-shirt you're wearing? That'll be 2 700 litres. Breakfast? You're going to want to add around 300 litres. Obviously, the argument isn't for everyone to turn into nudists who subsist on dehydrated cereal bars. But simple awareness can go a long way to adopting easy changes that can cut one's water footprint in half.

It's a sad irony that in an age with access to more information than ever before, we as individuals possess so little about the way we use fundamental resources. If we can keep track of friends and acquaintances' every tweet and status update, surely there's a way to stay informed of our water use, and manage it accordingly.

In a world of high-speed, hi-tech advancement, it's easy to get caught up in the constant stream of goods and gadgets, without a passing thought for what goes into their production. But to return to our diamond-water paradox, the combination of dwindling water supplies and ever-expanding populations could soon see far greater value being attached to basic resources than luxury trinkets.

The sobering reality is, of course, that while diamonds, perfume and iPads are expensive items we can live without, water could easily become an expensive item we can't. In a future with too many people for the available resources, the price of water may become staggeringly high - and it's one we'll all have to pay, in one way or another.