UN World Water Report 2021
Every March the United Nations
releases its World Water Report. I look forward to mining this report every year for the most up-to-date and (in my opinion) objective and reliable information I can find on the state of global water conditions as well as where research is inspiring advancements in mainstreaming sustainability.
The 2021 report highlights the need for recognizing, measuring, and expressing water’s worth, and incorporating it into decision-making. The failure to fully value water in all its different uses is considered a root cause, or a symptom, of the neglect of water and its mismanagement. The full value of water is often not prominent or existing in decision-making from personal use to political power. Traditional economic accounting, a key means of informing policy decisions, limits water values compared to how most other products are valued – using the recorded price or costs of water when economic transactions occur. Where water is priced, meaning consumers are charged for using it, the price often reflects attempts for cost recovery and not value delivered. Nevertheless, the different values of water need to be reconciled, and the trade-offs between them resolved and incorporated into systematic and inclusive planning and decision-making processes. This year’s report groups current methodologies and approaches to the valuation of water into five interrelated perspectives: valuing water sources; valuing water infrastructure; valuing water services; valuing water as a production input; and valuing water rituals, meaning how we use them recreationally, culturally, and spiritually.