What are Some Water Solutions Through Technology?

Worldwide, approximately 4 billion people face water scarcity at least one month of the year.¹ More than a billion people lack access to clean water.² Forced to drink water from contaminated sources, they often suffer from various waterborne diseases. In response, numerous organizations are working to address this worldwide water crisis. Here are a few potential water solutions through technology.

Israel-based firm Watergen has developed technology to extract water from the earth’s atmosphere, which contains 13 billion tons of fresh water.³

The company claims water processed by their air-to-water technology, which eliminates the need for groundwater pumping and the fear of soil contamination, is of the highest standard in quality and taste.⁴ Watergen’s largest machines can provide more than 1,500 gallons of water in a single day.⁵

According to Michael Mirilashvili, head of Watergen,

“A big advantage of using atmospheric water is that there’s no need to build water transportation, so no worries about heavy metals in pipes, for example, or cleaning contaminated water from the ground or polluting the planet with plastic bottles.”⁶

Other possible high-tech solutions include desalination, which draws from the oceans’ one billion trillion liters of water.⁷

This process separates the salt from the water to make it fit for human consumption. Approximately 16,000 desalination plants are currently operating in the world.⁸ This process, however, comes with challenges. It is often expensive and energy intensive.⁹ There are also some environmental concerns as many plants pump the extra brine back into the ocean, where it can harm ocean life.¹⁰ Newer technology using reverse osmosis, however, lessens this impact.¹¹

Zero-liquid discharge technology and other similar processes seek to recycle waste water.¹²

The city of El Paso, Texas, is one municipality pursuing such a solution, installing a water purification system that will eventually “treat and purify sewage water and pipe it back as natural water.”¹³ TOTO is another company working with discharge technology. Named a Water Efficiency Leader by the US Environmental Protection Agency, they produce high-efficiency toilets that clean themselves with electrolyzed water after each use.¹⁴ According to Fluence News Team, “With these systems, wastewater—once viewed as a useless, disposable commodity—becomes a valuable resource.”¹⁵