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„Water is a life elixir and corporate mission of the listed group of companies BWT. Global trends determine the water market and offer BWT unique growth opportunities for decades to come.”
SAM Sustainable Asset Management AG, „Zukunftsmarkt Wasser“, December 2007 |
World Population Continues to Grow
According to estimates by the UN Population Division, the current world population of approx. 6.6 billion people is going to increase to 9.2 billion by 2050. Water consumption will rise disproportionally due to the increasing average per capita water consumption currently at 625m3 per year.
More and More People Live in Cities
Not only has the number of megacities increased from 86 in 1950 to 387 in 2000, but their size has increased as well. More than 6 million people on average live in the largest 100 cities. According to the UN, more than 900 million people must be connected to a functional potable water supply system over the next 8 years and more than 1 billion to wastewater treatment systems to achieve the millennium goal of halving the number of people with insufficient access to safe drinking water by 2015.
The Need for Food Increases
The FAO expects that the demand for food in 2030 will be higher by 55% than in 1998. Especially meat products have a high degree of water intensity..
Resources are Overused
Once mighty rivers today carry only a fraction of their former water volumes and groundwater levels continue to drop in some regions. Water overuse (freshwater stress) has dramatic local consequences.
Obsolete and Overaged Infrastructures
Supply networks were established in industrialized nations as early as the 20th century. Potable and wastewater lines have a service life of approx. 60 to 80 years and many of them have reached the end of their serviceability.
Increasing Water Quality Requirements
Not only does the population in many countries suffer from too little water being available, but also from an insufficient quality of what little is available. Nitrates, arsenic, heavy metals, bacteria, and other pollutants in surface and groundwater can lead to serious diseases and even death.
New Water Pollutants
Studies in Switzerland have shown that problematic chemicals continue to reach waters in spite of building wastewater treatment facilities. Toxic nitrogen compounds such as nitrite and ammonia, pesticides, and nitrates are increasingly detected in water treatment outlets after heavy rainfalls. Always new materials and compounds and hormone-active substances are an additional problem.
Water is also a lifestyle product for many people. Today's consumer in Germany is able to select from among approx. 500 brand name bottled waters.
The per capita consumption of bottled water in North America and Europe has grown by 60% between 1997 and 2004 and more than doubled in South America and Asia.
Many people in those latter countries drink bottled water because they feel the quality of regular potable is insufficient.
Climate Changes
The global water supply and hydrologic balance will noticeably change in many regions over the next decades. According to the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" drought regions will continue to expand, heavy rainfall events with flooding will increase, and glaciers and snow regions will recede and decrease. Expansion of the glaciers in the Alpine regions has decreased by 22% between 1985 and 2000.