Water. Desalination + reuse

Desalination and reuse in Water Leaders’ Blue Paper

—

by

Water. Desalination + reuse
in

Key ideas from the Water Leaders Summit at this year’s Singapore International Water Week have been captured in the latest Water Week 2011 publications, Blue Paper and Solutions.

The publications were launched by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singpore’s minister for environment and water resources, at the International Desalination Association World Congress on in Perth, Australia, on 5 September 2011.

The Blue Paper serves as a strategic resource for global water leaders in the development of sustainable solutions in their own cities. It documents, among other things, key discussions from the Water Leaders Summit including the inaugural Water Conversation with Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, the Water Ministers Plenary and the Water Leaders Roundtable.

Outcomes from these conversations included:

  • The need to price water not just to reflect the cost of production and delivery but also its scarcity value while ensuring that water was affordable
  • The need to harness desalination and water reuse technologies to overcome long-term water challenges
  • Recognising the correlation between food security and water security
  • The need for governments to address the water-energy nexus by adopting an integrated approach for water-energy planning and management to reap greater efficiencies.