Private pools are a major cause of water scarcity

The researchers found that city elites over-consume water for their own leisure activities, such as filling their pools, watering their gardens or washing their cars.
Photo Credit: Joe Ciciarelli

Rich elites with large pools and well-kept lawns deprive poorer groups of basic access to water in cities around the world. Social inequality is a major cause of urban water scarcity than environmental factors such as climate change or urban population growth. This shows a new study, led by Uppsala University and now published in Nature Sustainability.

"Our study shows that the only way to preserve available water resources is to change privileged lifestyles, limit the amount of water used for recreational purposes and distribute income and water resources more evenly. Future strategies for secure water supply and drought resistance must be more proactive and be able to identify and counteract long-term inequality and unsustainable patterns that create the type of water crisis in cities we saw in Cape Town," says Dr. Elisa Savelli at Uppsala University who led the study.

The study was conducted with colleagues at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the University of Manchester and the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. They have developed a model that analyzes how water is used by households in Cape Town, which in turn gives an understanding of how different classes of society consume water. They found that city elites over-consume water for their own leisure activities, such as filling their pools, watering their gardens or washing their cars.

From elite to informal settlements

Five community groups are included in the model: from the category "elite", that is, people living in spacious homes with large gardens and pools, to the category "informal settlements" that are made up of people who generally live in townships on the outskirts of the city.

Households in the two richest categories make up less than 14 percent of Cape Town's population, but use more than half (51 percent) of the city's total water consumption. The two categories with the lowest incomes account for 62 percent of the city's population, but consume only 27 percent of Cape Town's water.

The research group focused on the unequal metropolitan region of Cape Town in South Africa where severe drought developed into an unprecedented water crisis that became widely known as "day zero". The model simulates the uneven water consumption between Cape Town's various community groups before, during and after the drought.

Low-income earners more vulnerable

The model's results show that low-income residents are significantly more vulnerable to drought and water crises than the elite, who can both afford price increases and access and develop alternative water sources.

The study also highlights similar problems in 80 cities around the world, including London, Miami, Barcelona, Beijing, Tokyo, Melbourne, Istanbul, Cairo, Moscow, Bangalore, Chennai, Jakarta, Sydney, Maputo, Harare, São Paulo, Mexico City and Rome.

Elisa Savelli, Doctor at the Department of Geo- sciences.
Photo Credit: Mikael Wallerstedt

"Although our study is based on Cape Town's socio-economic and hydrological conditions, the model's calculations for water dynamics in cities can easily be adapted to other cities characterized by socio-economic inequality and where households have access to both public and private water sources," says Elisa Savelli.

The researchers describe how ongoing efforts to manage water supply in cities with scarce water supply are mostly focused on technical solutions, such as developing a more efficient water infrastructure. These types of reactive strategies - which focus on maintaining and increasing water supply - are inadequate and counterproductive because they treat the symptoms and not the root causes of the crises, the researchers say. Instead, the researchers suggest that a more proactive strategy, which addresses inequality and reduces unsustainable water consumption among elites, could manage future water crises more effectively.

"There is nothing natural about elites in cities over-consuming and over-exploiting water resources, or with the water marginalization of other social groups. Inequalities related to water and their unsustainable consequences are rather the result of our political-economic system. Therefore, the only way to counter the unsustainable and unjust pattern of the elites is to change the system itself and to imagine a new kind of society where the elite's overconsumption at the expense of other citizens or the environment is not tolerated," says Elisa Savelli.

Published in journal: Nature Sustainability

Source/Credit: Uppsala University | Elin Bäckström

Reference Number: en041423_01

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Contact Us