Navigating Troubled Waters: Confronting Pollution Challenges with Informed Optimism

Twenty-six percent of the world’s population does not have safe drinking water¹. 

The UN has highlighted that ‘water pollution is an increasing global concern’, noting its potential to ‘damage economic growth and the health of billions of people²'.

Water pollution and its impacts on water quality represent a global concern. Good water quality is fundamental to our health, the health of our ecosystems and the wellbeing of our communities. The importance of protecting our water environment and water resources is reflected in two key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation and SDG 14 Life Below Water³.

Many of the challenges affecting water quality are global. We use more chemicals in our everyday life—whether personal care products, antibacterial gels or pesticides on our pets. Our wastewater treatment processes are often ill-equipped to remove some of the newer chemicals from water before it is discharged back into our rivers and oceans. Population pressures have led to ever-intensified agriculture with the use of more pesticides on land, which ultimately end up in the water environment via runoff. Global urbanization also leads to more concentrated sources of wastewater, for a lot of our sewerage infrastructure is aging and not fit-for-purpose for the modern world. In the UK, there has been an increased focus on the impact of pollution in recent years, with a particular emphasis on the discharge of untreated sewage to the water environment. The water industry and regulators are undertaking a significant amount of investment to improve the regulation of water pollution and understand which chemicals we should prioritize for further investigation.

The good news is that we have many new or improved tools to assess water quality and identify the most effective investment to improve the health of our waterways. A tool such as water quality modelling allows us to assess the relative magnitude of different pollution sources, like wastewater versus agriculture and farming. It can also pinpoint pollution hotspots and scrutinize future scenarios and mitigation options. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) allow us to interpret model outputs faster and more efficiently.

Water quality models, however, are only as good as the data that feed them. Historically, if you wanted to know how polluted your local river was, this would have involved someone collecting a sample of water, shipping it off to a local laboratory and waiting anxiously for the results. Over the last decade, advances in our ability to monitor the health of the aquatic environment have resulted in the development of instruments that employ optical, and even wet, chemical techniques to determine pollutant concentrations directly from the bankside. Once the realm of science fiction, our ability to use these ‘sensors’ to detect near real-time changes in the health of our rivers is revolutionizing our understanding of issues such as pollutant source areas and instream chemical processes, providing valuable data used to build, calibrate and validate water quality models.

Improved laboratory techniques also mean that data can be collected on a wider variety of (emerging) pollutants. Lower analytical costs result in more samples being collected, increasing our understanding of the spatial extent of pollutants. Lastly, increased public engagement has meant that many community groups and organizations are engaged in citizen science, collecting data which further enrich our understanding of the sources of water pollution and assist us in plans to mitigate impacts.

Overall, while the state of global waterways may appear bleak, there is plenty to be optimistic about. Renewed public interest in the environment is driving legislative changes in several countries resulting in the quality of our natural waters moving up the political agenda. In the meantime, while society reconciles its need for development with protecting the aquatic environment, as Bob Dylan said, ‘This ol' river keeps on rollin' though, no matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow.’

Want more?

Listen to the Built + Beyond podcast Water Quality Innovation and investigations episode as our experts discuss how to improve water quality monitoring to gain a better understanding of pressures on water quality; how to engage with public and key stakeholders (e.g., campaign groups) to convey the complexity of the issues and harness their passion to protect the environment and local knowledge to lead to improvements and much more.

¹Imminent risk of a global water crisis, warns the UN World Water Development Report 2023 | UNESCO
²Water pollution is an increasing global concern | UN-Water (unwater.org)
³Sustainable Development Goals | United Nations Development Programme (undp.org)