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Climate change, population growth, and urbanization have intensified pressures on natural resources, making water management a critical global challenge. The Bankinter Innovation Foundation’s Future Trends Forum “The Quest for Clean Waters” convened over 40 international experts to discuss sustainable water management strategies and emerging technologies. This article highlights insights from Ian Barker, an OECD water governance advisor, and Lesley Pories from WaterAid UK, focusing on how climate change impacts water availability, quality, and management worldwide. Barker explains that altered weather patterns have increased both water scarcity and extreme events like floods and droughts, complicating water planning. Regions such as southern Europe and North Africa face dwindling freshwater supplies, while others grapple with excessive rainfall and flooding.
Key challenges include managing uncertainty in climate forecasts and balancing water demands across sectors like agriculture, industry, and domestic use. Degradation of aquatic ecosystems further threatens water quality and biodiversity. Innovative technological solutions, such as smart irrigation, water reuse, desalination, and adaptive water planning, are being implemented to address these challenges. However, Barker and Pories emphasize that technological advances must be paired with effective governance, inclusive policies, and community participation. Coordinated regulatory frameworks and robust financing, including public-private partnerships, are vital to ensure resilient, equitable, and sustainable water resources management amid climate change. Ultimately, securing a sustainable water future requires integrating technology, governance, and global cooperation.
Future Trends Forum experts analyse the impacts of climate change on water resources and propose technological innovations and governance strategies to ensure access to and sustainability of water in the future
Due to the increasing pressure that climate change, population growth and urbanization exert on natural resources, water has emerged as one of the most urgent global challenges. To address this situation, the Bankinter Innovation Foundation has organised the think tank Future Trends Forum The quest for clean waters, where leading experts and leaders analyse and propose solutions around strategies for sustainable water management and the innovations and technologies that must be implemented.
This article is the fifth in a series based on the Future Trends Forum The quest for clean waters, organized by the Bankinter Innovation Foundation in Madrid. In this forum, more than 40 international experts met to discuss current and future challenges related to water management. In this article, we will focus on how climate change is affecting water management, the challenges it poses and the emerging solutions that are being implemented in different regions of the world, by two of the attending experts: Ian Barker, international expert in water policy and management, advisor on water governance and regulation at the OECD and Lesley Pories , Senior Policy Analyst for WASH Financing at WaterAid UK.
If you want to see the presentations of these experts, you can do so in these videos:
The impact of climate change on water resources
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, affecting all aspects of life, including water availability, quality and management. According to Ian Barker, altered weather patterns have exacerbated both water scarcity and extreme events, such as floods and droughts, greatly complicating water planning and management. These impacts affect both human populations and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, which depend on a delicate balance of environmental conditions to survive.
One of the most visible effects of climate change is the reduction in the availability of fresh water in many regions. In places like southern Europe and North Africa, higher temperatures and erratic rainfall are reducing available water resources, exacerbating water insecurity in already vulnerable areas. Droughts are becoming longer and more severe, affecting agriculture, hydroelectric power generation and drinking water supplies. In contrast, other regions face the opposite problem: torrential rains and flood events that exceed the capacities of stormwater management systems.
Challenges for water management in a changing climate
One of the main challenges is uncertainty. Ian Barker points out that past weather patterns are no longer a reliable guide for the future, making planning and investing in water infrastructure difficult. Decision-makers face a dilemma: how do you ensure that investments in water infrastructure, which often have multi-decade planning horizons, are resilient in an uncertain climate?
Another challenge is balancing the demands of different sectors. As Lesley Pories explains, water is not only vital for human consumption, but also for agriculture, industry, and power generation. As populations grow and economies expand, demands for water increase, but supply cannot keep pace without effective management. This situation puts both economic development and social stability at risk, especially in the most vulnerable regions such as developing countries, where the institutional and financial capacity to manage these challenges is limited.
The degradation of aquatic ecosystems is another critical problem. Pories notes that human activities, such as intensive agriculture and water extraction, have degraded many rivers, lakes, and aquifers. This reduces water quality, also affecting biodiversity and the ecosystem services on which many communities depend.
Technological solutions and innovations in water management
Despite these challenges, there are emerging solutions that are helping to improve water management in a changing climate. One of the most promising areas is the use of innovative technologies to make water use more efficient. Solutions include smart irrigation, water reuse, seawater desalination and smart metering of water consumption, which enable farmers and households to reduce water waste.
A prominent example is the use of digitally controlled drip irrigation systems, which allow for more precise water distribution, minimizing waste in agricultural areas. These technologies, while still expensive for some smallholder farmers, are being incentivized through government subsidies in several regions of the world. Ian Barker also mentions that desalination initiatives are being implemented, particularly in coastal regions, to ensure a stable water supply in times of drought.
Another innovative approach is flexible water planning, which involves creating scenarios for different possible climate futures. Rather than relying on a single static plan, policymakers are taking an adaptive approach that allows them to adjust strategies as more information becomes available on climate change. According to Barker, this approach must also be complemented by greater collaboration between the public and private sectors, to ensure that investments in water infrastructure are resilient and sustainable in the long term.
Water governance: key to sustainability
In addition to technological solutions, good governance is essential to face water challenges, as Gonzalo Delacámara stressed to us. Effective governance includes creating strong regulatory frameworks that balance human needs with environmental protection. However, Lesley Pories points out that, in many countries, water management is hampered by a lack of coordination between different government agencies, leading to fragmented decision-making.
It is essential that governments adopt inclusive approaches, which consider both economic needs and human rights to water and equity in access to this vital resource. In addition, Pories stresses that the active participation of local communities in decision-making on water resources management must be ensured, as they are the ones who directly suffer the impacts of climate change and poor water management.
Finally, Ian Barker suggests that more robust financing frameworks be developed. Investments in water infrastructure are expensive and governments often cannot finance them on their own. Greater collaboration with the private sector should therefore be explored, although this presents challenges, such as communities’ distrust of private companies that manage essential resources such as water.
Conclusion
Climate change is radically transforming the way we manage water, presenting enormous challenges, but also opportunities for innovation. Emerging technologies and flexible planning approaches offer pathways to mitigate the worst impacts of a changing climate. However, as both Lesley Pories and Ian Barker stress, for these solutions to be effective, they must be accompanied by good governance and strong international cooperation.
Only by combining technology, inclusive policies and global commitment can we secure a sustainable water future for generations to come.
More articles from the series on The quest for clean waters forum:
- Strategies to solve the global water crisis, by David Sedlak – Fundación Innovación Bankinter
- The water-energy nexus: sustainable solutions for the future.
- Sustainable solutions: The role of the oceans according to Carlos Duarte
- Water governance: key to sustainability
