Design Intelligence #15: Day zero
As water scarcity mounts, water futures move from contingency to urgency
The idea: Water futures
This summer, Mexico City came close to reaching day zero - the day when water has run out, and taps run dry. While the city managed to avert that particular catastrophe, it provided a visceral preview of what might happen next as we live through climate breakdown, and water scarcity is quickly becoming one of the main fears that people have. In a 2023 study by Mintel, the number of people globally who ranked water shortages in their top three environmental concerns rose to 35%, up from 31% the year before, representing the fastest rise of any environmental issue.
As sea levels rise, floods increase and glaciers melt, we have simultaneously too much water and not enough. Currently, 3.6 billion people (44% of the world population) have inadequate access to water for at least one month a year. Meanwhile, water use is growing - by 2030, demand for fresh water is expected to exceed supply by 40% - in part because industry sectors that are currently scaling up substantially - like producing batteries for clean energy and data centres for AI - are highly water-intensive.
Geopolitically, this compounding crisis is driving a new age of hydropolitics, with states and nations striking deals to trade water supplies for other resources, such as energy. Repairing and fortifying water infrastructures is becoming crucial, including building new reservoirs, filling receding aquifers and investing in desalination technologies and systems. The Global Commission on the Economics of Water urges more transformative thinking, calling on governments to view the hydrological cycle as a global common good, work holistically and “reset our relationship” with water.
Forward-thinking businesses are beginning to look at water efficiency on par with energy efficiency. They are investing in water data management and streamlining water use across supply chains - particularly in areas related to agriculture, which uses 70% of global freshwater resources, such as crops and textiles. Hydroponic cotton farming, for example, can use up to 60% less water than conventional methods, with up to 60 times more yield.
Like solar farms, water farms could become more common as communities work to become more climate-resilient: solar thermal panels can pull water from the air in hot, dry climates. Australian company Syrinx has created EnPhytoBox, a boxed version of a wetland ecosystem that vertically arranges plants and microbes to filter dirty water at source and generate “an alternate water supply”.
Individualised water preservation is another growing area of focus, as awareness of the issue grows. A 2022 study by Deloitte found that 52% of British people have limited their water use in order to lead a more sustainable lifestyle, and 2024 stats from BSI find that 73% of people want water-labelling on products to help them make more responsible decisions. Waterless toiletries and cosmetics are steadily improving in availability, desirability and efficacy, while shorter showers - like many other water-saving behaviours - can be easily incentivised using simple techniques, such as timers and higher shower pressure.
The solutions exist, but as so often, they are piecemeal, and they are not scaled. If we want to offer possible and preferable futures, the challenge is to change that.
🏫 My work
I was a guest speaker at London College of Fashion’s Think Tank day earlier this month, which assembled industry experts to discuss important topics with final-year Fashion Business School students. My presentation laid out design futures for AI - including the good, the bad, and the exciting. My favourite question from the audience connected the ideas of gendered AI and tradwife influencers.
🗒️ Research notes
The UN Summit of the Future, which took place in late September in New York, was headlined by the adoption of Pact for the Future, a non-binding agreement with 56 actions across areas including increasing action on the SDGs, more equitable global peace and security, sustainability in space, responsible governance of AI, and a commitment to future generations.
Forest Futurism, a new exhibition by Swiss artist Uriel Orlow that’s at MCBA in Lausanne until May, is a more-than-human feast of ideas. Studying the lives of plants outside of human history, including fossilised trees in Bolzano, Italy, it explores the deep time of climate change.
Brian Holmes’ Rivermap: Collaborative Cartographies at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (until March) is an exhibition that will germinate over a six month season. In the form of “essay maps”, images, voices and encounters, it will examine bioregions, territorial dialogues and political ecologies.
This month saw several positive and historic tipping points. Norway now has more EVs than petrol cars, Australia now has more rooftop solar than coal power, and the UK has phased out coal, a goal it set in 2014 when coal was one-third of its energy mix. The last coal plant shut down on 30th September 2024.
We continue to lose far, far too much. The WWF Living Planet Report 2024 documents a 73% decline in wildlife since 1970, rising to 95% in Latam and the Caribbean, and reports that the Amazon is now 17% deforested. Yes, this is hard to read. No, we can’t look away. But we can remember that it’s not too late.
👓 Interesting products
Aquafade by Pentaform is a circuitboard made from a biodegradable and water-soluble plastic, PVOH, which is most commonly used to coat dishwasher detergent pods. The product dissolves in eight hours in water, leaving the valuable parts of the e-waste to be reused
In a big month for smart glasses, Snap’s new Spectacles see the brand experimenting in public with tech hardware - a strategy I admire. Mat Honan’s review in MIT Tech Review captures the spirit of this product beautifully
Monument Valley 3 - the third instalment of one of the all-time great meditative computer games - is out in December
📱 Reading
“Our user base has been steadily growing, and I think it’s going to keep growing with the geopolitical volatility of the world and a new generation that is much more hip to the perils of Big Tech controlling infrastructure.” Meredith Whittaker, CEO of secure communications platform Signal, interviewed in Wired