Acclaimed poet W. H. Auden once said that thousands have lived without love but none without water. Today, we can reinterpret those powerful words in the context of breakneck urbanisation and smart cities mushrooming across the Middle East: We can do without glass skyscrapers, but food and water we cannot.
While smart cities are the hallmarks of technological advancement and socioeconomic prosperity, they cannot come at the expense of sustainability. By 2050, about 68 percent of the global population (estimated 10 billion) will be living in cities, increasing the water demand by at least 55 percent. What does this mean for the Middle East, which already grapples with acute water scarcity?
That is a topical question in light of the upcoming COP28, where global stakeholders will bring different perspectives to the table. Policymakers in the Middle East can embrace this opportunity to explore actionable solutions at the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. This multi-pronged consideration is crucial to ensure the efforts toward enhancing water security do not come at the expense of energy and food, and vice-versa. Like water, by 2050, energy and food demands, too, are set to grow by 80 percent and 60 percent, respectively.
For the Middle East, which has many smart city projects in the pipeline, the current WEF situation calls for “systems thinking” — an approach where a particular problem, like water scarcity, is assessed by factoring in its relationship with sectors such as food and energy. For example, in the UAE, most of the food is imported due to low agricultural yield. Attempts to enhance yield through excessive irrigation will aggravate water scarcity, leading to unintended consequences. “Systems thinking” posits that a solution is plausible only if it positively impacts other constituents in an ecosystem.
Developing smart-food cities
A smart city characterises connectivity between critical infrastructure like power grids, traffic control, and utilities via multiple information and communication technologies (ICT). Such connectivity must be extended to food systems as well, using smart agriculture technologies (AgriTech) such as IoT sensors to measure yield and soil moisture levels. The derived insights can enable farmers to proactively address shortfalls and maximise yield. While such practices can enhance agricultural productivity, they cannot address structural challenges such as high soil salinity and seepage in the Middle East.
Water-retentive mediums such as ‘Breathable Sand’ make a compelling case for adoption here. Through its permeability, Breathable Sand ensures effective nutrient supply to the roots, leading to optimal yield with nearly 80 percent less water usage. Combined with smart AgriTech, it can enhance food security without burdening the water infrastructure — a scenario in line with the notion of “systems thinking”. Soil-related interventions and sensor-based monitoring can be implemented in different capacities and methods such as indoor and vertical farming.
Inducing circularity in water infrastructure
Though agriculture accounts for a sizable portion of the total water usage in the Middle East, it is not the only sector with a massive footprint. Industrial and domestic activities, too, are contributing to the scarcity. The demand is currently met through desalination plants, which have excessive energy and carbon footprint. Without critical interventions, the dependence on desalination plants will continue to grow with the rising population, hampering net-zero and sustainability objectives. So, there is a pressing need to re-envision and revamp the water infrastructure.
In the urban development context, a viable solution is “Sponge City”, which, as the name suggests, involves inducing “sponge-like” properties in the master plan. Typically, Sponge City solutions like ‘IDer’ are paved across urban centres, in common areas. The permeable material absorbs rainfall runoffs, keeps surfaces free from waterlogging and skidding, and even filters and stores the water in underground reservoirs.
The harvested water can enhance the city’s water security while reducing the dependence on energy- and carbon-intensive desalination processes. Concurrently, concerns over increasing climate change-related flooding incidents in the region can be alleviated.
Sponge cities can thus be classified as a climate adaptation and mitigation solution. Such infrastructure also carries scope for the implementation of IoT sensors aimed at increasing efficiencies, reducing leakage and wastage, and ensuring safety standards.
All in all, sponge cities and the ICT systems can synergistically lead to circularity in the water infrastructure by unlocking 3R — reduce, reuse, and recycle — possibilities. In such cities, “systems thinking” becomes ingrained in the urban master plan, leading to cumulative benefits for the generations to come. We can leave a lasting legacy by setting such robust foundations for the cities of the future.