Water resilience: The next great challenge for science and tech?

Over the past couple of years, momentum has been gathering – both in Europe and beyond – for an urgent rethink of the ways in which water is managed as a critical, increasingly scarce resource. In many instances, the catalyst for political attention has been extreme weather linked to climate change, with images of devastation caused by droughts, fires and floods filling media channels on a regular basis. 

Yet recognition has also been growing around the vulnerability of key industry sectors and economic policies to a lack of clean water, ranging from agrifood, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, to the green and digital transitions. As a case in point, the world’s current obsession with AI – and its potential for increased competitiveness, productivity and industrial transformation – tends to overlook the fact that a single ‘big tech’ data centre can require an estimated 620 million litres of freshwater per year to operate. 

The need for a new approach is clearly reflected in Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines for her second mandate, adding water to a commissioner’s portfolio for the first time and pledging a new water resilience strategy to mitigate against supply risks and reduce overall consumption. Against this backdrop, a critical question arises: how can research and innovation organisations most effectively contribute to achieving these goals – by filling critical technology gaps in water security, tackling issues relating to pollution, and accelerating the transition to more circular models of water use?  In concise terms, the EU and others are in urgent pursuit of both quantity and quality – so what fresh knowledge, evidence and insight can the R&I world bring to advise policy makers on future priorities and courses of action?

On April 10, Science|Business will convene members of its international Network, EU institutions and other key stakeholders to discuss these questions and more, as a means to inform the wider policy debate on how to achieve water resilience and security for the generations to come.