March: The month of swims

Summary

Swimming everyday has been brilliant. We are so grateful to live where we do - the sea water is still clean and we can enjoy it everyday. It makes it so important to protect. We managed to get in everyday so we have no fines and this has been restorative for us. There are still plenty of take homes, to dos, top tips and extras for us to think about. We hope you have enjoyed celebrating water in March.

Take homes

The water cycle - rains and river flows, ocean currents and ecological health - are largely impacted by climate change. A warming world increases the evapoaration and precipitation cycle making rains heavier and less predictable. This results in more droughts and floods. The more we can do to reduce global warming the better.

Water pollution events are too regular and stem from our misuse of chemical and material products and the infrastructure of our sanitation systems. We can take action to reduce these events.

Managing water well is a global challenge. This challenge is location specific and likely needs addressing holistically with all systems needing water. Working within natural boundaries will have the best outcomes in terms of resilience and sustainability.

Protecting water and its harvests, managing it as a resource sustainably, have become tough battles on land and at sea

Top tips

Surfing is now shown to improve behaviours and help with anxiety in young adults and veterans. Were more studies to be done, we reckon playing in water would demonstrate universal benefits. So... Get in and play!

Here are some further reading resources on action:

Turning the tide, The Water Commission
The What, Why and How of the water crisis, The Water Commission
Protecting Freshwater, World Wildlife Fund
UN Treaty to protect High Seas

And some charities protecting waterways that we could support:

This list names 9 great options

To dos

Communicate the urgency to ensure clean water for all to policy makers. Vote for politicians that offer the prioritisation of longer term solutions for water infrastructure.
Financially support the implementation of projects working to clean water, and provide communities with resilient and sustainable infrastructure when possible.
Ensure our personal homes are efficient and leak free.
Use rainwater for gardening and perhaps even clothes and dish washing, toilets and showers.
Collect shower water for other uses such as flushing the toilet or watering plants.
Avoid products with too many chemicals when possible. These make the challenge to clean and reuse water harder. This might include make up, creams or other beauty products. It also includes cleaning products, bleach and even artificial garden persticides and fertilisers.
Avoid littering plastics through reduced use wherever possible to protect oceans and ecosystems in the long term.

Out of our hands

Our communities are reliant upon underlying infrastructure and sanitation systems. Our short term political cycles are frustrating when we need long term solutions to fix or implement sustainable infrastructure to supply people with safe water without polluting waterways and oceans. Achieving this will likely require large capital investment upfront. Figuring out how this can be done, prioritising this to protect the future is really important.

Similarly, one of the main challenges to polluting waterways is overuse of fertiliser and pesticide. Figuring out methods to maximise crop yields while minimising practices that result in damaged waterways is essential.

One of the United Nations Sustainability Goals is the provision of clean fresh water and sanitation for everyone. There are many people working on this essential goal and we are cheerleaders for their efforts.

March: The month of swims

After the harrowing effort of plastics, and because it is my partner's birthday month and he is a dolphin, this is a recovery month where our challenge is to swim everyday. My baby and I can get to the sea everyday but my partner's work schedule means he can complete the challenge in pools.

But we can use this month's challenge to learn about the importance of healthy waterways, caring for our oceans, and the connection we can benefit from by being in water.

I love water – who doesn’t? We all rely on it… but we have not taken care of our waterways or oceans during my lifetime nor before. It scares me how the infrastructure upon which we rely has shaped our experience of water. In Australia we are fortunate still to enjoy clean fresh and saltwater spaces. But in many places, including the UK, there are few freshwater spots safe to swim in and the surrounding oceans are contaminated too with our mis-managed waste.

Water is a fundamental atmospheric gas, but most water is in liquid or solid form on Earth. The evaporation of water from the oceans, lakes and seas and the subsequent precipitation of these waters as rains, hail or snow is a critical cycle for all life. Freshwater springs saturate terrestrial habitat and are protected by forests which in turn facilitate precipitation, filter water, and replenish springs. Mountains shape the distribution of these rains and the entire system locks in ocean currents and river flows. Ecosystems around the planet rely on the predictable cycles and climate provided by the water cycle.

This month we will look into how our emissions have altered the predictability of rainfall in different locations around the world, how our infrastructure works to manage waste and what challenges there are currently surrounding these systems. We will try to explore how water is managed in different places to ensure it is safe to drink from our taps, how it is treated and what challenges this raises. We will experience the pure joy of being imersed in water and how it restores people all over the workd.

So, first things first, we will go for a swim!

March 2nd: How are emissions changing water cycles?

To kickstart March, we want to revisit the science that clearly shows how the most recent 150 years of human activity (more acutely still since 1980) have driven global changes in temperatures, atmosphere and currents. A good explanation is this briefing from the UK Government's chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance and experts (if you are short on time skip to 10 mins through the video for the specifics). Summary slides produced earlier are attributed with convincing previous prime ministers of the urgency of the issue (check these out via this climate brief).

There are some fascinating films of the changes in global temperatures, rainfall, and seasonal patterns among other metrics produced by NASA that are well worth checking out if you have the time (click here!)

How are these human driven changes affecting the water cycle?

Accelerating evaporation and precipitation cycles

First up, the warmer average temperatures around the globe cause more surface water to change into a water vapour. The additional heat allows liquid water to become gaseous. This leaves more atmospheric water, an increase in evaporation directly results in larger amounts of precipitation everywhere. This does not balance out however: a major shift in weather patterns have been observed in recent years. Areas are experiencing extreme drought or increased flooding. This is driven by the accelerated evaporation / precipitation caused by the warmer temperatures, themselves caused by our emissions of carbon dioxide and methane that reduces ozone and allows the sun to warm the planet more. The consequence is extreme storms, flash floods and sometimes years without rains across different parts of the Earth.

Rising sea levels

Arctic Sea Ice is being lost at incredible rates - an area the size of India, Bangladesh and Bhutan combined (3.48 million km-squared) has been lost in 40 years. The loss of glacial landscapes are also being witnessed elsewhere. As these ice sheets melt, those that were on land wash as liquid into the seas. The increased open water reflects the sun more strongly than ice, so this process is further accelerated. Oceans rise, and sea levels increase. As oceans have a key role in the water cycle, further perturbations occur unbalancing this critical - once predictable - cycle. Many animal species rely on the predictability of rains to drive the timing of migrations to source food. The disruption of the water cycle means large losses in species numbers globally, so this also has a negative impact on biodiversity.

The expectation is that these chaotic weather events are likely to continue. We will see more extreme flooding events, life-threatening storms, and droughts on devastating scales.

Pollution events

Pollution is already estimated to cause 1 in 6 deaths globally (read more here). Deaths from water pollution (estimated at around 1.4 million premature deaths annually) are typically due to poor sanitation or no access to clean water. Polluting events are generally an unintended consequence of urbanisation and industrialisation. We are not only creating too much greenhouse gas (including carbon dioxide) emissions but also leaking many other toxins into our environments with the way we live now. Pollutants can affect waterways directly, but they can also be transported a long way in streams, rivers and ocean currents. Newer pollutants such as lead are now becoming important stressors to monitor and are predicted to be killing around 0.9 million people annually (read more here).

What are the main sources of contamination of waterways?

Fertilizers and pesticides are the most important sources of pollution - these can come from agriculture but also personal gardens and managed landscapes.
Sewage irrigation is becoming a serious pollution source in some economically-rich countries (China and the UK for example) but poor sanitation is a major cause of water pollution deaths elsewhere.
Surface run-off leaches pollutants from car tyres, fuels and urban environments into waterways, particularly when buffer habitat like mangroves or forests are removed.
Pharmaceutical and personal care products leach in via landfill or poorly discarded products, as do many other toxins like household bleach.
Plastics of course enter waterways from a myriad of sources.
And many more pathways track the pollution from our ways of living into waterways.

How do these pollution types impact us?

Human health can be negatively impacted by persistent organic pollutants and synthetic chemicals and environmental endocrine disruptors. These are used for a variety of purposes in industry including activities like the treatment of waste water and firefighting foams. These same pollutants can also harm wildlife. A recent paper showed how some toxic chemicals can accumulate in otters - a key species for monitoring the health of waterways (see more here). Previous work by the same research team shows that the chemicals we are using can stay in the environment for decades after they have been banned (check it out here). There are all sorts of negative impacts associated with exposure to these pollutants - the most serious being death (this paper has a review of pollution and health that might be of interest).

Eutrophication of surface water - a result of the overuse of fertilizers and other nitrate pollution of groundwater - cause serious threats to drinking water safety. These events are also very damaging the the ecosystem of waterways. The River Wye in England and Wales has suffered severe eutrophication in the past 5 years. A sudden increase in the number of intensive chicken farming and the associated deposition of surplus nutrients into the river are thought to be the driver of the damage to the ecosystem (a film by George Monbiot has demonstrated this well). None of the individual farms are breaking laws on raising chicken, but the sheer number of farms produce too much fertilizer for the land to absorb. This is a clear example of the need for us to take holistic approaches to caring for our waterways and environments generally.

The same challenge of an overuse of land comes from urban design. When buffer habitat like mangroves are removed from the edges of rivers, pollutants from gardens and roads and other sources are washed directly into rivers when it rains. The result is a loss of biodiversity of the rivers with the worst outcomes being so-called 'dead-zones' around large urban settlements and agricultural land (see more here).

Our health and that of our ecosystems are inextricably linked and reliant on clean fresh water. The first take home this month is about taking care of waterways to our highest standard. As a starter:

We can ask our council and parliamentary representatives to focus on managing the waterways cleanly.
We can try and source foods from farms that are minimising their use of fertilizers and pesticides.
We can avoid the use of fertilizer and persticides in our own gardens or pot plants.
We can source cleaning products such as sphagnum moss to replace the likes of bleach or other chemical cleaners that may otherwise flush through our drains.
We can learn what products contain persistent organic or synthetic chemicals and avoid those as much as possible.

There is so much more to say within this space but we will continue in the next update!

March 7th: Our sewage systems

Crete and other Aegean Islands show evidence of having sophisticated sewage systems as far back as Ancient Greece (approximately 2700 to 1450 BC). Sanitation through intensive infrastructure projects to establish sewage systems tracks other advanced civilisations (Angelakis et al. 2023). London was relatively late to the party.

Toward the middle of the 19th Century, London (UK) had about 360 sewers in a poor state and around 200,000 cesspits leaking methane. Cesspits were continually dug out to remove the waste and take it to farms for fertiliser. Slowly, flushing toilets were introduced leading to huge dilutions of the human waste with water. At around the same time, the population swelled from about a million to 3 million people. This placed huge pressures on the Thames River Catchment which received the human waste, alongside industrial effluence, directly into the waterway. Consequently, the UK suffered 'The Great Stink' in 1858. The fear associated with the horrid smells were linked to outbreaks of cholera that were associated with the pollution of the riverbanks from human waste. All this initiated the development of modern sewers.

Joseph Bazelgette designed three tiers of sewers to collect and redirect the waste from the city Eastward, downstream. In South London - then less populated and suburban - 3 main sewers collected waste from Putney, Wandsworth and Norwood and joined at a pumping station in Deptford to pass waste to the main outflow sewer. The waste was discharged at the Erith Marshes into the Thames. The high-level sewer in North London channelled waste from Hampstead Heath to Stoke Newington. The mid-level sewer ran from Bayswater through Bethnel Green and Victoria Park where the two combined into the main sewer running to Stratford. A pumping station at Abbey Mills deposited sewage into a 8 km long main sewer to an outfall at Beckton. The late 19th century and early 20th century saw expansions of the sewer system servicing the Thames and London. Today, Thames Water manage this system that now contains over 109,000 kms of sewers, 5,235 pumping stations services, to clean water for over 8 million people daily. In England and Wales, most of the network of approximately 350,000 kms of sewer pipes today is a combined sewerage system (read more here). That is, wastewater from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens is collected into the same pipe as rainwater. To limit flooding, overflows are built into the network of pipes to release excess flow if heavy rains occur.

Sewage Treatment and Water Reuse

When we flush our toilets or run taps in our houses or work spaces, the water is piped under the roads to sewer pipes that eventually connect to a sewage works. Large items are removed first to avoid damaging equipment. The wastewater is put into large settlement tanks to allow larger deposits (faeces) to sink to the bottom. This sludge is scraped away and used for electricity generation (Thames Water reported 23% of their electrical needs were produced in this way in 2019), or fertilizer (as you can see from this Southern Water information page). For the latter, the sludge is further treated before being pelleted for farmland use.

Bacteria are encouraged by pumping the remaining water with air and these organisms digest the remaining smaller waste particles. The settlement process is repeated to allow the bacteria to separate from the water. The water is then filtered through sand to remove further particles before being returned to waterways and the oceans.

Sometimes, another set of sewers - surface water sewers - collect rainwater from urban environments. These drain directly into waterways.

What are the main challenges?

1. Misconnected devices: A major cause of river pollution in the UK has been due to washing machines and other household commodities being inadvertently connected to the surface water sewers instead of the main wastewater sewers (here are some examples). This means all sorts of bleaches and other chemical cleaners are directed into waterways, damaging ecosystems.

2. Blockages due to inappropriate disposal of larger waste items. Another key challenge occurs when the users of flushing toilets deposit items such as nappies, sanitary items, cotton wool buds, razors or other waste into the bowl. These block the sewer pipes that might be serving multiple homes or regions and cause backlogs that can burst pipes or result in leakages.

3. Overflow: The combined sewerage system in the UK means that when it rains heavily, the sewer pipes can quickly reach capacity leading to wastewater flowing to the treatment sites at an unmanageable rate, or sometimes floods expelling wastewater (albeit diluted) at manholes or into peoples' homes. Overflow pollutes waterways damaging ecosystems and our health. This has now become a huge environmental issue in the UK. In a damning report, the River Trust stated that:

"the Environment Agency reported that untreated sewage was discharged 403,171 times, for over 3 million hours, across England in 2020. Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water) [reported] that in Wales 104,482 spills occurred for a total of 868,307 hours."

4. Establishment of large sewers can have substantial impacts on ecosystems beyond the potential for spillage or overflows. Assessing how best to manage sewage for urban settlements of different scales is difficult. Decentralisation of wastewater management is a necessity for many larger urban centres to ensure the reuse of water and byproducts.

Given these, there are three thoughts that jump out... first, the scale of the sewer system has to be designed to accommodate the population and future-proofed for changes in population size. Second, the increasing likelihood of heavy rains that is a consequence of human driven climate change means that overflows are increasingly likely so system upgrades must be designed to withstand these. Third, the waste products that need managing change with time: we now have microplastics ecotoxic cleaning chemicals and pharmaceutical products to contend with alongside the more obvious waste. The technology needed to remove these from wastewater is continually adapting (Trojanowicz et al. 2017).

So, those working in the field need to figure out how to manage the wastewater without polluting our environment further and adapt to changing pollutants as we use various different types of products in our everyday living.

The UK here is a country with the facilities to manage waste responsibly, it has the privilage of electricity for sewage treatment and technological resources. Funding for the improvements to infrastructure may be needed. The wastewater management within the UK is entirely privatised and some of the water companies are now investing to improve their infrastructure in line with government regulations. These are fairly unambitious targets though with aims for eliminating the impacts from overflows on ecology by 2050 (check out the information here).

For a global overview of the challenges for water use and wastewater management, the UN progress report 2021 is here and sets out an aim to ensure clean water and sanitation for all by 2030.

What are some of the actions being put forward to address this?

Segregation of waterflows

Some options exist to separate the water sources depending on the pollutants present. As mentioned, rainwater can be separated from household waste, but within the home there are also options to separate so-called grey water (basins, showers, clothes washing) from black water (kitchen and toilet water) and even urine and faeces separation to maximise nutrient recovery (see Ren et al. 2021 and Larsen et al. 2021). This might be necessary for some treatment technologies that remove chemicals (Trojanowicz et al. 2017)

Decentralisation of water management

While there remain many centralised management systems in cities around the world, smaller scale systems would be far cheaper to establish (depending on how spaced out the community are), particularly in regions where sanitation systems are yet to be operational. These smaller systems could also enable circular use of freshwater and bespoke treatments depending on the community serviced. Angelakis et al. 2023 discuss some of the contrasts in centralised and decentralised systems. It might be a way to slowly upgrade the UK system too if it is unaffordable to improve the infrastructure all at once.

Innovation

There are loads of companies and academics now working in the space of sustainable wastewater managment. A set of summary information can be found here by Valuer. As part of this space, the idea of fit-for-purpose water reuse is being used to minimise energy demands. This is an approach that looks at the specific future purpose of water and cleans it to a particular standard to fit that use. For example, drinking water needs to be cleaned to the highest standard, but water to flush toilets, irrigate land or for air conditioning units does not. This is explored in detail here by Capodaglio).

Upgrades

A major upgrade of the London sewage system is ongoing. Thames Water report on the progress and investment at Stratford here. These will be affected by capital costs needed - an argument to decentralise systems perhaps - but we can look into these a bit more in the next update.

Final thoughts

Water use and wastewater reuse are a great example of how our everyday actions impact a wider geographic space than which we are generally consciously aware. A simple action of flushing the toilet could lead to polluted waterways for communities around our home, the oceans bordering our towns and eventual damage to ecosystems and our own health. The wastewater industry is huge and continuously innovating ways to recover a higher percentage of fresh water, energy and fertiliser. Our growing population size globally makes closing the loop on our waste imperative - we will not have the space nor will our ecosystems recover should we simply deposit continually. From our perspective, ensuring devices are correctly connected, responsibly managing what and how we throw items away and saving freshwater where possible are immediate actions to adopt.

March 12th: Global water quality challenges

The major problem with our system currently is that, generally, we are mis-using freshwater - an incredible resource. We might be using too much, contaminating it from various sources including agriculture, household waste products, chemical spills and other sources. Sometimes we do not, or cannot, clean it effectively so that when we try to reuse it, or return it to waterways, we cause ecological, and health, problems.

In countries with sewer systems that are overwhelmed because of population size changes, urban sprawl and / or increased flooding, this means that upgrades to historic systems are likely needed. Elsewhere, this may require the establishment of sanitation systems to serve communities. What are the different challenges and what pathways are being taken to address these across our world?

Briefly, here is a whistle stop look at a couple of places with different challenges ongoing and a couple of potential solutions available:

India

India recieves about 80% of all its rains between June and September during the monsoon season. The changing climate is causing greater variability in these monsoon rains - their timing, their power - leading to less predictable flooding and droughts. Recent research estimates that about 390 million people in India are at risk to 1-in-100 year flooding events (Rentschler and colleagues 2022). Generally, people living in extreme poverty are disproportionately vulnerable to these life-threatening events.

In recent years, groundwater irrigation has been adopted widely in India. This entails the strategic storage of water that can be applied to crops as needed throughout drought periods. Many rain-fed areas were switched to irrigated agriculture. This allowed multiple crops to be grown annually and an increased yield. Groundwater-based irrigation has so far helped to meet the increasing food demands of the Indian population, but several environmental implications arise. Both natural and human-driven factors are reported to be causing groundwater depletion in India (Dangar and colleagues 2021). Researchers Zaveri and Lobell 2019 warn that the overuse of groundwater for irrigation and increased temperatures has dropped levels of the stored water. This will require increased costs for pumping water deeper in the ground prohibiting extraction. The over-extraction from groundwater sources is predicted to cause rivers to dry up across the dry seasons accentuating the impacts from climate change in India.

A major challenge for India is to figure out how to sustainably manage groundwater. If you are interested to learn more, this research paper by Dangar and colleagues 2021 discusses the challenges and opportunities related to groundwater management and monitoring, and some of the social and policy reforms that might help.

Australia

Australia is likely to suffer severe flooding and severe droughts as the climate changes. It has already been through horrific wildfires in areas that have not previously burned, fatal floods and severe droughts in the most recent five years. The use of greywater is potentially important when droughts happen. This is the water from basins, washing machines, and showers for other demands such as gardening. New housing developments are considering permanently installing greywater treatment and irrigation systems. In urban places like Melbourne, uptake is reportedly slower. A recent study by Sinclair and colleagues 2013 looked at 1000 households over 5-years through 3 severe drought periods where outdoor tap use was limited. The study found that an average estimate of about 10% of tapwater was reused in the homes. Most commonly, the water was recovered from laundry and bathrooms with watering gardens the most frequent end point. The researchers concluded that "...permanent greywater collection, treatment and storage systems by households would be required to achieve a lasting effect on urban water consumption".

Mozambique

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique. A recent study by Salamandane and colleagues 2021 considered the microbiological quality of drinking street water, bottled water that is regularly sold in the city. The water samples analyzed included home-bottled water, tap water, and selected supply wells in different neighborhoods. A high level of fecal contamination was documented in all the water samples by the research team. Of further concern, some of the Enterobacteriaceae isolates - a family of bacteria that can cause diarrhoea - recovered from the water samples showed resistance to antibiotics making treatment of symptoms a concern. The contamination of water is clearly a challenge for the city.

Microorganisms can be found in water around the world of course. This research paper by Novak Babič and colleagues 2020 reviews household microorganisms, take a look if you are interested. Given the different environments, geology surrounding rivers and human changes to river systems, as well as sanitation systems, tap water quality varies everywhere. The treatment process in different countries can also vary, some places opt to add fluoride for example (the UK government discuss why here), but also, within houses, if pipes are at all degraded there can be variations in the quality of water that we drink. It is possible to have the quality of the water from your taps tested. For a little more information, here's the info for Australia, and the UK.

Lastly, for more solutions and knowledge on water quality, check out these blogs highlighted by the WorldBank.

March 17th: The joy of water

There are stories worldwide celebrating water and all it brings, rightly so. Scientific evidence also celebrates what water can give us and it is far more than a means to quench our thirst.

Physiological benefits - water keeps us well

Studies have shown how even low to moderate levels of dehydration in women can negatively affect our mood, negatively impact our perception of how hard tasks may be, as well as reducing our capacity to concentrate on tasks and result in symptoms such as headaches (Armstrong et al. 2011). In men, increased anxiety and fatigue were observed as well as reduced vigilance to tasks and capacity for memory (Ganio et al. 2011). A review paper that considered 21 different studies on the effects of dehydration found all of them measured a degradation in the mood of participants (Benton and Young 2015). The review acknowledges that most studies included were on males between the ages of 20 and 30 so it might not be possible to generalise for all of us. Nevertheless, it seems that maintaining appropriate hydration levels probably improves our lives.

Balneotherapy - bathing in mineral waters

Water for therapy is also embraced by many cultures. Bathing in mineral waters - or balneotherapy - has been shown to outperform the use of paroxetone - an antidepressant drug - in reducing anxiety and sustaining beneficial changes for the patient for individuals suffering with generalised anxiety disorder (Dubois et al. 2010). Both treatments helped: but the mineral bathing produced better outcomes. Balneotherapy has been shown to bring about other benefits too ranging from relieving pain caused by diseases like arthritis and pelvic inflammatory disease (Bender et al. 2014), to improving bone health (Lv et al. 2021) and benefiting our levels of stress (Antonelli and Donelli, 2018).

The mechanism of action that results from bathing in minerals is not yet fully understood. Research suggests that it is a combination of the heat treatment - a result of bathing in warm/hot water - the induced relaxation, a regulation of our sytem through both anti-inflammatory effects and neuroimmunoendocrine stabilization (see this paper for more by Galvez and colleagues 2020), and the beneficial influence from the microbiome of spring water (Carretero 2020). For more, check out this recent review discussing these mechanisms in depth, written by Cheleschi and colleagues 2022.

Saunas and Hydrotherapy

The use of saunas and hydrotherapy are also considered as treatments for chronic respiratory diseases. A review by Khaltaev and colleagues published in 2020 found that sulphur-rich water inhalations improve our ability to clear mucus, reduce inflammation of our lungs, and preserve the elastic properties of our lungs. The review showed that repeated cold water stimulations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases also reduce the frequency of infections, and that sauna bathing can reduce the risk of pneumonia.

Surfing as a therapy

We couldn't miss out on mentioning work that is now showing the huge benefits for vulnerable young people gained from surf therapy! Godfrey and colleagues tested surfing as a therapy for vulnerable young people reporting that:

"Parents and referrers noticed an increase in positive attitude and better communication, as well as improved self-management and behaviour at both home and school."

Personal experience (we love surfing) means we may be subjectively biased to accepting this result, but it is a great reason to keep our oceans clean and pollution free so that our young adults can get well soon in the waves.

Take homes!

Our take homes from this blog are therefore to stay hydrated, grab a mineral bath and jump on a few waves - enjoy!

March 22nd: Legislation and enforcement to protect the oceans

A recent publication by Kuemlangan and colleagues (2023) has looked at how states can enforce the laws against illegal fishing nationally. The article reports the different International agreements that stand between states to try and align all our interests with protecting the oceans as follows:

"The international legal framework for combating illegal fishing is reflected in a tapestry of binding and non-binding regional and global instruments that establish and elaborate the duties and responsibilities of States in their various capacities to ensure legal and sustainable fishing. [...] The [1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea] currently has 168 parties. The 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (UNFSA) currently has 92 parties. The 2009 Agreement on Ports States Measures to prevent, deter and eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (PSMA) has 74 parties, and the 1993 Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (Compliance Agreement) [54] has 45 parties."

Kuemlangan et al. explain that these agreements and laws essentially ensure that:

"coastal States [...] have sovereignty over their territorial seas and archipelagic waters (subject to certain duties and responsibilities) and the sovereign right to explore, exploit, conserve and manage the resources in their exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and their continental shelf, but also have the responsibility to adopt and effectively implement appropriate measures to conserve and manage the resources within such marine areas."

Regardless of how much a state wishes to commit to protecting and enhancing their ecology, enforcement is incredibly tough. Coastal States have to undertake potentially life-threatening activities including boarding and inspecting vessels within their territories. Many states are poorly financed for enforcement activities, and it is notoriously difficult to detect the variety of different illegal fishing activities ongoing.

Detecting illegal fishing

One way to detect illegal fishing is to monitor the catches as they come through ports or markets. Modern technologies are helping to identify illicit activities by tracking vessels as they dock. The EU states are collaborating to improve capacity to monitor catches, track vessels on the open seas using satellite imagery, and employing CCTV and other tools to protect the territories' waters (for more see here).

As noted in the book, "coastal states can strictly enforce sustainable practices in their waters, and the market states – purchasing seafood – can entirely ban the importation of products illegally or irresponsibly caught in an effort to deter these fishing strategies altogether". The Council on Foreign Relations has written an interesting article on how to combat illegal fishing between states if you are keen to read more.

The World Wildlife Fund is collaborating on an International project called DETECT-IT that is trying to resolve some of the challenges in identifying illegal fishing activities. The idea here is to build a webtool that can collate data from different states, ports and markets and then rapidly highlight any illegal or suspicious activity in near real-time (the link to the webtool did not work for me though!).

Action on offenders

The scale of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities is massive: the WWF report that: "Experts estimate illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing nets criminals up to $36.4 billion each year." This is essentially stolen goods from ours oceans and the respective states, cutting in on the markets for responsible fisheries who are respecting the sustainable practices needed.

States act in different ways to try to combat these criminals. Indonesia has perhaps one of the most daunting challenges in this space.

Indonesia comprises 17,504 islands (16,056 islands are registered by the United Nations) making it the largest tropical archipelagic country. The total marine waters of Indonesia cover 6.4 million square kilometers. In 2019, the fisheries sector raised approximately 5.81% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the territory. Given this challenge, it is perhaps not surprising that the country was reported to have suffered the highest incidence of piracy through 2012 to 2016 by the 2017 International Chamber of Commerce data (these are reported in this research paper by Suseto and colleagues 2018).

Researchers have taken a closer look at maritime law enforcement (read the full article here). The Indonesian government established a task force called Task Force 115 to manage operations with an aim to eradicate illegal fishing through the collaboration of multiple agencies including the Navy, the Police, and the Attorney General's Office among others (Reported in Dirhamsyah et al. 2022). The researchers recall a case study of a remarkable achievement of this Task Force 115:

"In 2015, Indonesia was shocked by cases of human trafficking and slavery in the fishing industry in Benjina, Maluku, Indonesia. The case involved more than 2,000 people, mostly Burmese, who were enslaved as workers on Thai fishing vessels (Htusan and Mason, 2015). [...] Investigations [...] found that Thai fishing vessels and their companies committed several violations including: smuggling of people and goods, slavery, bribery, falsification of ship and crew documents, use of illegal fishing gear, and illegal fuel transactions (Santosa et al., 2016). This is the largest human trafficking and slavery case in the fishing industry in the 21st century."

A second phenomenal achievement was the capture of the FV Viking - also reported by Dirhamsyah and colleagues:

"Viking is a Nigerian-flagged fishing vessel owned by Spanish and Panamanian companies. The FV Viking was on Interpol's list of most wanted ships, known as “ghost ships” because it has changed its name 13 times and used 12 different flags to elude maritime authorities in several countries (Parameswaran, 2016). This ship entered the Indonesian territory without prior notification and turned off its Automatic Identification System. In addition, FV Viking was considered to have carried out IUU fishing in Indonesian waters, because it does not have a fishing license and uses illegal fishing gear [...]. On February 26, 2016, this ship was captured by the Indonesian Navy in Tanjung Berakit, Riau Archipelago Province, Indonesia. Finally, on March 14, 2016, the Viking sunk in the waters of Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia (Snook, 2016)."

March 27th: Our future

All of us are connected by the water cycle. Our actions cause the climate to warm, driving more intense and choatic evaporation and precipitation patterns in the water cycle. In turn, these affect food security, with knock-on implications for mass migrations. Our health depends on ensuring clean and ample supply of water for so many essential daily needs. The water commission is a global organisation actioning some of the changes needed to protect all of us. This video sets out the reasons for their efforts.

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water published two reports this March explaining the scale and urgency of the challenge. The works are summarised into seven actions:

1. To manage the global water cycle as a global common good. The recognition of connectivity between all of us means that the global water cycle should be protected collectively and managed in the interests of us all. The summary from the report recognises that water cannot be managed sustainability without equity and justice across the planet.

2. To adopt "an outcomes-focused, mission-driven approach to water encompassing all the key roles it plays in human well-being".

3. To stop underpricing water. This action is all about using water more efficiently in every sector. This means improving population equity through sustainable practices at both a local and global level. This action recognises that "we must also account for water’s non-economic value in decision-making to ensure we protect nature, on which the planet and all life depend."

4. To phase out the annual subsidies reaching some USD 700 billion for agricultural and water activities because these tend to result in the excessive consumption of water alongside other environmentally damaging practices. This links back to the use of groundwater enabling the growth of certain crops where they are not naturally supported by rainfalls, and the improvements to sewage systems to prevent leakages.

5. To establish Just Water Partnerships (JWPs). The idea here is to create investment options for the multilateral development banks and others to ensure water access, resilience and sustainability everywhere. The report highlights how these types of investment will return far more than their costs and enable inclusive growth.

6. To action what we can within the next decade. The Water Commission summary states as some of these actions:

"Fortifying freshwater storage systems, especially the natural assets such as wetlands and groundwater, which have been dangerously depleted.
Developing the urban circular water economy especially by recycling industrial and urban wastewater, which remains largely untreated.
Reducing water footprints in manufacturing, including the reuse of water in producing critical materials such as the lithium we need for electrification.
Shifting agriculture to precision irrigation, less water-intensive crops and drought-resilient farming that can also raise incomes. We must drive down the costs of technologies in each case by adopting them at scale."

7. Critically, to "reshape multilateral governance of water, which is currently fragmented and not fit for purpose."

These are great aims, it will be the delivery of these that enable a resilient, sustainable planet.

If you are interested in more, read the reports!

Here is the What, Why and How of the water crisis

Here is the Call to action