HOT TOPICS

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Newly inaugurated CIWEM president, David Wilkes, considers the environmental challenges to be addressed during his presidential year and beyond

It is an honour to be the new president of CIWEM, but also daunting. The stakes are high.  We have only got one planet to sustain us now and into the future.  The expectation is that as president, I should ensure that CIWEM continues to be strong in working for a cleaner, greener and more sustainable world. My role as president lasts for 12 months and will provide opportunities to meet all sorts of people and talk with them about the environmental agenda; to learn of their ideas and experiences, and perhaps use the privilege of office to promote good practice and raise concerns and discuss observations more widely.

When I think about the environmental agenda, there are three interlinked themes that keep coming back to me.  The first is the ability of the planet and its finite resources to sustain and feed mankind. Secondly, there are the challenges of climate change. And thirdly, there are inequities between different peoples and countries.

By nature I am an optimist and my expectation is that we have the capacity and the innate human desire to survive and be successful from one generation to the next.  CIWEM can help by encouraging people to engage with the issues, providing evidence and know-how, and showing ways to sustain a better future. 

Is climate change happening?

We need only consider some of the recent evidence to know that we have a challenge on our hands.  In 2010 alone, much of the world suffered from extreme weather events consistent with a picture of man-made climate change: 50 million people in China suffered from the worst droughts for over 100 years; 21 million people were made homeless or were affected significantly by flooding in Pakistan; record maximum temperatures were reached in 17 countries; the Amazon River flowed at its lowest level in almost 50 years; and the polar ice sheets melted to such an extent that the North West Passage and the Northern Sea Route became simultaneously ice free for the first time in modern history.

This year the picture of environmental change continued with famine affecting ten million people in parts of East Africa as a result of crop failure caused by drought and high temperatures. Some two million children under the age of five were clinically assessed as acutely malnourished, with approximately 500,000 found to be severely malnourished and on the point of death.

Population

We must accommodate a rising population, which will live for longer.  In 1955, when I was born, the world population was below three billion. It is now fast approaching seven billion. In the UK alone, the Environment Agency expects the population to grow by another 20 million by 2050.

Looking for answers in cities and mega cities

Of the seven billion people alive today, 55 per cent have chosen to live in cities, and by 2050 forecasters expect over 70 per cent of the world population to choose to live in cities.  The United Nations has stated that the growth of cities is the single biggest development challenge of the 21st Century. Many of those people will choose to live in mega-cities.

Looking to London

If we are to understand the challenges of resource use, climate change and social equity, perhaps London is as good a place as any to start. The Thames is the reason why London became one of the first major cities of the world. The river made it easy to defend the city; it provided water for drinking and washing, and a plentiful supply of food as a fishery. The river also facilitated trade and travel by boat. But the river also has the potential to be a killer, bringing risk of death from water borne disease and flooding.

In medieval London, with a population comfortably below 250,000, the river was able to provide water for drinking and sanitation without major strain.  It was poor housing and inappropriate disposal of waste that brought about disease and the great plague of 1665. 

But by the early 1840s, London had become the most populous city on earth with almost two million people. For all but the wealthiest, homes and places of work were overwhelmed by waste. Overcrowding and decay was rife and raw sewage flowed abundantly. London experienced severe cholera epidemics in 1832 and again in 1848 and 1849. The learned beliefs of the day centred on the Miasma Theory - an understanding that disease was spread through the particles carried in foul smelling air. The consequences of contaminating drinking water with sewage were not understood and the summer of 1858 became known as the year of the Great Stink, when the air surrounding the river Thames was so pungent that Parliament had to be suspended until perfumed curtains could be fitted to the windows.

Birth of the modern sewage system

In the aftermath of the Great Stink, Joseph Bazalgette was commissioned to provide a network of sewers to take human waste away from the city centre. Bazalgette's grand design was to take the sewage down river as far as Barking and Crossness, places on the north and south banks of the river chosen so that any discharge to the river at low tide would not be able to flow up river to the city before the tide turned to flow out again. The first parts of Bazalgette's sewerage system were completed by about 1865.  Death by cholera was on the wane, supported by newly emerging theory that water is a transmitter of cholera. Knowledge of the importance of clean water and sanitation has probably saved more lives around the world than any other discovery. 

Improvements in biodiversity

The path of improving water quality in the Thames is an evolving one.  Sewage treatment improvements progressed steadily through the 20th Century, such that by the 1990s, despite a population of over seven million, the tidal river was clean enough to support over 120 different freshwater and migrating fish species, proving that the biological connection with the oceans has again been re-established after perhaps 200 years of gross pollution.

Now, events such as the comedian David Walliam's endeavour to swim the course of the Thames for charity, and his affliction caused by 'Thames tummy', demonstrate that with an increasing population, the river's water quality will require careful management, especially if contact with water is an expectation, and pristine river water quality conditions are to be achieved. 

London and flood risk

Flood risk is a subject that has dominated my career. London, like so many other mega cities around the world, grew and flourished because of maritime trade and port connections. Axiomatically, this means that these cities are close to the sea and potentially vulnerable to high tides, tidal surges and the like.  The topography is also relatively flat, facilitating reasonably cost effective building and development. The Americans tend to call these large flat coastal cities 'Delta cities'. 

Tidal flooding has affected parts of London for centuries with records going back before the building of Westminster Abbey in the 11th Century (the Abbey is incidentally built on slightly higher ground than its surroundings, which afford some degree of flood protection, and this principle of sitting your most valuable property on higher ground is of course one of the first principles of flood risk management).

By the 1870s Londoners recognised the need for a framework to protect the city from tidal flooding and the Metropolis Management Amendment Act of 1879 was one of the world's first pieces of flood risk legislation instituted. It obliged the riverside owners of land to maintain a consistent level along their river frontage and so protect themselves and neighbouring people and land. This legislation has been transferred elsewhere, but its effects in London probably preserved hundreds if not thousands of lives during the North Sea tidal surge of 1953. The city also escaped near miss tidal flooding during the 1960s.  By 1972 Parliament committed to building the Thames Barrier and the next generation of tidal defences. The barrier was completed and became operational by the early 1980s.

I became the second manager of the Thames Barrier in 1994, whilst working for the Environment Agency (and its predecessor organisation the National Rivers Authority).  My prime responsibility was protecting London from flooding and making sure the whole system worked reliably and properly.

The closure criteria for the barrier are tightly prescribed and flood defence closure decisions are always taken on strong expectation of unusually high tides. In the early 1980s closures were averaging at about two per year.  But by the mid 1990s that number had increased to an average of seven or eight per year.

This observation, set against increasing international scientific opinion that climate change was happening - and happening quickly - led us to embark on the Thames Estuary TE 2100 study. This tried to assess flood risk management options for London with 100 years of climate change and sea level rise factored into account. It concluded that there was a high degree of resilience and adaptability in the 1970's designs, which if properly maintained and operated, would continue to provide London with high protection standards for several more decades.

 London's energy efficiency

Energy use in cities is another fundamental part of the sustainability agenda. Energy use in buildings accounts for 80 per cent of the carbon footprint of London. With new buildings it is relatively easy to design for carbon efficiency using guidance such as BREAM and the Code for Sustainable Homes. But looking at the London skyline, with its many existing buildings, it is clear that retro-fitting of cooling, heating and lighting systems is much needed.

Initiatives such as the London Green Fund and LEEF (the London Energy Efficiency Fund) launched in August 2011, are making technology and grants available to improve existing public buildings, such as schools and hospitals.

We should also apply the energy hierarchy - that of firstly seeking to minimise raw energy use, then of looking for efficient distribution and sharing of energy within distribution systems and with neighbours, and finally looking to the prime source of energy and looking to renewable sources wherever possible. The London Mayor has adopted the international target of achieving an 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050.  He has also set a strategy to achieve a 60 per cent reduction by 2025. If this ambitious target can be achieved, then London will be at the leading the world, demonstrating how we can achieve a better way of living, very much in tune with CIWEM's own aspirations. 

I see the challenge for all of us members and those associated with CIWEM to continue to think of what we can do professionally and personally.  We must ask ourselves: are we contributing to a cleaner, fairer and more sustainable world, and laying sound foundations for the future?  Or are we making things harder for future generations?

London's past achievements inspire me with optimism and a belief that we can be successful, and I hope that many of the concepts of sustainability will be applied in other parts of the world.

During my year as president of CIWEM, I hope to hear from members and supporters of the institution about new innovations and best practices, and I will, in turn, seek to promote these more widely. As Alvaro Garcia Linera, vice president of Bolivia said when introducing new environmental legislation for his country: 'Earth is the mother of all. This legislation establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of regeneration.'