SDG 6 and Water Security

‍Over 2 billion people Worldwide lack a safe supply of drinking water and over 4 billion lack effective sanitation

Water security is a critical global issue. Water means life. We need water to drink, remove waste and to grow our food. Climate change is a direct threat to water security for the entire planet. In its simplest terms a warmer climate causes more water to evaporate from both land and oceans; in turn, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water – roughly four percent more water for every degree rise in temperature. The more that water is held in the atmosphere, the less water there is to sustain life.

Food and agriculture are, in fact, the largest consumers of water, requiring one hundred times more than we use for personal needs. Up to 70 % of the water we take from rivers and groundwater goes into irrigation for food production, about 10% is used in domestic applications and 20% is used in industry. Tackling the use of fresh water by food producers is a clear and obvious priority.‍

One potential solution, among the many that are needed, to the problem of excessive water usage is vertical farming. The problem has been that, until recently, vertical farms have been relatively heavy consumers of water. One company, however, SMARTKASTM (https://smartkas.com/) has come up with an innovative set of solutions to the drawbacks of vertical farming – including, what SMARTKASTM call their ‘Water Positive System’.

SMARTKAS’TM Water Positive System is an advanced water management system that nor only includes 95% of the circulating supply of water being captured and recirculated, but also the generation of 5-15% of the yearly supply on a fully automated and self-sustainable basis. 

Besides being water positive, this also means that SMARTKASTM can release and replace approx. 10% of the existing water supply of their greenhouses each year thereby providing fresh new water to their plants. Through this SMARTKASTM manages to spare our planet’s freshwater supplies and produce fresh organic crops without sacrificing our most precious resource!

Additional advantages of the SMARTKASTM system include minimal CO2 emissions and high crop yields (compared to other food production methods).

SMARTKASTM is playing its part in enhancing water security, we all need to play our part in ensuring a supply of clean water long into the future.