The consequences of ignoring water risks in the US

Failure to address water risks and other critical issues posed by aging or inadequate infrastructure could further impede the US economy and America's attempts to regain global competitiveness on a number of fronts, a new study has warned.

That is the conclusion of Infrastructure 2010: Investment Imperative, the fourth in an annual series of reports produced by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young that examine infrastructure trends around the globe.

Earlier reports focused on transportation and the latest report updates previous findings with information showing that the US continues to lag behind Asia and Europe in investments in transit systems.

In addition this year, the report takes its first hard look at water issues. "Falling behind global competitors, the United States struggles to gain traction in planning and building the critical infrastructure investments that are necessary to ensure future economic growth and support a rapidly expanding population," the report states. "Perhaps no other infrastructure category presents the United States with greater challenges than water."

Howard Roth, global real estate leader at Ernst & Young, underscored the urgency of the infrastructure problems at the launch of the report yesterday.

"Over the past several years that we have been co-producing this report, perhaps the most troubling conclusion overall is that the world is moving ahead in rebuilding and expanding its infrastructure without the United States," Roth said. "Bottom line, the US is seriously threatening not only its quality of life now and for the future but also its very basic ability to compete economically with the rest of the world."

In the media briefing, Roth, ULI Executive Vice President Maureen McAvey, Malcolm Bairstow, an Ernst & Young partner in London, and Mike Lucki, global construction and infrastructure leader for Ernst & Young, provided an overview of the challenges facing the US from a domestic standpoint as well as from global perspective. They also touched on possible solutions.

For the US, infrastructure was a "backburner issue" when ULI and Ernst & Young began its scrutiny of the area four years ago, the presenters said, adding that now "noncompetitive and deteriorating infrastructure systems - transportation, water, dams, and power" are of critical concern.

In the study, ULI and Ernst & Young examined 14 US cities - Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. - to illustrate the challenges facing urban America.

The problem becomes apparent when considering that the 14 cities and their greater metro areas are expected add 60 million people to their populations by 2030, McAvey and Roth said.

Overall the US is expected to add 120 million more people by 2050 despite existing water constraints, the presenters noted, adding that the country's water footprint is already among the largest in the world and almost double the global average.

"If you look at infrastructure vs population grown, we're on a totally unsustainable path," McAvey said.