Outline and significance of the lack of access to clean drinking water:
Water is essential for human life, which explains why approximately 60% of the human body is composed of water1. A vital macro determinant or upstream of health is the accessibility and condition of water. However, water can become the source of pain, sickness and death to at least 2 billion people 2worldwide who drink faeces-contaminated water, which can transmit the pathogens for typhoid, schistosomiasis, Buruli ulcer, trachoma, polio, dysentery, diarrhea, onchocerciasis (river blindness) and cholera. Annually, diarrhea alone results in 502,000 million deaths3. Diarrheal diseases account for more than 4% of the total global burden of disease in DALYs.4 The intake of contaminated drinking water increases the risk of contracting water-borne diarrhoeal disease, which may result in malnutrition due to excessive loss of fluids and nutrients. Globally, 844 million people are still deprived of a basic source of drinking water, defined by WHO as ‘an improved water source located within a round trip of 30 minutes.’ These people without basic water services lose a total of over 40 billion productive hours every year, taking time away from education and work, and resulting in lowered incomes and literacy rates. Additionally, water-borne diseases result in 443 million school days missed every year. Daily, 4,500 kids die due to water-borne illnesses.
Factors contributing to the health problem:
Water can be contaminated in a variety of ways: Fertilisers, sewage and animals falling into wells can pollute groundwater and Manure, corpses of deceased animals, algae and chemical pollution (by crop spraying) can pollute rivers. Globally, at least 80% of sewer water is released into the seas and rivers without any treatment.
Droughts and water scarcity lead to food insecurity and malnutrition, as water is essential for crops to grow well. On the other end of the weather spectrum, floods and tsunamis destroy crops, contaminate waterways with mud and debris, destroy buildings, leaving displaced people and taking lives. Location is another factor that contributes to the lack of access of clean drinking water, as :Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania were worst-off, with 42% and 48% respectively lacking access to a basic water supply in 2015, 5 out of the 8 regions identified in the 2017 Joint Monitoring Plan (JMP) had access to basic or safely-managed supplies for at least 90% of their population and Northern America and Europe, and Australia and New Zealand were especially well off, with 99% and 100% of the population having access to at least a basic drinking water service. Additionally, People living in rural areas are almost 5 times more likely than their urban counterparts to lack access to a basic drinking water service (19% of rural population compared to 4% of urban population). The risky practice of drinking surface water has been essentially eliminated in urban areas, but 4% of rural populations still get their drinking water directly from potentially contaminated lakes, streams and rivers and rural inhabitants are consistently less likely to have access to water available on premises, available when needed and free from contamination. For these three criteria, the rural population scored 26, 13 and 34 percentile points lower (respectively) than the urban population. In nations, areas and territories for which 100% access to basic drinking water services has not yet been reached, there tends to be considerable inequity in terms of water access between the rich and poor. In 2015, for all areas for whom data was supplied in the JMP, a higher percentage of the richest quintet had access to basic water services than the poorest quintet. Furthermore, the poorest quintet consistently had the highest rate of drinking surface water, and in many cases the richest quintet did not drink surface water at all. This inequity was most marked in Angola, where 0% of the richest quintet relied on surface water, but 68% of the poorest quintet did. Typically, conflicts, natural disasters and economic crises result in some combination of an unstable government, depleted funds, poor infrastructure (due to structural damage or lack of maintenance) and many people in need or immediate assistance. When a country is currently in a fragile state and the focus is on providing immediate disaster relief, it can be very difficult for the government to allocate its limited resources to repairing and improving the water supply. In 2015, 183 million of the 484 million inhabitants of fragile states lacked access to a basic drinking water service. Simply by not living in a fragile state, a person’s likelihood of having access to a basic drinking water service is multiplied by four.
The central strategies that are being used to combat the issue :
The United Nations declared the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) in 2000, to be achieved by 2015. The 7th goal was to half the number of people deprived of safe drinking water and sanitation, which was achieved in 2010; resulting in 91% of the world using an improved source of drinking water. But not all regions met the target. The Caucasus and Central Asia, Northern Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania fell short, leaving 663 million people who lacked an improved drinking water source. Even though the MDG was met, with 2.6 billion people gaining access to improved sources of drinking water since 1990, a great deal of work was still needed.
In 2015, the United Nations set out 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) to be met by 2030. SDG 6 is to: “By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all”. The criteria of SDG 6 now include access to hygiene, which was not part of the MDGs, and specifies on the safety and affordability of the drinking water. For a water source to be classified as safely managed, a source of water must be accessible on premises, uncontaminated, and obtainable when needed.
There are also other organizations and charities trying to make a difference; one of them is Charity: Water. Charity: Water collaborates with the locals to fund the best sustainable solution whether it’s a well, a BioSand Filter, a system of pipes, or a system that collects rainwater. After funding a project, they initiate a local Water Committee to ensure that the water keeps flowing for many years. Fully relying on private donors to cover their operating costs, 23,377 water projects were funded, in 24 countries around the world, resulting in 7,128,152 people getting clean water. For $10,000, an entire community could get an access to a clean source of water.
why we need more effort:
There is a sheer need for more effort to be able to meet the SDG, as 68 countries who have below 95% basic water coverage are progressing too slowly to achieve SDG 6 by 2030. 10 are backsliding, and only 15 are making appropriate progress. Furthermore, the global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. This will lead to water withdrawals by the agricultural sector to increase the food production to feed the extra 2 billion mouths. Further water use will result from higher demands of energy production and for the other goods required by the growing population. Worldwide, 2 in 3 people will be influenced by water stress (a per-capita water supply of lower than 1700 m3 per year) within the next 10 years, and should our current rate of consumption of water stay the same, the water demand will be 40% more than the supply by 2030. Furthermore, Climate change results in more extreme weather and natural disasters. Droughts reduce water availability and force farmers to depend more heavily on irrigation rather than rainfall, while floods and tsunamis decrease the quality of water by damaging water infrastructure and sweeping debris and pollutants into local water supplies. Global warming will result in temperature rise, which will diminish our freshwater sources, as high temperatures increase the rate of evaporation of water from the surfaces of rivers, oceans and lakes, also, rivers will not be replenished by glaciers and snow cover during warmer months as they will not be able to store as much water. The sea levels will also rise due to the melting of polar ice into the oceans, which will make the freshwater salty in the coastal zones. It is also expected that run-off rainwater will be reduced in many areas due to the change of rainfall patterns (caused by climate change), which will contribute to higher incidence of water stress.