Water Scarcity and Sanitation: Where’s our water?

By: Lawrence Liu

 

At first glance, water accessibility may not seem like a problem: walk into the kitchen, turn the tap, and boom, water. Right? Maybe for most, but for over a quarter of the population,1 going to get water every day might look like an hour-long trek to the nearest well/borehole. Even worse, others might have no choice but to drink water from ponds or puddles, which could be potentially lethal. On top of poor access to water, nearly half the population does not have proper access to sanitation, leading to the transmission of diseases, reducing social and economic development, and over a million deaths per year.1,2 The UN has seen the effects of lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation and now recognizes them as fundamental human rights, calling for efforts to help countries in need. The problem of water scarcity has only gotten worse over time, as can be seen when looking at the past.

In hunter-gatherer societies that existed tens of thousands of years ago, people were constantly on the move, with a relatively low risk of waterborne disease,3 drinking from, for the most part, uncontaminated water. However, with the rise of agricultural societies came a more sedentary lifestyle and an increase in population. As people began to settle closer together, disease risk grew considerably. There was usually one community water source, so that any contamination would have a highly detrimental effect. At the time, sanitation and sewage systems were also essentially nonexistent, leading to pathogens' spread.3 Thankfully, awareness of water quality and safety increased over time, along with methods to cleanse polluted water, such as filtering and boiling.3 Progress was gradually made in terms of technology and sanitation, and only in the 1800s were the first records of water shortages ever created as a result of urbanization in England.4 As a result, the need for clean water and sanitation was acknowledged. As such, public water systems were created, legislation was passed to control pollution, and the UN began its Millennium Development Goals, including getting safe drinking water to half the population.4 Seeing results, the UN further launched the WASH, or Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All initiative, which aims to spread water and sanitation to all people.

After reading about the many efforts to spread clean water and hygiene, you might be wondering how there are still people and whole regions left without access. Several factors prevent widespread access, including agriculture, pollution, climate change, and lack of infrastructure. Out of available freshwater, a whopping seventy percent is used on agriculture, with the rest split between industrial and domestic purposes.5 On top of the massive amount of water used in farming, agriculture can also lead to pollution, with manure and fertilizer sometimes becoming runoff and polluting sources or seeping through the dirt and contaminating groundwater.8 Climate change is also a significant factor, affecting local water supplies by evaporating existing water and causing drought, or even overloading existing infrastructure when rain does occur due to more intense weather in the future.5 Perhaps the most major problem is a lack of water infrastructure. Having enough water locally is one problem, but to treat and transport it is another beast in itself. In the US alone, 6 billion gallons of water are lost daily from leaky pipes,6 demonstrating that infrastructure still requires significant improvements even in such a 'developed' country.

Unfortunately, poorer families that live in rural communities are at much greater risk of not having proper access to clean water and sanitation. Generally, low GDP per capita and rural access correlate to inadequate access to clean water,1 a significant problem for those living in the regions. Looking past the obvious, a lack of easy access to clean water and sanitation leads to a major loss in time daily for adults, especially women, as the job of fetching water every day usually falls on the women in families.7 Lack of sanitation further compounds the loss in time daily, which leads to a lower quality of education, millions of hours spent on just finding water which in turn causes billions of dollars to be lost yearly, and over a million deaths a year. 

Despite looking very grim, there are some things you can do to help out, starting in your own community. Educating about water scarcity is a great way to spread awareness about the issue and cause people to be more conscious about their actions. However, on the whole, improving infrastructure is the best way to prevent water scarcity. Recycling water, enhancing treatment and transport, and enacting stricter policies on clean water are all viable methods to tackle the issue.

Although severe problems, water scarcity, and sanitation do not have to be as such. If all countries came together to tackle these issues, the world would be a much better place. Society as a whole would be pushed forwards, filled with more educated, productive people.

Works Cited:

“A Brief History of Water and Health from Ancient Civilizations to Modern Times | IWA Publishing.” Iwapublishing.com, 2012, www.iwapublishing.com/news/brief-history-water-and-health-ancient-civilizations-modern-times. Accessed 7 Dec. 2021.

Felter, Claire, and Kali Robinson. “Water Stress: A Global Problem That’s Getting Worse.” Council on Foreign Relations, 22 Apr. 2021, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/water-stress-global-problem-thats-getting-worse.

Reid, Kathryn. “Global Water Crisis: Facts, FAQs, and How to Help.” World Vision, 16 Apr. 2019, www.worldvision.org/clean-water-news-stories/global-water-crisis-facts.

Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “Clean Water and Sanitation.” Our World in Data, 1 July 2021, ourworldindata.org/water-access#rural-households-often-lag-behind-on-water-access. Accessed 8 Dec. 2021.

Schleifer, Leah. “7 Reasons We’re Facing a Global Water Crisis.” Www.wri.org, 24 Aug. 2017, www.wri.org/insights/7-reasons-were-facing-global-water-crisis.

United Nations. “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene | UN-Water.” UN-Water, 2010, www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/.

World Health Organization. “Sanitation.” Who.int, World Health Organization: WHO, 14 June 2019, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sanitation.