UNITED NATIONS, 22 Mar: A report issued on the eve of the first major U.N. conference on water in over 45 years says 26% of the world\u2019s population doesn\u2019t have access to safe drinking water and 46% lacks access to basic sanitation.
\nThe U.N. World Water Development Report 2023, released Tuesday, painted a stark picture of the huge gap that needs to be filled to meet U.N. goals to ensure all people have access to clean water and sanitation by 2030.
\nRichard Connor, editor-in-chief of the report, told a news conference that the estimated cost of meeting the goals is between $600 billion and $1 trillion a year.
\nBut equally important, Connor said, is forging partnerships with investors, financiers, governments and climate change communities to ensure that money is invested in ways to sustain the environment and provide potable water to the 2 billion people who don\u2019t have it and sanitation to the 3.6 million in need.
\nAccording to the report, water use has been increasing globally by roughly 1% per year over the last 40 years \u201cand is expected to grow at a similar rate through to 2050, driven by a combination of population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns.\u201d
\nConnor said that actual increase in demand is happening in developing countries and emerging economies where it is driven by industrial growth and especially the rapid increase in the population of cities. It is in these urban areas \u201cthat you\u2019re having a real big increase in demand,\u201d he said.
\nWith agriculture using 70% of all water globally, Connor said, irrigation for crops has to be more efficient \u2014 as it is in some countries that now use drip irrigation, which saves water. \u201cThat allows water to be available to cities,\u201d he said.
\nAs a result of climate change, the report said, \u201cseasonal water scarcity will increase in regions where it is currently abundant \u2014 such as Central Africa, East Asia and parts of South America \u2014 and worsen in regions where water is already in short supply, such as the Middle East and the Sahara in Africa.\u201d
\nOn average, \u201c10% of the global population lives in countries with high or critical water stress\u201d \u2014 and up to 3.5 billion people live under conditions of water stress at least one month a year, said the report issued by UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
\nSince 2000, floods in the tropics have quadrupled while floods in the north mid-latitudes have increased 2.5-fold, the report said. Trends in droughts are more difficult to establish, it said, \u201calthough an increase in intensity or frequency of droughts and \u2018heat extremes\u2019 can be expected in most regions as a direct result of climate change.\u201d
\nAs for water pollution, Connor said, the biggest source of pollution is untreated wastewater. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, 22 Mar: A report issued on the eve of the first major U.N. conference on water in over 45 years says 26% of the world\u2019s population doesn\u2019t have access to safe drinking water and 46% lacks access to basic sanitation. The U.N. World Water Development Report 2023, released Tuesday, painted a stark picture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}