According to United Nations data, nearly half of the world’s population lives in potentially water-scarce areas for at least one month each year, which may increase to between 4.8 billion and 5.7 billion by 2050, and 30% of the world’s water extraction will be lost through the water supply system. Τhese systems are mostly obsolete and require more private investment.
80% of the world’s wastewater is discharged into the environment without prior treatment, polluting rivers, lakes, and oceans, causing nearly 1 million deaths each year from water-related diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis, and typhoid fever.
A key component of solving this crisis is investing in and improving water supply and sanitation infrastructure.
The provision of safe water and climate-adaptive infrastructure for wastewater treatment is not only critical to public and environmental health, but also to a wide range of industries. Although global investment in infrastructure has increased dramatically — as of June 2019, infrastructure funds held $582 billion in assets — investment in water and sanitation infrastructure has been negligible. From 2012 to 2017, only 1.9% of commercial financing went to this sector, which has little impact on the more than 2 billion people who do not have access to safe water and sanitation today.
Although this is a very frustrating statistic, the good thing is that it can be fixed. For more than a century, many societies have provided people with safe water and sanitation facilities. The necessary technologies and solutions are available.
What is needed is capital resources, commitment, and attention to solve this problem.
At least 600 million people should have access to safe water and sanitation at home.
With information from: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/perspectives/matt-damon-water-climate-change/index.html
