Climate Change and Population Increase Stimulates the Impending Water Crisis

Improved water management, monitoring, and forecasting are needed in the face of a looming global water crisis, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and partners said in a report published on Tuesday. 

Floods, droughts, and other water-related hazards increase due to climate change, but at the same time, the number of people experiencing “water stress” continues to rise. 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year, and this number is expected to surpass 5 billion by 2050. 

Petteri Taalas, the World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, says that “Increasing temperatures are resulting in global and regional precipitation changes, leading to shifts in rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, with a major impact on food security and human health and well-being.” This past year alone has seen extreme, water-related events. Across Asia, extreme rainfall caused massive flooding in Japan, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and India. 

Flood-related disasters have risen by 134% compared to the last two decades, and most deaths and economic losses occurred in Asia. The number and duration of droughts also increased by 29% over the past two decades, and most deaths from droughts were in Africa. 

In the past 20 years, terrestrial water storage - the summation of all water on the land surface and subsurface, including soil moisture, snow, and ice - has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year. Some of the biggest changes are occurring in Antarctica and Greenland, but many areas are experiencing significant water losses in areas that had traditionally provided water supply. 

Overall, the world is behind schedule on the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 (SDG 6) to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. 3.6 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services, and 2.3 billion people lacked basic hygiene services. Seventy-five countries reported water efficiency levels below average, including 10 with extremely low levels. 

A WMO assessment of 101 countries for which data are available found that:

• There is inadequate interaction among climate services providers and information users in 43% of WMO Members;

• Data is not collected for basic hydrological variables in approximately 40% of them;

• Hydrological data is not made available in 67% of them;

• End-to-end riverine flood forecasting and warning systems are absent or inadequate in 34% of those who provided data;

• End-to-end drought forecasting and warning systems are lacking or inadequate in 54% of them.

Investing in Water Access for Vulnerable Communities To Fight COVID-19

COVID-19 has revealed a critical fault in the lack of clean, safe water. Three billion people globally lack handwashing facilities at home. While the pandemic has thrown this crisis into sharper focus than ever before, people worldwide have had no water in their homes, schools, and even medical facilities for decades.

80% of illnesses are linked to dirty water and poor sanitation in many developing countries, and often factors like income, geography, and gender determines who has access to clean water

In developing countries, approximately 80 percent of illnesses are linked to dirty water and poor sanitation. Frequent and proper handwashing requires education, access to a water source, pipes, pumps, and facilities where people can turn on a tap. Safe water access programs are often prioritized in cities, leaving 8 in 10 people in rural areas without access. 

The PepsiCo Foundation announced on March 18th, 2021, that the company has helped more than 55 million people gain access to safe water globally since 2006 and catalyzed nearly $700 million in additional funding to support safe water access investments in partnership with leading non-profits worldwide. This marks significant progress towards PepsiCo’s goal of reaching 100 million people with safe water by 2030.

The Foundation also announced new programs to help communities recover and rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

• Building sanitation facilities and community water systems for dispersed rural communities with WaterAid in Colombia and Acción Contra El Hambre in Guatemala in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

• Providing microcredit loans to families in Brazil with water.org and IDB to build water infrastructure in homes.

• Working with local entrepreneurs to provide affordable, clean water to communities in Bangladesh with BRAC.

• Installing water access points and increasing hygiene education in Hyderabad, India, with Safe Water Network.

• Providing affordable washing units in homes and handwashing stations in high-density areas in South Africa.

Handwashing and hygiene infrastructure can prevent future pandemics before they start and improve global health and livelihoods on a massive scale — but only if people continue to prioritize these initiatives with community-based interventions that address existing inequalities.