Without water there is no sustainable development

The data from the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Report are devastating. Before the pandemic, at least 2.2 billion people in the world did not have access to safe drinking water and 4.2 billion people lacked sanitation. The same report estimates that water scarcity could displace some 700 million people by 2030.

Guaranteeing the availability of water, its sustainable management and sanitation for all is included as Goal 6 (“Clean Water and Sanitation”) among the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG) established by the United Nations in 2015. As figures show, we are still far from achieving it.

The most vulnerable areas

We are in a water emergency scenario, where the sum of the effects of climate change -with marked changes in rainfall and an increase in temperature- with the effects derived from the unstoppable increase in the demand for water resources -due to population growth and the socioeconomic development – ​​is causing a serious negative impact on the availability (in terms of quality and quantity) of fresh water in many regions of the planet.

Where the resource is scarce, a feedback effect is thus produced due to the high exploitation in proportion to the fresh water available, which in turn causes high water stress.

Many of the areas with high water stress are precisely the least developed, the ones that are furthest from achieving the SDGs. In these cases, the availability of safe fresh water and sanitation are especially critical for achieving the SDGs that are included in the human dimension of the 2030 Agenda goals, although they are also critical for achieving SDGs in the environmental and socioeconomic dimensions.

On the other hand, advancing in the water objective inevitably requires progress in the governance dimension.

With this analysis, it is necessary to reformulate and redefine the three traditional dimensions (social, economic and environmental) of sustainable development and water.

Water, poverty and hunger

The interrelationships between the different SDGs are highly conditioned by the geographical context in which the analysis is applied. This is the case with SDG 6, for which many of these interrelationships with other SDGs are extremely sensitive to the degree of development of the population.

In the world, 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty (SDG 1). Of these, approximately half are young people and children under 18 years of age. Although the lack of water and sanitation is not the only cause of poverty, it is a key factor.

Some 1 billion poor people do not have sanitation or access to drinking water, and approximately 437 million are deprived of both. The largest poor population is concentrated precisely in two of the regions with the greatest water stress: South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Closely related to poverty, almost 78% of the world’s poor population suffer from chronic hunger. This population is fundamentally rural, and its diet is based on agriculture and, to a lesser extent, livestock, both highly dependent on the availability of water.

The regions of the world with the highest prevalence of food insecurity also correspond to sub-Saharan Africa and central and southern Asia. The water stress situation in these areas does not allow water for irrigation and thus reduce food insecurity.

Sanitation and health

Access to safe drinking water and sanitation has important direct, but also indirect, effects on health. Untreated water is a vehicle for pathogens, and without water, personal hygiene, if any, is incomplete or inadequate.

The lack of sanitation generates surface water masses favorable for the development of disease vector organisms. The lack of control and treatment in the collection of fresh water and wastewater discharge can also pose a threat to health due to the existence of chemical contaminants.

Irrigation and food processing with untreated wastewater is another cause of disease transmission.

Inequality in access to water

Inequality in access to water and sanitation generates economic inequality, and vice versa, in a system that feeds back. The poorest not only have less access to water, but they also have less access to decision-making centers on resource management. This also makes them the most vulnerable to extreme events (droughts and floods).

In rural areas, moreover, the inequality gap in access to and control of water resources is greater, being more pronounced between genders. There, the lack of access to drinking water and sanitation has a greater impact on women and girls, who are (in 8 out of 10 households without access to running water) responsible for collecting and transporting water. A double effect is generated that makes it difficult for girls to attend school: to the limited means of hygiene is added their work for the water supply at home.

Water poverty and development

In the current scenario of water emergency, water is a critical factor in sustainable development. If we want to advance in this, especially in the areas with the greatest water stress, it is essential to develop the necessary tools to ensure access to the resource, which will be progressively scarcer and more in demand.

It is in these areas where, moreover, the greatest poverty in the world is concentrated. For this reason, some of the water sustainability strategies used in developed countries are useless: there is no saving if there is no water, there is no reuse if there is no sanitation, and there is no management if there is no infrastructure.

Progress on water-related goals and targets is still far from satisfactory. Today, March 22, the United Nations Water Conference 2023 kicks off. Let’s hope it sets the agenda for bold and truly driving action – especially in the most deprived regions – that water deserves.

Javier Lillo Ramos, Professor of Geodynamics and researcher in geology and global change, King Juan Carlos University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.