According to the latest research conducted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), as many as 3 billion people live in areas where the quality of water they use is unknown owing to the lack of data. The agency warns that this lack of knowledge may put their lives at risk.
UNEP found that a fifth of all river basins are affected by dramatic fluctuations of water availability while as many as 2.3 billion people live in countries that experience water stress and 721 million people are in a critical situation in terms of water scarcity. Unfortunately, there is very little data concerning the condition of global freshwater resources so UNEP assessed this by using Earth Observatory technologies to trace how freshwater ecosystems had changed over a long period of time.
However, this is not the only survey that rings alarm bells about freshwater. In February 2021, the renowned Science Magazine published research according to which only 14% of all the rivers in the world have avoided damage caused by human activity, with more than 50% of rivers strongly impacted, which has led to disruption to their biodiversity. Human activity has caused the spread of invasive species that have displaced large fish such as sturgeon. Rivers suffer due to overfishing, pollution, dams and farm irrigation and rising temperatures have only added to the problem. The most destroyed rivers are located in North America and western Europe. Scientific research lists the Thames in the UK and the Mississippi in the US as examples of extremely damaged rivers. Both of these flow through densely populated cities and urban areas. In turn, Latin America has the most biodiverse rivers but only 6% have avoided destructive human activity. Africa and Australia have the majority of rivers globally that enjoy a high quality of water but this is mostly relevant to those that are located far from populated areas.
The poor quality of freshwater will prevent the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as one of these assumes that every human should have access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. UNEP’s findings clearly show that we are not on track to achieve this and, on the contrary, an increasing number of indicators point to the situation becoming worse. For instance, according to the latest analysis by Pakistani researcher, Nasir Javaid, who deals with water management, Pakistan may run out of freshwater and experience absolute scarcity by 2040. He stressed that the main factors contributing to the problem are a dynamically rising population and climate change. The International Monetary Fund also listed Pakistan in third position in the ranking of those countries worst affected by water scarcity. While in 1961, every Pakistani had 3,950 cubic meters of water at their disposal, this is now 1,000 cubic meters, thus below the water scarcity threshold, and this level will only decrease.
