Campos, Luiza; Olago, Daniel; Osborn, Dan; (2022) Water and the UN sustainable development goals. [Editorial comment]. UCL Open Environment , 4 , Article 29. 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000029.

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Abstract

Water is essential for life, but we need to balance human needs with those of the environment on which we depend for our wellbeing, our health and much of our wealth. Not all of us are lucky enough to have access to adequate water resources and services linked to water, such as readily available low-cost drinking water and sanitation systems. According to the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (WHO/UNICEF), hundreds of millions of people are still without access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services. Their Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report, Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2020, found that although considerable progress has been made in achieving universal access to basic water services, the proportion of improved water sources that are accessible, available and free from contamination varies widely between countries. This indicates that many countries are facing a challenge to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target for safely managed services. In addition, despite increasing the rural coverage of safely managed water services in some countries, and in other countries this coverage is similar to the urban coverage, there is a huge gap in terms of water quality. Many aquatic ecosystems (freshwater, brackish and oceanic) also are under threat with knockon consequences for humanity. Large quantities of inadequately treated or untreated wastewater are still being discharged into our surface, ground and coastal waters. The WHO reports that at least 2 billion people globally consume water from a source contaminated with faeces. Faecal contamination in the water supply system, whether rudimentary or complex, is a major cause of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A and polio. As a result, 1.2 million people die every year from water related diseases. According to the Global Water Institute, in low- and middle-income countries, almost 50% of the population can link health problems to waterborne diseases. In addition, emergent pollutants such as microplastics, antibiotics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their degradation products found in water sources and in the environment pose a health risk to humans and animals.

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