The Covid-19 crisis has been a powerful reminder of the urgent need for improved water, sanitation and hygiene around the world.
Particularly for people living in densely populated urban communities, where social distancing is very difficult, the importance of good hygiene has never been more obvious; yet, many millions are at risk because they lack access to handwashing facilities or clean water.
But as governments grapple with this issue, the crisis of climate change continues to threaten the very ability of water providers to source and distribute clean water. The truth is that over the long term, climate change will wreak much greater damage to society than Covid-19. As we focus on the immediate crisis of the pandemic, we need to be careful not to lose sight of the next challenge which awaits.
According to the United Nations, by 2050 around 40 percent of the world’s population is projected to live under severe water stress; and 685 million people living in over 570 cities will face an additional decline in freshwater availability of at least 10 percent due to climate change. The steps we take now, as we rebuild from Covid-19, will determine whether we can adapt in time to a warming planet.
During last week’s World Water Week, taking place virtually rather than in the usual location of Stockholm, Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) convened two sessions exploring the issue of water scarcity and climate change in different regions.
In southern Zambia, climate change is severely impacting the water supply, affecting towns such as Livingstone, on the border with Zimbabwe. Hundreds of thousands of people are dependent on water supply from the regional utility Southern Water & Sanitation Company (SWSC).
This problem reached a climax in 2018-2019, when the region only received 20-30 percent of the normal annual rainfall. This led to a number of serious challenges for the utility: reduced water from the Zambezi river, several water reservoirs and dams drying up, a reduction of revenue because of the lower volume of water it could supply, and energy blackouts because of lack of hydroelectricity, which affected its ability to pump water.
Ensuring utilities like SWSC can operate sustainably in the face of climate change is essential if water coverage, particularly for the poorest, is to be improved. But the problems are too fundamental to be solved simply by drilling new boreholes to access water—a utility needs to invest in all its operations, including financial management, governance, customer engagement and staff capacity.
Over the past 18 months WSUP has helped SWSC to initiate a strengthening program which we believe will help SWSC adapt to the climate crisis. The program has used a number of WSUP tools based on our 15 years of experience, including a framework for helping utilities analyse their business areas, an eight-step process to guide utilities through the journey of change. The work with SWSC is supported by the Swiss-based Wasser fuer Wasser.
SWSC is now implementing this program with priority areas identified including reducing groundwater pollution through improved sanitation management, and stronger customer engagement.
In Bangladesh, climate change is causing a very different set of issues. The country is one of the most climate-vulnerable in the world, because of low elevation, high population density, and inadequate infrastructure.
The country faces a wide range of challenges to sustainable water resource management, exacerbated by climate change—in urban areas, severe water pollution from industrial and household waste; in coastal areas, sea-level rise and pronounced saltwater intrusion.
Two pieces of research commissioned by WSUP shed light on the scale of the challenge in cities. The first, conducted by the University of Waterloo, Canada, looked at attitudes to freshwater pollution in Dhaka, a city encircled by rivers and lakes full of dangerous waste.
It found that a lack of clarity at the institutional level—with no less than 16 state, civil society and private sector actors responsible for water policy and regulation—was hindering progress. Most companies appeared to place a higher value on economics, with many judging it was better to take a risk and pay a fine than comply with cumbersome bureaucracy. And yet at the same time, nearly half of households surveyed recognized their role in also polluting waterways and almost 80 percent said they were willing to pay substantially more for improving the quality of their water supply.
A second study by the University of Technology Sydney examined the frequency of specific pathogens in disadvantaged urban communities in Dhaka to understand how poor sanitation leads to health problems in those communities.
The study found high traces of pathogens in almost all locations studied, with an increase during the wet season. With climate change expected to result in increased rainfall in the country, this causes a particular concern for the health of those living in vulnerable communities in urban Bangladesh and highlights the need for significantly improved sanitation systems in these communities.
These important initiatives in Zambia and Bangladesh give an insight into how climate change is affecting the supply of clean water, safe sanitation and good hygiene, and hint at the actions needed to tackle the looming crisis.
As communities, utilities and governments look to rebuild after Covid-19, it is essential this is done with the growing climate crisis in mind. WSUP stands ready to help them do that.
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