EIACP Programme Centre on Hygiene, Sanitation, Sewage Treatment Systems and Technology

 Water

• 2 billion people still lack basic hygiene services, including 653 million with no facility at all. (WHO/UNICEF, 2023)

• 42% of household wastewater is not treated properly, damaging ecosystems and human health. (UN-Water, 2023)

• Only 11% of the estimated total of domestic and industrial wastewater produced is currently being reused. (UNEP, 2023)

• The untapped potential for wastewater reuse is around 320 billion m3 per year, with the potential to supply more than 10 times the current global desalination capacity. (UNEP, 2023)

• Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene are responsible for the deaths of around 1,000 children under 5 every day. (UNICEF, 2023)

• 2.2 billion still live without safely managed drinking water, including 115 million people who drink surface water. (WHO/UNICEF, 2023)

• The 1.9 billion people living in fragile contexts are twice as likely to lack safely managed drinking water and basic hygiene and 1.5 times as likely to lack safely managed sanitation services. (WHO/UNICEF, 2023)

• To achieve SDG 6 – water and sanitation for all by 2030 – will require a six-fold increase in current global rates of progress on drinking water, a five-fold increase for sanitation, and a three-fold increase for hygiene. (UN-Water, 2023)

• In 2022, globally, at least 1.7 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. Microbial contamination of drinking-water as a result of contamination with faeces poses the greatest risk to drinking-water safety.

• In 2022, 73% of the global population (6 billion people) used a safely managed drinking-water service – that is, one located on premises, available when needed, and free from contamination.

• Water-related disasters have dominated the list of disasters over the past 50 years and account for 70% of all deaths related to natural disasters. (World Bank, 2022)

• Only 0.5% of water on Earth is useable and available freshwater – and climate change is dangerously affecting that supply. Over the past 20 years, terrestrial water storage – including soil moisture, snow and ice – has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year, with major ramifications for water security. (WMO, 2021)

• Over a fifth of the world’s basins have recently experienced either rapid increases in their surface water area indicative of flooding, a growth in reservoirs and newly inundated land; or rapid declines in surface water area indicating drying up of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, floodplains and seasonal water bodies. (UN-Water, 2021)

• The ambition of new climate change mitigation pledges for 2030 need to be four times higher to limit global warming to 2°C and seven times higher to get on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C. (UNEP, 2021)

• The current Arctic sea-ice cover (both annual and late summer) is at its lowest level since at least 1850 and is projected to reach practically ice-free conditions at its summer minimum at least once before 2050. (IPCC, 2021) 

• In 2021, over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries, which is expected to be exacerbated in some regions as result of climate change and population growth. 

• Safe and sufficient water facilitates the practice of hygiene, which is a key measure to prevent not only diarrhoeal diseases, but acute respiratory infections and numerous neglected tropical diseases.

• Microbiologically contaminated drinking water can transmit diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio and is estimated to cause approximately 505 000 diarrhoeal deaths each year.