Why We Celebrate Earth Month: Climate Change and Water Access
How climate change threatens safe water — and what that means for water-stressed communities around the world.
It is fairly easy for many people in developed countries to take water for granted. Water comes from a tap or a bottle. We can trust that it will not make us sick, that it will be there consistently at all times of the year, and that we will always have enough water for our needs. Communities that rely on natural water sources do not have this luxury.
For people in water-stressed areas, finding safe water is a struggle. It’s not just because women and children have to walk long distances to collect water for their families, sometimes taking hours out of their day and putting their personal safety at risk. It’s not just that many of the water sources around their communities may become contaminated and put the community at risk of waterborne diseases. In the era of climate change, these communities may see their primary water source literally disappearing due to climate change or overuse.
Where does a community go when its primary water source disappears?
Around this time of year, we often hear that “We only have one planet.” This has often been a warning to admonish people to recycle or turn their thermostats down. However, it’s becoming increasingly evident that things cannot continue the way they are if we want to have a habitable Earth in the future.
Thanks to rising temperatures, overextended resources, and pollution, safe water resources are becoming increasingly vulnerable worldwide. UNICEF WaSH has predicted that as much as half of the world’s population may live in water-stressed areas by 2025.
Around four billion people experience water scarcity for at least one month of every year. Moreover, areas with limited water access may be the most vulnerable to future water scarcity. While these communities have historically contributed the least to climate change, they may ultimately suffer the most.
In honor of Earth Month, let’s talk about climate change and the problem of increasing water scarcity — and what we can do about it.
Climate Change and the Water Cycle
Currently, climate change poses one of the biggest threats to water security. Some climate models propose that rising temperatures will lead to greater precipitation variability — or more extreme precipitation and drought. Both conditions have dire consequences for communities in water-stressed areas. Changing weather patterns can mean the disappearance or degradation of nearby water sources — which may be the only water resources available to the community.
Rising ocean temperatures lead to more water evaporating into the air, which leads to more frequent precipitation. In addition, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which means that precipitation is heavier when it does happen. In the past few years, we’ve seen increasingly extreme weather leading to increasingly large and dangerous storms.
In areas with heavy precipitation, especially in coastal areas, heavier rainfall and more dangerous storms lead to more frequent flooding. Flooding can damage buildings and infrastructure, depriving communities of water access.
In addition, as bodies of water receive increased runoff from rainwater, they may grow more vulnerable to contamination. Human and animal waste can find its way into lakes and rivers, making the water unsafe for human use. For communities without running water or adequate water purification systems, this may mean that the only available water source is actively detrimental to the community’s health, leaving them vulnerable to diseases like cholera, dysentery, and typhoid.
This year, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water. The risk of waterborne diseases affects the health and quality of life of the entire community, especially children.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the percentage of the world’s population that lived without safe drinking water decreased significantly — partially because of organizations like H2O4ALL providing safe water systems to water-stressed communities. However, because of changing weather patterns and the increasing threat to water safety around the world, many communities may find their water systems at risk if nothing changes in the near future.
Drought and Degradation
While coastal regions may face heavier precipitation, arid areas may be facing the opposite problem. Dry areas around the world are experiencing high temperatures and more prolonged droughts. These conditions often lead to desertification. Rising temperatures and decreasing precipitation cause land to degrade and local water sources to dry out.
For communities that live in those areas, desertification often means losing the means to support themselves. As the soil is stripped of moisture, it becomes increasingly difficult to grow anything. Families cannot grow food or raise animals to support their families.
In Africa, desertification affects more and more people every year. More than 65% of land in Africa is degraded, with 45% of African land affected by desertification. In the past few years, the percentage of desertified land has grown — and communities living in dry regions have suffered for it. More than 400 million Africans live in arid areas that may become vulnerable to desertification if current trends continue.
Another result of desertification is the disappearance of local water sources. Some regions are seeing lakes disappear or rapidly lose volume due to drought and overuse. In North Africa, Lake Chad has diminished by 90% since the 1960s. As a result, millions of people in Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon have lost their primary source. The increasing scarcity of vital water resources has exacerbated food insecurity and conflict in the region. More than 2 million people have been displaced because of conflict and poverty.
Already, the average woman in Africa or Asia walks more than six kilometres a day to collect water for her family. For people living in desertified areas, the distance between home and the nearest water source may be much greater than that. As water in arid regions becomes scarcer and scarcer, women find themselves walking longer and longer distances to find water.
Recently in Meru County, Kenya, H2O4ALL spoke with several women in the communities of Ntalami and Nairiri to prepare for two future projects in the area. The women spoke of spending all day looking for water for their families. In recent years, they said, the water sources they had once been able to rely on had disappeared. Millions of women in sub-Saharan Africa share the same predicament.
Water is life, and nothing can thrive in a region without water. If current climate change trends continue, more land will likely be lost to desertification — and millions more people may lose their homes.
Looking Towards the Future
As weather conditions worldwide grow more extreme, many communities stand to lose safe water access. How to deal with water scarcity and help communities who already suffer from water scarcity may become a significant concern in the future.
Promoting safe water access in water-stressed areas is more important than ever. As communities in water-stressed communities lose the ability to rely on natural water sources, they must have the tools to protect themselves from contaminated and unsafe water.
Filtration technology may become helpful in many communities without safe water. Several of H2O4ALL’s client communities have been empowered to protect themselves from waterborne diseases through ceramic point-of-use filters, which can provide a family of seven with safe water for several years.
In addition, the past few years have seen multiple advancements in water filtration technology. It has even become possible to remove PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” from water through filtration. While most of these technologies are not widespread enough to provide large-scale solutions, they provide hope for the future.
Water-harvesting technology may also provide a partial solution. In recent years, there have been multiple advancements to not only purify contaminated water but to produce water from the air. Atmospheric water harvesting can produce drinking water by collecting moisture from the air. However, water-harvesting technology isn’t widespread enough yet to be a surefire solution, and it’s not clear how longterm use of water-harvesting technology could affect the environment.
For more than a decade, H2O4ALL has worked to help water-stressed communities worldwide by providing sustainable safe water access. However, if we want a future where everyone has access to safe water, providing water access to water-stressed communities will not be enough. We must also work to stop water scarcity and water pollution from becoming more widespread in order that our children and grandchildren may grow up with safe water.
