Resilience Point of Views: Water and Sanitation

Access to Water and Sanitation Services

Flowing through every part of the economy, water is a fundamental for cities and their residents. Access to safely managed water and sanitation and sound management of freshwater ecosystems are essential to economic prosperity, health and development outcomes, and to environmental sustainability. Yet cities are not managing water well, due above all to failures of policies, governance, leadership, and markets. The existing challenges include inadequate access, poorly managed risks, and increasing competition for water resources. Climate change will amplify all these challenges. Already, 4.5 billion people, about two-thirds of the world’s population, rely on sanitation that puts their own or their neighbors’ health at risk from water borne diseases, and 2.1 billion people live without readily available, safe water supplies at home. Today, more than half the world’s population, roughly 4.3 billion people, live in areas where demand for water resources outstrips sustainable supplies for at least part of the year. With 60% of the world’s population anticipated to be living in cities in 2030 (over two billion new urban residents) cities will not be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, such as food and energy security, liveability, and climate change, without improving how they manage their water resources and allow people access to reliable water and sanitation services.

Urbanization and Resource Intensification

Current trends in urban growth and resource intensification are expected to accelerate over the coming decades, especially in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The greatest challenges are seen where fast-growing populations strain systems that were designed to supply far fewer people and where much of the clean water available is lost due to dilapidated, poorly constructed, or centuries-old infrastructure that is poorly operated and maintained. Water supply and sanitation (WSS) utilities in the Global South are under tremendous pressure to increase coverage and service levels (including to the urban poor), which often relegates increasing infrastructure resilience of new and existing assets to a secondary priority due to budget constraints. This is coupled with environmental standards and rising living standards and expectations of the city’s residents.

source :

https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/downloadable_resources/UR/Resilience-Point-of-View-Water.pdf