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World Water Week highlights urbanization and clean water access
image credit: worldwaterweek (Flickr CC)
Last week Stockholm, Sweden hosted World Water Week, an annual gathering to discuss ‘the planet’s most urgent water-related issues’. Each year the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) hosts the meeting of experts, professionals and policy makers.
While traditional water shortage issues have focused on the plight of those who live in dry rural areas, this year the problem of clean water access in urban areas was also brought into focus.
According to the UN, the world population grew by 635 million people between 2000 and 2008, with 80% of those people living in urban areas. The proportion of the Earth’s urban inhabitants without access to clean water and proper sanitation is increasing.
From an AFP article:
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that within the next 15 years, 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with acute water scarcity, and that two-thirds of the world’s population could be facing shortages.
According to the head of the SIWI ‘Bad water kills more people than HIV, malaria and wars together’.
For more on Stockholm’s World Water Week see the following article in the Huffington Post:
Lack of Water Makes People Poor
Tags: population, sanitation, Stockholm, Sweden, urban, water, week, World
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