Category Archives: Access to water

What’s in our water? Report warns of growing ‘invisible’ crisis of pollution

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Climate emergency and population growth blamed for deteriorating water quality, with ‘cocktail of chemicals’ changing as countries become richer

The planet is facing a mounting and “invisible” water pollution crisis, according to a hard-hitting World Bank report, which claims the issue is responsible for a one-third reduction in potential economic growth in the most heavily affected areas.

The study, which assembled the world’s largest database of water pollution, assesses how a combination of bacteria, sewage, chemicals and plastics suck oxygen from water supplies and transform water into poison for people and ecosystems.

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US states face water crisis as global heating increases strain on supplies

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New Mexico tops the list, followed by California, Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska as problem could intensify with global heating

A handful of US states – including New Mexico and California – are facing significant strains on their water supplies that will only intensify with global heating, according to new rankings.

Related: Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world's population, say experts

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Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world’s population, say experts

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Qatar, Israel and Lebanon top list of places with worst shortages, as climate crisis threatens more ‘day zeroes’

A quarter of the world’s population across 17 countries are living in regions of extremely high water stress, a measure of the level of competition over water resources, a new report reveals.

Experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI) warned that increasing water stress could lead to more “day zeroes” – a term that gained popularity in 2018 as Cape Town in South Africa came dangerously close to running out of water.

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Running dry: the water crisis driving migration to the US – podcast

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Nina Lakhani explores how drought and famine are fuelling the wave of migration from Central America to the US. Plus: Emma Graham-Harrison on China and the Hong Kong protests

Victor Funez walks to a cemetery in Nejapa, El Salvador, every day and fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water before trudging home. He repeats this several times a day – it’s his family’s only source of water. The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani met him as part of an investigation into how a lack of access to clean water is a major driver of migration from Central America to the US.

She tells India Rakusen that rising sea levels are destroying coastal towns in Honduras and how drought and famine have prompted a mass exodus from Guatemala. In El Salvador, meanwhile, corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problems caused by the lack of clean water.

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‘My message is simple: use the toilet’: tackling open defecation in Nigeria

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Regular patrols are helping to ensure villagers in Kano state are practising good hygiene, to improve sanitation and cut disease

When Nasiru Ibrahim goes on patrol around his village, he’s not looking out for criminal activities, or the usual community problems. Instead, Ibrahim is making sure people in Yammawar Kafawa, in northern Nigeria’s Kano state, are using toilets.

Last October, the villagers agreed to stop defecating in fields, bushes and streets, and instead use the newly-built toilets, as part of the Nigerian government’s drive to end open defecation by 2025.

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Living without water: the crisis pushing people out of El Salvador

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El Salvador will run out of water within 80 years unless radical action is taken, a study found, while corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problem

Just after 6am, Victor Funez fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water from a tap in the cemetery, balances it on his head and trudges home, where his wife waits to soak maize kernels so she can make tortillas for breakfast.

Funez, 38, stops briefly to help his daughter with some homework before heading back to the cemetery with the pink urn. This load fills large plastic milk and juice bottles used for drinking throughout the day.

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‘Hygiene is the first priority’: Nepal looks to clean up its act on sepsis

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In a country where dirty water and poor sanitation jeopardise the lives of millions, moves are afoot to improve health facilities

It was midnight when Kalpana and Rohit Agri had to take their three-day-old daughter, Kritima, to Bardiya hospital in western Nepal. She was listless and, despite the antibiotics she’d been prescribed, had developed a high fever. Hearing her struggling to breathe, they woke a neighbour to take them.

Kritima was admitted with life-threatening neonatal sepsis, probably an infection she had picked up in the hospital where she was born.

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Holy and unholy waters: a tale of two Indian rivers

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While the Ganges is sacred but heavily polluted, the Chambal’s ‘cursed’ but pristine waters have proved a blessing for locals

Cold-blooded gharials, a crocodile-like species unique to south Asia, catch the last of the day’s warmth as a setting sun paints the sky crimson above the Chambal river.

Two jackals and a jungle cat scuttle up thorny ravines that box in the expansive blue water, while the orange-beaked Indian skimmer bird glides overhead.

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Housing in sub-Saharan Africa improves but millions of people live in slums

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Study identifies major transformation in quality of living conditions, but governments urged to improve urban sanitation

From cities to the countryside, Africa has undergone a dramatic transformation in living conditions over the past 15 years, according to a new study.

But the research, based on state of the art mapping and published in science journal Nature, also found that almost half of the the urban population – 53 million people across the countries analysed – were living in slum conditions.

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Dirty water 20 times deadlier to children in conflict zones than bullets – Unicef

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World Water Day study highlights lethal nature of unsafe sanitation and hygiene for children, especially under-fives

Children under five who live in conflict zones are 20 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases linked to unsafe water than from direct violence as a result of war, Unicef has found.

Analysing mortality data from 16 countries beset by long-term conflict – including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen – the UN children’s agency also found that unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene kills nearly three times more children under 15 than war.

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Tired of dark fields and jeering men: the bride who led a ‘toilet revolution’ | Amrit Dhillon

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Komal Hadala’s hellish treks to relieve herself inspired a campaign that left her Indian village flushed with success

The day after her wedding, Komal Hadala was shaken awake at 4am by her mother-in-law. They joined a group of women who were waiting outside the house, in Nithora village, Uttar Pradesh.

“It was the time when they went outdoors to relieve themselves in the fields before men started appearing. I couldn’t believe it. It was total darkness outside. And it had been raining,” says Hadala.

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Zambian villagers await outcome of UK mining firm’s pollution case appeal

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Vedanta Resources in fresh appeal to have water contamination claim brought by 1,800 people heard in Zambia

A British mining company has appealed to the supreme court to prevent 1,800 Zambian villagers bringing a pollution case involving its subsidiary from being tried in the UK.

Lawyers for Vedanta Resources told Britain’s highest court that the case – brought by villagers who allege that their land and livelihoods were destroyed by water contamination from Vedanta-owned Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) – should be heard in Zambia instead.

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