2024-09-02 08:36:34
The quality of the world’s most important fresh water resource is deteriorating, but the problem is that the scale of the problem is difficult to assess due to a lack of data in countries home to 3.7 billion people.
This is stated in the UN report, reports
“The poorest half of the world accounts for less than 3% of global water quality data,” the report says, adding that these countries have conducted only 4,500 lake water quality measurements out of 250,000 taken worldwide.
UN analysts estimate that, as a result of the lack of indicators and low levels of monitoring, in 2030 more than half of humanity will live in countries where there is insufficient data to make management decisions related to drought, floods, wastewater impacts and agricultural runoff.
Based on the analysis of the evolution of freshwater ecosystems, there is a need for such data. For example, in the period 2015-2019, 61% of countries identified at least one type of freshwater ecosystem, including rivers, lakes and aquifers, as being degraded. And in the period 2017-2021, this percentage dropped to 31, which, as the report says, is a “positive trend” since projects within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals were implemented in 2015.
But if we take into account “the introduction of newly available water quality data in recent observation periods,” the share of countries with degraded ecosystems is 50%, the UN reports. This means that half of the countries are experiencing a decrease in river and surface water flow, an increase in pollution, and a decline in the quality of water use. This mainly concerns countries in Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
To improve the situation with fresh water, the UN report recommends developing long-term government monitoring programs, involving the population in data collection.
Let us recall that “Cursor” wrote that due to climate change associated with global warming, famous monuments could disappear in the next 25 years.