Over 4 Billion Lack Safe Drinking Water: Study

A group of environmental scientists from various institutions has created a computer simulation that reveals over half of the world's population faces challenges in accessing safe drinking water. This study has been published in the journal Science.

In the same journal issue, Rob Hope from the University of Oxford wrote a Perspective article. He detailed the requirements for classifying an area as having safe drinking water and discussed the research team's efforts in this new study.

Earlier estimates from 2020 suggested that around 2 billion people lacked safe drinking water. However, the new research indicates that the actual number is more than twice as high.

Hope emphasizes that access to safe drinking water means individuals can obtain clean water whenever needed, without traveling, and it must be free of contaminants like bacteria or harmful chemicals.

The researchers developed their simulation using environmental and survey data from approximately 65,000 households globally. They generated maps for 135 countries to illustrate where safe drinking water is accessible.

By cross-referencing these maps with data from UNICEF, they estimated that 4.4 billion people are without safe drinking water, which is more than half of the current global population of 8 billion.

The study revealed that most people lacking safe drinking water live in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asia. Key obstacles include the presence of contaminants and insufficient infrastructure. For instance, around 650 million people in certain African regions do not have access to water delivery services.