Already in 2015, more than 75% of Asia lacked safe water resources. Water scarcity mainly affects China, South Asia and the urban centers of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, about half of the global bottled water market is concentrated on the continent, yet another factor discouraging investment in public infrastructure.
New York () – Among the sustainable development goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, the objective of “guaranteeing the availability and sustainable management of water and hygienic-sanitary services for all” is far behind the goals others in the Asian continent, along with goals number 8 (promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all), 14 (conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development) and 12 (responsible consumption and production). For goal 13, limiting climate change and adapting to it, there was even a setback in the Asia-Pacific region.
This was recalled today by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on the occasion of World Water Day, the day chosen by the United Nations to open the work of the UN Conference on Water. This event will be held over the next three days in New York and Pope Francis also spoke about it this morning during his general audience.
According to data from the Asian Development Bank, when the 2030 Agenda was drafted in 2015, more than 75% of Asia lacked drinking water, and even then a 40% gap between water supply and demand was estimated for 2030.
A report released by the UN University Institute of Water Environment and Health ahead of the United Nations Water Conference shows that the spread of bottled water is still a sign of a lack of safe drinking water on the one hand, and on the other , inhibits government intervention in the supply and improvement of public water supply infrastructure in the long term, delaying the achievement of sustainable objectives.
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for about half of the global bottled water market, while developing countries together account for about 60%. Obviously, what differs from other parts of the world are the reasons why people buy bottled water: while in the most industrialized countries people perceive bottled water as safer, in the South of the world the purchase of bottled water comes dictated by the “lack or absence of a reliable public water supply”, according to the report titled ‘Global Bottled Water Industry: A Review of Impacts and Trends’. To give an example, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous in the country, only 31 of the 734 cities have sewage systems, yet they only manage to treat 40% of the wastewater.
At the same time, Asia-Pacific is the region with the highest rates of groundwater extraction in the world, “due to population growth, rapid economic development and improved living conditions,” according to UN data from last year. . 70% of water resources are used for agriculture, with India and China leading the way for the highest use of groundwater in agriculture. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, for their part, pump between 210 and 250 cubic kilometers of groundwater each year, which causes a decrease in groundwater and an increase in water scarcity.
For these reasons, the desert areas of northern India are considered to be at the same risk of water scarcity as the eastern regions, along with the urban centers of Southeast Asia (by 2050, 64% of Asia’s population will reside in cities). For its part, in January this year, China announced that by 2022 it had spent 148 billion dollars on water management, 44% more than the previous year. Last summer, factories in the southwest of the country had to suspend work due to an unprecedented drought that caused some rivers to dry up, including parts of the Yangtze.
A drought that contrasts with the frequent floods caused by climate change. And that also extends to Southeast Asia because of the dams that China built on the Mekong River, which crosses Chinese Yunnan, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. “Upstream dams are affecting fishing, rice farming and seaweed harvesting, an important source of income for women and the elderly,” explains Pianporn Deetes, Thailand and Burma director of Rivers International. Between 2019 and 2021, despite pre-existing dry conditions, Chinese dams retained large amounts of water, causing Mekong levels to drop to record lows and displacing local people who depend on the river for their livelihoods.
