Foreign
3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water: UN agency
World Meteorological Organization
– About 3.6 billion people currently face inadequate access to water for at least one month of the year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of Global Water Resources 2021 report released on Tuesday.
The number is projected to rise to more than 5 billion by 2050. The report assesses the effects of climate, environmental and social change on the Earth’s water resources. Its goal is to support the monitoring and management of the world’s freshwater resources in an era of increasing demand and limited supplies.
It shows that due to the influence of climate change and a La Niña event (cooling period of ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific), the year 2021 witnessed large areas of the world experiencing drier-than-expected conditions. normal. Compared to the 30-year hydrologic average, the area with below-average flow last year was approximately twice as large as the area above average.
Between 2001 and 2018, the United Nations Water inter-agency mechanism reported that 74% of all natural disasters were related to water. The recent 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) has urged governments to further integrate water into adaptation efforts. It was the first time that water was referenced in a COP outcome document in recognition of its critical importance.
According to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, although the impacts of climate change are often felt through water, such as more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers, they have not yet enough is understood about changes in the distribution, quantity and quality of freshwater resources.
The WMO report aims to fill this knowledge gap, which would be useful in providing universal access in the next five years to early warnings of hazards such as floods and droughts, he said. ■
(Xinhua)
