Chapter 2 Safe Drinking Water
Since 2015 global access to at least an improved drinking water service has grown 6 percentage points to 74% of global population by 2024 (United Nations… 2023).
The method used by the UN to categorize drinking water services is a 5 category ladder which qualifies water safety and attainability. The groups ranging from best service to worst are: ‘safely managed’, ‘basic’, ‘limited’, ‘unimproved’, and ‘surface water’. The safely managed, basic, and limited categories all imply that water is coming from an improved source which by virtue of the system’s design, has the ability to deliver safe drinking water (Drinking water… 2024). Basic service indicates that accessing water takes less than 30 minutes round trip whereas limited, indicates over 30 minutes round trip. Unimproved water service means that water is from an unprotected well or spring. Finally, surface water indicates water is taken from any uncovered body of water (Drinking water… 2024).
Figure 2.1: Lucas Ndeti fetches water from a small lake created by a dam near Senda, Kenya. Open water sources like this one are easily contaminated by bacteria, parasites and other harmful pollutants. https://crosscatholic.org/blogs/2023/10/why-do-some-nations-lack-access-to-clean-water/
From this we can discern that 25% of the global population is drinking from unsafe wells, spring, or surface water. The consumption of unsafe drinking water comes with significant risks that a quarter of Earth’s population currently must contend with. Two of the largest concerns associated with drinking unsafe water include the contraction of waterborn diseases and the accumulation of chemical contaminants (Li S et al. 2026). To compound this issue, communities that are forced to drink unsafe water are already much less likely to have access to the medical treatment that they would need.
It is important to mention that water and water access is a focal point midst the climate crisis. One of the many environmental threats of climate change it its drastic alteration on precipitation patterns including more intense storms but also more poignant droughts and dry-spells (United Nations… 2024). According to the U.N., since 2000 the length and frequency of droughts has increased by 29%, which poses a potentially devastating trend particularly in Africa where the largest proportion of drought related deaths already occur (United Nations… 2024). In Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chad for example, over a third of each country’s population is reliant on unsafe water sources (Drinking Water Service… 2026). With drought rates increasing, it is more important than ever for implementation of more safe water services in these regions.