Water shortage despite being one of the UN’s sustainable development goal, water shortage is increasing at a rapid rate in towns and cities. 25% of large cities are experiencing water shortage and world wide almost 2.2 billion people do not have access safe potable drinking water. Climate change, droughts and population growth has increased the problem of water shortage.
Response to the problem of water shortage
Intermittent water supply(IWS): Intermittent water supply is a piped water supply service delivering water to users for less than 24 hours in one day, and is used when the available supply and/or the hydraulic capacities of the water supply system are too weak. In many areas of water shortage, the problem has been addressed by providing the water by the means of intermittent water supply. More than 309 million people in areas like Africa, Asia ans South America are receiving water by the means of intermittent water supply.
Water Blending: Rapid depletion of groundwater resources has prompted many water utilities that historically relied on groundwater to consider blending the treated groundwater with the finished surface water to augment their supplied water. However, the irregular changes of water chemistry caused by blending different sources of water may result in more aggressive water and consequently destabilization of inorganic scale and microbial biofilm that was accumulated over the decades onto the water main and building plumbing.
Bulk Water Distribution: The bulk water delivery generally occurs for isolated rural regions lacking water distribution networks in developing countries, in the arctic regions where water cannot be conveyed through the piped network because of permafrost, and during emergencies such as earthquakes and wildfire in developed countries. Moreover, under severe water shortage conditions, the water utilities may fail to deliver sufficient drinking water to the consumers via the distribution network. Consequently, the water providers are obligated to deliver the bulk water using the water tanker trucks to fulfill the consumers’ vital potable water needs.
Even though there has been different methods to address the problem of water shortage, water shortage stands as one of the major problem to be addressed. And hence, water shortage is one of the UN’s sustainable development goals in the UN 2030 agenda.
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