Water pollution threatens all the globally development goals and ends to environmental destruction, poverty and suffering by 2030.
The largest-ever database on the world’s water quality reveled the thought provoking issue and economists warned citing the report.
The World Bank report warned of the ripple effects of water pollution on the health, economies, education and agriculture of rich and poor countries alike.
“This study was a huge wake-up call to us about the quality of water worldwide,” said Richard Damania, World Bank economist and one of the study’s authors.
“The world tends to focus on water quantity such as floods and droughts, but this report focuses on the more invisible threats the effects of pollutants impacting global water quality,” Damania said.
SDG 6 refers to clean water and sanitation for all, but the UN World Water Development Report found about three out of 10 people 2.1 billion did not have access to safely managed drinking water at home in 2015.
The World Bank report used satellite data and artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse nitrogen, salt and oxygen levels water health markers of water globally.
The report said that the scale of the problem meant there is ‘no silver bullet’ but Damania remains optimistic that “social movements, political and corporate will and new technologies” could still save the threatened resource. Thomson Reuters Foundation