What is water security and how is it impacted by climate change?
Back to Topic
Click to Print
Useful Websites
Glossary Term Selection
By Declan Conway
What is water security?
Water is essential to humans’ everyday existence and for a range of economic activities in rural, urban and industrial contexts. Yet access to water varies dramatically, from simply turning on a nearby tap to needing to walk, queue for and carry water, sometimes over long distances. Water can also be a threat: poor water quality can make people seriously ill, while floods are among the most damaging and deadly climate-related hazards.
The Sustainable Development Goal on water articulates the global aspiration to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’. However, this goal is far from being achieved and 771 million people globally lack basic access to clean drinking water.
All of these aspects of water are encompassed in the concept of water security. Definitions generally include the need for a reliable supply of clean, safe water in the context of variability that is being exacerbated by climate chang...
Want to see the rest of this article?
Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?
- Useful related articles
- Video and multimedia references
- Statistical information and reference material
- Glossary of terms
- Key Facts and figures
- Related assignments
- Resource material and websites
