Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

T H E W O R L D ’ S W A T E R C R I S I S : F I T T I N G T H E P I E C E S T O G E T H E R / 5 1 3Many countries have moved close to full cost recovery, and haveembraced substantive forms of public-private partnerships, albeitalong differing models of implementation.Within water-stressed catchments, agriculture is the dominantsector in southern Europe, while industry dominates throughout muchof central and eastern Europe. The region contains shared internationalrivers, including the most shared river worldwide – the Danube.Latin America and the CaribbeanThis region has relatively high service levels, but is characterized bylarge differences from one area to the next. Total water supplycoverage is extended to approximately 87 percent of the population,while total sanitation coverage is slightly lower at 78 percent.However, large disparities are apparent between urban and ruralareas, with an estimated 86 percent of the urban population withsanitation coverage, compared to only 52 percent of the ruralpopulation. With respect to water supply, 94 percent of the urbanpopulation enjoys coverage, compared with only 65 percent of therural population. A total of 68 million people are without access toimproved water supply in the region and 116 million people withoutaccess to improved sanitation – the vast majority in South America.In the significant majority of countries in the region, more than75 percent of people enjoy both water supply and sanitationcoverage. The countries of the Caribbean have the highest reportedcoverage levels in the region. The percentage of rural servicecoverage has increased for both water supply and sanitation. Urbanservices appear to have changed less, and urban water supplycoverage in the region even declined slightly between 1990 and2000. These trends are strongly affected by Brazil, whose currentpopulation represents one third of the regional total. But, asdescribed for Africa, if adequate provision for water supply is takento be a house connection from a pipe distribution system andsanitation is taken to mean a toilet connected to a sewer, the lack ofadequate provision in cities throughout Latin America and theCaribbean is significantly higher than the estimates of improvedcoverages suggest. As in Africa and Asia, most rivers flowing throughcities in Latin America are polluted, as are nearby water bodies.The generally water-rich region of Latin America shows anaggregated low water use efficiency in agriculture, which is notexpected to increase significantly in the future because no otherlarge-scale users compete with agriculture. But where water islocally scarce, high efficiency is obtained. Latin America is likely tosee one of the highest regional rates in expansion of arable land,but the proportion of renewable water resources allocated toirrigation is likely to remain far below the critical threshold.Latin American countries are erecting much new hydropowerinfrastructure, and the region is set to double its 1995 deploymentby 2010.Withdrawals for industry are mid-range by global standards, andthe industrial value added is in the mid to upper range by worldstandards.Central America and the Caribbean have experienced about20 percent of the world’s hydrometeorological disasters of the pastdecade. Although this represents just 1 percent of all people affectedworldwide, in the past decade it nonetheless adds up to a total of36,000 deaths, that is, one third of all deaths worldwide due to flooding.The central government provides most of the region’s financing,with additional help from global and regional development banks,multilateral and bilateral institutions and, increasingly, debt relief.Together with most other developing regions, Latin America is slowlymoving towards full cost recovery. Among developing countries, thisregion is furthest advanced in its engagement with the private sector.Within catchments where water is under stress, there is nosingle sector that dominates throughout the region. Approximatelyone half of the region is composed of shared international riverbasins, dominated by the Amazon and La Plata basins.North AmericaThe North American population has the highest reported coverage forany region of the world, at 99.9 percent. Urban coverage of waterand sanitation are both reported to be 100 percent. In keeping withworld trends, demographic projections for the region suggest that theurban population will continue to grow, while the rural population willdecline. As described for Europe, substantial improvements have beenmade in reducing water pollution. But in 1998, one third of waters inthe United States were not clean enough to permit fishing andswimming. The United States is the second largest producer ofhydroelectricity in the world, with between 10 and 12 percent of thecountry’s electricity supplied by hydropower. Together with Europe,the United States and Canada have moved close to full cost recovery,and have embraced substantive forms of public-private partnerships.Within water-stressed catchments, agriculture is the dominant sectorin the west, while industry dominates in the east.OceaniaOceania is the least populated of the six regions described. The currentcoverage status is relatively good, with 94 percent of the populationhaving access to improved sanitation, and 87 percent to improved watersupply. However, these figures are strongly slanted by a well-servedAustralia and New Zealand. With these two countries excluded,coverage levels are much lower. Based on figures from 1990, to meetthe 2015 Millennium targets, an additional 8 million people will needaccess to improved water supply services and an additional 7.2 millionwill need access to sanitation during the same period of time. Fiji andKiribati each report having both water supply and sanitation coveragebelow 50 percent. Outside of the two countries dominant in