Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 241

Although water is one of the most valuable and essential natural resources, for many years waste products – both human and manufactured – were dumped directly into rivers and oceans with barely a second thought. For instance, in the summer of 1858, the River Thames in London emitted a stench so foul it brought the city to a standstill, forcing politicians to act. Only in the past sixty years or so have concerted efforts been made in many countries to protect the quality of water, to conserve fish stocks and the wildlife that depend on it, and to ensure access to clean water for the global human population.

Water pollution can be understood as contamination of the water supply by toxic chemicals and minerals, pesticides, or untreated sewage, and it poses the greatest threat to people in the developing world. Sanitation systems are underdeveloped in many of the world’s poorest countries, and human waste products are often emptied directly into streams, rivers and lakes. More recently, serious concerns have been raised about the levels of plastic waste that have been discovered in the world’s oceans and coastal regions, much of it being ‘singleuse’ plastics such as drinks bottles, carrier bags and packaging. Regardless of increasing levels of concern, water pollution remains a serious problem in many parts of the world.

Much progress has been made to improve access to safe drinking water. During the 1990s, nearly 1 billion people gained access to safe water and the same number to sanitation, though ensuring safe water supplies remains a problem, particularly in some parts of Africa, where people drink from unprotected wells and springs along with surface water (figure 5.3). The problem may worsen as water supplies in some developing countries are privatized, raising the cost for customers, while the effects of global warming also produce more regular droughts.

One of the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ set by the United Nations in 2000 was to ‘reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water’ by 2015. This target was met well ahead of schedule in 2010. By 2015, 91 per cent of the world population had access to improved drinking water sources, and 2.6 billion people had gained such access since 1990. However, in the same year, the Caucasus region, Central Asia, Northern Africa, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa missed their MDG targets, and some 663 million people – mainly in rural areas – still did not have access to improved sources of safe water (UNICEF/WHO 2015: 4). Many of the least developed countries store around 4 per cent of their annual renewable water flow compared with the 70 to 90 per cent stored in developed countries (UNESCO 2009).