The past year has seen devastating droughts and unheard-of floods in countries across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The first study to offer a more complex and global perspective on the experience of water insecurity comes from Northwestern University.
Scientists anticipate that 436 million of the 3 billion persons included by the survey sample will experience water insecurity in 2021 in a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Additionally, the researchers were able to identify the demographics with the highest incidences of water insecurity.
The study, directed by Northwestern anthropologist Sera Young, makes use of a scale created to quantify water insecurity more comprehensively and data from a nationally representative sample of nearly half the world’s population.
Young is a faculty fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and an associate professor of anthropology and global health studies at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Hilary Bethancourt, an assistant research professor of anthropology and IPR at Northwestern, is one of the study’s collaborators.
“These data bring a human face to the water sector, thereby revealing life-altering problems with water that have long gone hidden,” Young said.
The Individual Water Insecurity Experiences (IWISE) Scale, a 12-question survey created by Young and other academics, was given to 45,555 persons in 31 low- and middle-income countries in 2021 by the Gallup World Poll.
The IWISE Scale questioned participants how frequently they worried about not having enough water, how frequently they couldn’t wash their hands, or how frequently they modified what they ate due to water-related issues.
The nations were dispersed across the continents of Asia, Latin America, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
14.2% of individuals polled, according to the report, experienced water insecurity. Water insecurity was most prevalent in sub-Saharan African nations like Cameroon (63,9%) and Ethiopia (45%), while it was least prevalent in Asian nations like China (3.9%) and Bangladesh (9.4%).
Additionally, the researchers found that no specific factor was consistently predictive of water insecurity. Although this was not always the case, those who were water insecure were more likely to be low-income, reside on the periphery of cities, and be more vulnerable to COVID-19.
For instance, the greatest quintiles of income in certain nations experienced water insecurity.14.2% of individuals polled, according to the report, experienced water insecurity.
Water insecurity was most prevalent in sub-Saharan African nations like Cameroon (63,9%) and Ethiopia (45%), while it was least prevalent in Asian nations like China (3.9%) and Bangladesh (9.4%).
Additionally, the researchers found that no specific factor was consistently predictive of water insecurity. Although this was not always the case, those who were water insecure were more likely to be low-income, reside on the periphery of cities, and be more vulnerable to COVID-19.
For instance, the greatest quintiles of income in certain nations experienced water insecurity.
Additionally, the researchers found that no specific factor was consistently predictive of water insecurity.
Although this was not always the case, those who were water insecure were more likely to be low-income, reside on the periphery of cities, and be more vulnerable to COVID-19. For instance, the greatest quintiles of income in certain nations experienced water insecurity.
In addition, the study discovers that men and women experience comparable rates of water insecurity in all but six of the 31 countries, contrary to popular belief that women experience higher rates of water insecurity than men because they are in charge of more water-intensive tasks and water collection.
“If we care about human well-being, it is not enough to measure water availability or drinking water infrastructure, which is what we have done for decades,” Young said. “Experiential measures are more holistic, more precise, and can be quickly assessed with the IWISE Scale.”
The IWISE scale was developed to quantify water insecurity at the person level and give researchers more comprehensive and accurate information regarding water accessibility.
The scale gives detailed information about individual experiences with water by analysing how water affects cooking, bathing, and mental wellbeing in addition to just focusing on access to drinking water.
In order to understand the scale of the global water crisis, Young implores academics and decision-makers to look beyond water supply and infrastructure when analysing water insecurity.
According to her, measuring water-related experiences can help organisations design programmes that are most effective at reaching the most vulnerable populations.
“Experiential measures of other key resources, like food, are now standard practice; food insecurity experiences are tracked as part of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals,” Young said. “This study demonstrates that this can be done for water insecurity too.”
Source: Northwestern University
