China News Service, Beijing, February 7 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Springer Nature's academic journal "Nature Communications" recently published a sustainability research paper. A modeling study conducted by researchers showed that by 2050 By 2020, one-third of the world's sub-basins are expected to experience severe shortages of clean water, potentially affecting an additional 3 billion people.
Many sub-basins in southern East Asia, central Europe, North America and Africa are expected to become hotspots of water shortages due to high levels of nitrogen pollution, the authors said. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address water quality issues in future water management policies.
According to the paper, climate change will affect water supply, while urbanization and agriculture will increase water demand and increase water pollution, limiting water security. River basins, sometimes subdivided into smaller structural units called subbasins, are a major source of drinking water but are also the site of large-scale urban and economic activity. These activities may contaminate local waterways through sewer lines. Agriculture and other land uses around rivers can also become sources of non-point source pollution. These pollutions will appear from all directions at the same time, making it more difficult to control.
Eutrophication of the Kiev reservoir (Image by Maryna Strokal). Springer Nature/Photo provided
The first author and corresponding author of the paper, Mengru Wang of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and colleagues and collaborators analyzed global river basins and found that, when water quality is taken into account, nitrogen pollution will greatly increase the number of river basin systems experiencing water shortages. Research shows that future global nitrogen pollution could lead to water shortages in three times as many sub-basins as today. Water sources in 2,517 sub-basins have been deemed deficient in water quantity and quality, compared with only 984 sub-basins in 2010. They estimate that by 2050, 3,061 sub-basins will be at risk of water quantity-quality scarcity, affecting water resources for an additional 3 billion people.
The author of the paper concluded that policymakers must consider water quality in their assessment of future water resources. Although the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) "Clean Water and Sanitation" goal includes clean drinking water, it is not the same as SDG2 "Zero Hunger". "The many pollution control measures surrounding agriculture may have synergistic effects on water pollution and the protection of these water sources. (over)