In 2020, only 1 in 3 in LMICs could access safe drinking water: Study

A new analysis of 135 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has estimated that 33 per cent of the total population used safely managed drinking water services in 2020

Only one in three people in low-and middle-income countries had access to safe drinking water in 2020, a new analysis of 135 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has estimated.

Using models, researchers from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, combined household surveys with global Earth observation, including satellite, air, and land data, on human, geographic, and environmental factors.

They, thus, created detailed maps of safe drinking water use across 135 LMICs. Their analysis is published in the journal Science.

The authors estimated that despite 88 per cent of the people living in the LMICs using an improved drinking water source, defined as having "the potential to deliver safe water," almost half the population were estimated to be exposed to faecal contamination.

As such, more than 4.4 billion people in poorer countries lack safe drinking water. This is roughly twice the estimate of 2 billion people in 2020 given by the World Health Organization and United Nations (UN) Children's Fund Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP), the authors said.

Access to safe drinking water is a human right and is one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030. The JMP is the official UN program tasked with monitoring progress towards the SDGs on clean water access.

However, data on safely managed drinking water services are lacking for much of the global population, especially at the subnational level in LMICs, the researchers said.

"Overall, we estimate that 33 per cent of the total population of 135 LMICs used safely managed drinking water services in 2020," the authors wrote.

"Of these, close to 61 per cent resided in Asia, 25 per cent in Africa, 11 per cent in the Americas, and three per cent in Europe, with the largest number of people concentrated in Southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Asia," they wrote.

The researchers also found that lacking access to drinking water itself was the second most common limiting factor, following faecal contamination, and estimated that 36 per cent of the overall LMIC population was affected.

They said that their estimates fill national data gaps on the use of safe drinking water for 70 countries as of April 2021, which represent 65 per cent of the LMICs population.

"By filling crucial data gaps, our results point toward a substantial underestimation of the number of people whose basic human rights to safe drinking water are not being met and provide information on which (factors) may be limiting use of safely managed drinking water services regionally," the authors wrote.