World Water Day

 Cities and industries generate nearly 1 billion cubic meters of used water each day , however, much of it is untreated and discharged into the environment. This resource can be captured and purified to reduce pressure on freshwater sources , lower pollution, and mobilize new sources of financing. Water reuse is a vital solution to growing water insecurity — offering a reliable, climate-resilient supply for cities and industries facing increasing stress on traditional water sources.⁠⁠  

Globally, Water Use efficiency (WUE) rose from 17.47 USD/m3 in 2015 to 21.50 USD/m3 in 2022, marking a 23 percent efficiency increase (Figure 15). Oceania and Europe and Northern America remained the most water efficient regions, with WUE levels of 71.71 USD/m3 and 54.64 USD/ m3 , respectively (Figure 16). However, Eastern, Central and Southern Asia recorded the highest growth in WUE between 2015 and 2022, with increases of 51.32 percent, 46.25 percent and 34.13 percent respectively. In contrast, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a slight decline in WUE, decreasing by 0.47 percent over the same period. At the sectoral level, agriculture exhibited the lowest  Water Use Efficiency (WUE)  among economic sectors. In 2022, the global average WUE for agriculture was 0.69 USD/m3 , significantly lower than that of the industrial sector (38.43 USD/m3 ) and the service sector (114.45 USD/m3 ). However, agriculture recorded the largest improvement in Water Use Efficiency ove...

 Africa’s freshwater resources are estimated to be nearly 9% of the world’s total. However, these water resources are unevenly distributed, with the six most water-rich countries in Central and Western Africa holding 54% of the continent’s total water resources and the 27 most water-poor countries holding only 7%. About 73% of the total population of Sub-Saharan Africa did not use safely managed drinking water services in 2017. An estimated 14% of Africa’s population (about 160 million people) currently live under conditions of water scarcity, due in part to the uneven distribution of water resources as well as inequalities in the access to clean and portable water services .

  The development of overarching frameworks such as the 2000 European Union Water Framework Directive  demonstrates the increasing significance that is being placed on valuing water . Nonetheless, efforts to value water , especially in a transboundary context, remain limited in scope and often use different approaches. The discernible approaches to valuing water quantitatively in the transboundary context are more targeted on specific aspects of managing transboundary water resources , such as flood management , disaster risk reduction (DRR) , early-warning systems (EWS) and ecosystem services . Investment in data collection systems is recognized as being of vital importance and while it comes at an additional cost, that cost can be compensated by the benefits of effective cooperation. The 2017 joint Adelphi and Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia study noted that “it is important not to neglect the indirect costs of suboptimal water management because they demo...

  Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) possess an average water endowment per inhabitant  of close to 28,000 cubic metres per year, which is more than four times the world average of 6,000 m3 /inhabitant/year. Water stress in parts of the Americas and caribbean region has fuelled a number of conflicts , as various sectors, including agriculture, hydroelectricity, mining and even drinking water and sanitation , are competing over scarce resources . Some of the major obstacles in securing effective allocation processes are connected to poor regulation, missing incentives and/or lack of investment. All these factors ultimately reflect the low value that is largely attributed to water resources in the region. The average proportion of wastewater that is safely treated is just below 40%. About a quarter of the river stretches in the region are affected by severe pathogenic contamination . The main source of this kind of pollution is domestic sewage .