“Climate Change Threatens Access to Water and Sanitation, WARN UNECE & WHO/Europe, Urging Reinforced Measures under Protocol to Boost Resilience.” UNECE, 20 May 2022, https://unece.org/media/press/367685.
In Europe, many countries are in fear of the water crisis. They struggle to keep up with enough drinking water to provide for the country. 35% of the European Union predicts high water stress by the 2070s. Wastewater Treatments are also in crisis. Hungary’s wastewater treatment has significantly higher operational costs for increased pumping energy demand and disruption to treatment plants. More and more maintenance is required for the sanitation process to ensure that pollutants don’t enter the environment.
This crisis in wastewater treatment is a cause of climate change. Droughts cause a general decrease in the natural amount of water in the environment. This has a ripple effect in rivers where there is less water flow, so there are more pollutants, which cause hygienic issues. Heatwaves can cause an increase in pathogens which can result in disease. Rising temperatures also melt glaciers which lessens the availability of water. There is a clear correlation between climate change and decreased sanitation in the water. Another catastrophic effect if the wastewater treatment plants are not performing is pollutants can be spread into the environment from the wastewater disrupting it.Waste Water Treatment
I appreciate the urgency you bring to this situation. Climate change is really affecting all our resource supplies. I wonder how heat waves result in increased pathogens. Does disease survive/transmit better in warmer weather? This article certainly is environmental science because it discusses how humans impact the climate, and ultimately hurt themselves.
Hey, thank you for the response. It definitely is important to recognize trends and prevent harmful things in the future. Increased heatwaves may not directly influence pathogens, but they decrease water supplies and there can be too much stress on a supply contaminating it further.