More than 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered in water, yet lack of access to clean water is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. As of 2015, 29 percent of people globally suffer from lack of access to safely managed drinking water. More than double that number are at risk for water contamination from improper wastewater management. Poor water quality affects various aspects of society, from the spread of disease to crop growth to infant mortality. In some regions of the world, lack of sanitation infrastructure, water treatment facilities, or sanitary latrines lead to dire clean water crises.

In several countries around the world, a major contributor to water contamination is open defecation—the practice of using fields, forests, lakes, rivers, or other natural, open areas to deposit feces. Almost one billion people worldwide still practice open defecation rather than using a toilet. It is particularly common in South Asian countries like India and Nepal, where it is practiced by about 32 percent of people in the region. A landlocked country in the Himalayas, Nepal has access to clean water from mountain rivers, but over 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. In a disturbing study, 75 percent of drinking water samples from schools in Nepal were contaminated with fecal bacteria. While open defecation is most common in rural communities, it still occurs in areas with sanitation access, indicating a need for awareness campaigns to teach the dangers of the practice. Moreover, pollution from open defecation is further complicated by contamination from natural disasters such as recurring floods.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of the population practicing open defecation is slightly smaller—around 23 percent—but 40 percent of the population lacks safe drinking water. Moreover, the gender inequality in this region is more prominent than in South Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 25 percent of the population must walk 30 minutes or more to collect water, a burden that falls on women and girls the vast majority of the time. This trend of women tasked with the responsibility of water collection spans many developing nations and takes critical quality time away from income generation, child care, and household chores. Moreover, Africa has a high risk for desertification, which will reduce the availability of fresh water even further, and increase the threat of water inequality in the future.

Author: National Geographic Society