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16億人口的渴望：全球水污染嚴重衝擊

（中央社倫敦綜合18日外電報導）


路透社報導，根據聯合國數據顯示，全球約莫40億人在一年之中至少有一個月經歷嚴重水資源短缺的情況，而全球16億人（將近四分之一人口）無法輕易取得乾淨且安全的水資源。


即使聯合國希望在2030年前為全球人口提供水資源及衛生設施，達成永續發展目標（Sustainable Development Goals），水資源卻日漸枯竭，在2050年預期超過一半的世界人口將被迫生活於缺水的地區。


在巴西最大城市聖保羅的一條河上，每天都有數百公噸未經處理的污水和垃圾傾倒進河。這種情況並不罕見。家庭垃圾堵塞了位於印尼萬隆的西大魯河，污水大量流入在伊拉克的幼發拉底河。


樸茨茅斯大學茱莉亞·布朗博士，一位專精於環境發展的人文地理學家指出，許多國家的農業用水與工業用水占比龐大，農業和工業皆仰賴大量水資源，人們則缺乏安全可飲用水。


「當我們購買商品、食物，或衣物時，經常沒有意識到這些產品，例如酪梨又或單寧牛仔褲，是用缺水國家的水資源生產的。」她告訴路透社。


布朗博士補充說明，增建貧困地區的汲水系統固然重要，但更須正視其維護工作。


她說，「非政府組織（NGO）常常對著新造的汲水幫浦拍張照片，就撒手不管了。居民接手後，還得自己募款，籌修理器材的錢，要是籌不夠呢……？」


「結果，根據研究顯示，某個時間段內，下撒哈拉地區（Sub-Saharan Africa），竟然高達三分之一的打水器就報銷了。」

Seen from the sky: polluted waters around the world

(Reuters) - About 4 billion people experience severe water shortages for at least one month a year and around 1.6 billion people - almost a quarter of the world’s population - have problems accessing a clean, safe water supply, according to the United Nations.

While the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for water and sanitation for all by 2030, the world body says water scarcity is increasing and more than half the world’s population will be living in water-stressed regions by 2050.

In the run-up to the UN’s World Water Day on March 22, Reuters photographers used drones to capture dramatic pictures and video of polluted waterways around the world.

In one image, a discarded sofa lies beached in the Tiete river, in Brazil’s biggest city Sao Paulo, into which hundreds of tonnes of untreated sewage and waste are tipped each day.

Others show domestic waste clogging the Citarum river in Bandung, Indonesia, and sewage flowing into the Euphrates in Najaf, Iraq.

Dr Julia Brown, a human geographer specialising in environment and development at the University of Portsmouth, said many countries with water-intensive agriculture and industry lacked adequate safe drinking water.

“When we buy products and buy food and clothing we don’t always appreciate that we’re actually importing somebody else’s water and often those countries where we’re importing water from, like in avocados or our denim jeans, they’re actually very water-scarce countries,” she told Reuters.

Brown added that, while extending access to water was important, maintaining that access in some of the poorest parts of the world was often overlooked.

“NGOs like to have their photographs taken with a shiny new hand pump ... then they walk away and it’s handed over to communities to raise the funds to maintain these systems, to make sure that they’re repaired. And if they’re not?” she said.

“The research indicates at any one time one third of hand pumps across Sub-Saharan Africa are broken.”