Drinking water

2024

Air-to-drinking water converter is released. It fits in a bag and can help the military

On August 20, 2024, researchers from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) reported the development of a portable air-to-drinking water converter. It is expected that this innovative system, placed in a bag, will find application in a variety of areas - from military and emergency situations to the tourism industry and maintaining life in remote hard-to-reach areas. Read more here

The 4.4 billion inhabitants of the Earth are deprived of permanent access to water. This is twice as much as in 2020

In mid-August 2024, an article by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Water Sciences and Technology was published in the journal Science, according to which about 4.4 billion Earth residents, that is, more than half of the world's population, are deprived of permanent access to clean water, which is double the 2020 data. The author of the article and water researcher Esther Greenwood considers this situation "unacceptable."

The UN has been monitoring access to safe sources of drinking water, which are considered an inalienable right of anyone, since 2015. However, before the UN assessed only the protection of drinking water from external pollution, without directly assessing the quality of water. These statistics are still limited, making it difficult to really estimate the scale of the problem.

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In 2020, researchers obtained data that about 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe sources of drinking water. This study program used national census data, regulatory and service provider reports, and household surveys, and then reliable data extrapolated to the relevant region.

Greenwood and colleagues took a different approach, collecting data on 64,000 households from 27 low- and middle-income countries between 2016 and 2020. Using a machine learning algorithm that took into account global geospatial data, including factors such as average temperature, topography and population density, the researchers were able to estimate that about 4.4 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, and half of them use sources infected with pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli. According to the model, nearly half of those 4.4 billion people live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa^[1]

Which countries have the most expensive drinking water. Russia is in 155th place. Card

As a result of a study conducted in July 2024, it became known that Russia ranks 155th in the world ranking of countries in terms of the cost of drinking water, reflecting the relative availability of drinking water for the country's population. According to the data obtained, the price of one and a half liters of drinking water in Russia averages 55 cents when converted into US dollars. The data were obtained on the basis of calculations by RIA Novosti using open sources of information.

The leader in the high cost of drinking water is Monaco, where 1.5 liters of water will cost $5.8. It is followed by the Caribbean and Africa: Antigua and Barbuda ($2.59), Central African Republic ($2.49), Barbados ($2.48), Bahamas ($2.41), Costa Rica ($2.35), Grenada ($2.26) and Eritrea ($2.14).

It is noteworthy that USA they turned out to be the only major economy that entered the top ten countries with the most expensive drinking water. They took eighth place in the ranking with a price of $2.19 per 1.5 liters. Closes the top ten, Iceland where the same volume of water costs $2.04. The high cost of water in the United States is explained by a set of factors, including infrastructure costs and strict quality standards.

The study showed that in 77 countries of the world, the cost of one and a half liters of drinking water exceeds one dollar. At the same time, Russia is in the group of countries with relatively affordable water prices, along with China and Belarus. In these countries, thanks to sufficient water resources and a developed water supply infrastructure, the cost of a similar volume of water is about 55 cents.

Among the countries with the lowest prices for drinking water were some North African states: Nepal ($0.27), Iran and Peru ($0.26 each), Libya ($0.24) and Egypt ($0.18).^[2]

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