Drinking Water: Strategies for Sustainable Management and Water for Everyone

Drinking water for human consumption is one of the most important natural resources that humanity must preserve. In different countries water management is carried out in different ways. While in countries with more scarce water resources the concern is water abstraction in others, where water is abundant, the concerns go further, from microbiological criteria to chemical parameters with increasingly reduced parametric values based on epidemiological studies. In low-income countries, the demand for drinking water, and its distribution, has revealed serious failures in water supply, with dire consequences in terms of public health for some communities. Now, these regions need a strategic plan for water management, from awareness raising among the poor on water saving to policy measures for improving aquifer water abstraction and investments in the water storage and distribution system. New technologies to obtain water suitable for human consumption are emerging, replacing conventional practices that can endanger the health of consumers, with solar thermal distillation standing out as a sustainable technique that can reach everyone in the most remote locations. Finally, building water networks should also be checked and maintained by consumers so that water from the public network, or other water storage systems, is fit for human consumption.