China in risk zone as an extra 3 billion people worldwide face ‘lack of clean water by 2050’ because of pollution
- South China will be among areas at risk as high nitrogen levels continue to deplete clean water supplies, researchers in Germany and Netherlands say
- Modelling study shows need for urgent proactive pollution control strategies, team says in paper for Nature Communications
A team of researchers in Germany and the Netherlands estimates that small river basins in southern China, central Europe, North America and Africa will become water scarcity hotspots because of high nitrogen pollution levels.
“Our … assessment shows that nitrogen pollution in rivers [was] an important cause of water scarcity in 2010 and will likely continue causing water scarcity in 2050,” the team wrote in reporting on their modelling study.
“This calls for urgent proactive pollution control strategies to reduce the impact of future potential water scarcity on nature and humans,” the researchers said in their paper published in peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on Wednesday.
A separate peer-reviewed study published in 2016 by scientists in the Netherlands found that 4 billion people – half of them in China and India – experience severe water scarcity at least one month each year.
Worldwide, 500 million people face severe water scarcity all year round.
