Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 78
Photo by BBC
How The Water Crisis Is
Causing Headaches For The
People In Latin America
by By Alice Hernandez
Having four of the world’s 25 largest rivers, Latin
America is known to have a large supply of freshwater.
It also has some of the world’s largest lakes around.
An estimated 110,500 cubic feet per person per year
is expected because of the supply naturally provided
by the environment. However, it is often a mystery to
most researchers why the region suffer from water
shortages. Given the water crisis it is going through
these past few years, it has affected the political and
economic agendas of the countries involved.
According to the World Water Council, about 77 million
Latin Americans do not have access to safe water while
100 million of them do not have access to sanitation.
People also suffer from lack of treatment of sanitation
wastes while dealing with large water pricing inequality.
So what exactly is going on in Latin American
countries?
Global Policy Forum reports that some of the major
factors that have affected the distribution of water
resources include “poor farming practices, unregulated
industrialization and urban poverty.” With a major
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SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies