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 78 SEPTEMBER 2016 Clean Water Technologies