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ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-cities/" target="_self">ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûGrand Challenge of Sustainable Cities

Urban water poverty has its roots not in water scarcity but in social inequity, panellists said at a recent UCL public event, 'Glass Half Empty? Urban water poverty in 2010'.

The discussion marked the mid-point of the International Decade of Water for Life and the start of the last five years of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Urban Water Poverty, a project developed by UCL's Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities, will publish a range of perspectives in a special issue of the 'Journal of Urban Sustainable Development'. The project is led by Adriana Allen (ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûDevelopment Planning Unit), Co-Director of the ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûUrban Laboratory, and Dr Sarah Bell (ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûCivil, Geomatic & Environmental Engineering), Co-Director of the ÐÂÏã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûEnvironment Institute.

At the event, Dr Bell set urban water poverty in the context of a variety of internationally agreed aims, including:

• to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
• to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation
• to achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
• to provide reliable access to at least 20 litres of safe drinking water per member of a household per day, less than one kilometre away from its place of use
• to provide lowest-cost technology ensuring hygienic sewage disposal, along with safety and privacy in the use of these services.

Between 1990 and 2009, there had been a reduction in the proportion of the world's population without access to safe water (from 23% to 13%) and sanitation (from 51% to 37%), yet 884 million people still lack access to improved water supply and 2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation.

To find out more, use the link at the top of this article.