Water Security, Climate Forcings and Public Health Impacts in Emerging Regions

Abstract:

Our world is rapidly urbanizing, with more than 80% of world’s population is expected

to be living in a city by the end of the century. A majority of these nations are rapidly

urbanizing due to massive rural-to-urban migratory trends, with rapid development

of unplanned urban settlements, or slums, with lack of adequate water or sanitation

facilities and other municipal amenities. With global environmental change, natural

disasters will expose millions more to drought, floods, and disease epidemics, and

existing vulnerabilities will worsen. At the same time, rapid urbanization and fast

changing land-use leads to widespread damage of infrastructure by stormwater,

especially in lowlands and economically poor areas. The factor that consistently stands

out among different cities from both the developed and the developing worlds is that

the slums are typically the most vulnerable to water related natural hazards and climatic

threats, such as water scarcity and quality issues in drought conditions, or water and

sanitation breakdown and stormwater contamination problems.

Onsite or decentralized water, wastewater and stormwater treatment as well as point-
of-use water treatment options can be an economic, safe, and reliable alternative

to conventional large-scale treatment especially, in urban fringes as well as rural

areas. These systems can be designed to fit communities in terms of their economic,

cultural, environmental, and demographic resources. As part of this study, we develop

a database of urban water quality and quantity indices such as with urban land-use,

water usage, climate, and socio-economic characteristics in various emerging regions

in the world. We analyze past and current data to identify and quantify long-term

trends and the impacts of large-scale climatic and anthropogenic changes on urban

hydrology and health impacts. We specifically focus on five major cities from distinct

groups of countries and geographies: Providence, RI, USA from the developed world,

Lagos, Nigeria, Lima, Peru and Jakarta, Indonesia from the Middle-Income Countries,

and Dhaka, Bangladesh from the Least Developed Countries, to compare and contrast

leading drivers and sensitivities of water, climate, and health indicators.