California passed the Human Right to Water in 2012, acknowledging that every resident has a right to safe, clean, and affordable drinking water. Both large and small water systems struggle to provide safe drinking water; however, small systems face the greatest challenges.
Human-caused climate change is real and accelerating, creating new challenges for all aspects of freshwater management, including meeting basic human needs for water and sanitation. Important gaps in our understanding of these challenges include both the complications climate change poses for planning, implementing, and sustaining water supply and sanitation systems, especially for the poor; and the links between these systems and the emissions of greenhouse gases that worsen the overall climate problem.
Every human being needs safe and affordable water, but in the United States, tens of millions of people still lack it. As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed, poor water infrastructure and the failure to provide universal access to safe water and sanitation threaten public health. Meanwhile, water shortages, poor management, and antiquated water systems threaten the nation’s food supply, ecosystems, and economy.
Studies estimate that 1.5 to 2.5 million Californians rely on domestic wells to meet their household water needs, but because domestic wells are often shallow, they are often sensitive to changes in groundwater levels. Thus sustainable groundwater management has an important role to play in safeguarding the health and safety of Californians and the achievement of the state’s recognized human right to water.
Water is essential to public health. While the vast majority of American households served by water utilities receive a reliable supply of high-quality drinking water, there remain homes where water and wastewater services have been shut off or disconnected due to non-payment.
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic sparked a nationwide discussion around the practice of water utilities disconnecting service to households that are unable or fail to pay their bills, as this places affected households and their communities at greater risk of transmitting COVID-19.
When a household fails to pay its water bill in full for more than a given period of time – typically one or two months – its water service may be shut off by the water utility serving the household.
Agricultural workers are expected to be some of the worst affected from the projected impacts of climate change, resulting in sixty percent of work hours lost due to heat stress in 2030. Climate change will also significantly the water cycle, introducing greater uncertainty into agricultural supply chain operations.
The failure to meet basic needs for safe water and sanitation worldwide is one of the great tragedies of our age, with billions of people paying the price in illness and poverty.
California’s Human Right to Water law states that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.”
