Around the globe, approximately 2.2 billion people lack safe drinking water, and around 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation. Even in the United States, access to water and sanitation is not universal. Climate change threatens to worsen income disparities and current inequities in access to clean, reliable, and affordable water and sanitation.
It is imperative that climate resilience strategies address the needs of frontline communities and that efforts to meet water and sanitation needs consider climate change impacts.
The Pacific Institute is addressing climate impacts on access to water and sanitation, as well as livelihoods and well–being for frontline communities in the United States and around the world. This critical work helps ensure investments that address the current humanitarian crisis also consider climate change and the related uncertainties.
Featured:
Pacific Institute Launches New Water & Climate Equity Strategy for United States
History of Pacific Institute Work on Sustainability Equity and Justice 1987 – 2022
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Three Essential Ingredients to Resilient Agricultural Supply Chains
Water and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Equity Dimensions of Utility Disconnections in the U.S.
Plumbing the Depths: Californians Without Toilets and Running Water
Drought and Equity in California
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Make Public Drinking Water Fountains Great Again
Published: June 2017
In February of 2017, the Pacific Institute released a white paper entitled Drinking Fountains and Public Health: Improving National Infrastructure to Rebuild Trust and Ensure Access, which highlighted the limited evidence of a link between illness and disease outbreaks and drinking fountains.
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The U.S. Infrastructure Plan: Water Components
Published: November 2021
On November 5, 2021, the U.S. Congress passed President Biden’s major infrastructure bill, HR 3684, the $1.2 trillion ‘‘Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.” The President is expected to sign the bill into law. The bill is the largest single federal investment in infrastructure in a generation, with the funds to be expended over five years...
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Key Take-Aways from the Webinar on Setting Site Water Targets to Drive Action in India and South Africa
Published: October 2020
The CEO Water Mandate and the Pacific Institute held a webinar on August 18, 2020, titled “Lessons from India and South Africa: Setting Site Water Targets to Drive Action.”
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Business and the Human Right to Water
Published: March 2013
Expectations for businesses to respect and in some cases help fulfill internationally recognized human rights have increased over the past decade. In turn, businesses also recognize how important appropriate management systems are in order to respond to these expectations and to protect core resources needed in their own business practices.
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Notes from the Field: Sustainability of Supply: The Story of Community Water Associations (HIPPAMs) in Malang
Published: December 2011
Imagine if the water you were being supplied with regularly to your home suddenly began drying up?
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Building Resilience Faster at World Water Week 2021
Published: August 2021
As the co-secretariat of the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, the Pacific Institute is pleased to be a leading contributor at the upcoming World Water Week.
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Pacific Institute Launches New Water and Climate Equity Strategy for United States
Published: July 2022
Throughout the world and in the United States, water insecurity and climate change both disproportionately affect frontline communities—those who are impacted first and worst from climate change. Historically disadvantaged and marginalized communities, including rural communities, low-income communities, and communities of color, often suffer the most from environmental injustices related to climate change and lack of safe and reliable water from household and community water systems.
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From Source to Tap: Assessing Water Quality in California
Published: October 2020
Water providers in California face myriad challenges in sustainably providing high quality drinking water to their customers while protecting the natural environment.
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Conflicts Over Water
Published: March 2013
There are complex and real links between water and conflict. While water resources have rarely been the sole source of violent conflict or war, there is a long history of tensions and violence over access to water resources, attacks on water systems, and the use of water systems as weapons during war.
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