5.8A Global patterns of water scarcity and causes

• Causes of water scarcity:

  • Lack of annual or seasonal precipitation
  • Lack of investment and management of water infrastructure to meet demand
  • Scarcity may also be a social construct due to wealth, expectation and usual behaviour 
• • In HDEs, people expect to pay for their water supply, its removal, and subsequent treatment
  • In some areas of LDEs however, water is free but not usually clean and people often have to spend many hours a day walking up to 10km to the supplies, carrying heavy containers