A new geospatial analysis reveals that over 4.4 billion people in low- and middle-income countries lack access to safely managed drinking water. Nearly half of the population in these regions consumes drinking water contaminated with fecal matter. Access to safe drinking water is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By combining household survey data with global Earth observation data and geospatial modeling techniques, researchers have mapped the coverage of safely managed drinking water across 135 low- and middle-income countries. The findings indicate that only a third of the population in these countries had access to safely managed drinking water in 2020. This means an estimated 4.4 billion people in low- and middle-income countries lack access to safe drinking water. The detection of fecal contamination in drinking water is alarming as the ingestion of pathogens present in feces poses a significant public health risk and is a contributing factor to global under-five mortality.
