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Water pollution: it will affect more than 5 billion people by 2100

"The wars of the future will be fought over water reserves". This is a phrase we hear quite often now in times of drought, and the decreasing amount of fresh water available in the world, also due to melting glaciers, is an illustration of this, in addition to man-made pollution. A Dutch study now explains that an estimated 5.5 billion people could be affected by surface water pollution by 2100.

Experts have also predicted a much worse quality of water that will be available and unpolluted, painting a picture that certainly cannot leave governments and citizens calm.

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Water will be the next world problem
"The wars of the future will be fought over water reserves". This is a phrase we hear quite often now in times of drought, and the decrease of available fresh water in the world, also due to melting glaciers, is a demonstration of this, in addition to man-made pollution.
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5.5 billion people will be exposed to water pollution
A Dutch study now explains that an estimated 5.5 billion people could be affected by surface water pollution by 2100, depending on the climate and/or socio-economic scenario and the type of pollution 80 years from now.
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The study
The modelling study was carried out by the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and subsequently published in the scientific journal 'Nature Water'.
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How the study was conducted
The Dutch university used, AGI reports, 'a high-resolution surface water quality model to simulate water temperature and indicators of salinity and organic and pathogen pollution, over the period from 2005 to 2100, according to a series of shared socio-economic pathways and representative concentrations'.
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Researchers' estimates
Researchers have made estimates that the percentage of people in the world who will be exposed to salinity, organic and pathogen pollution by the end of this century will be between 17-27%, 20-37% and 22-44% respectively, with poor surface water quality disproportionately affecting those living in developing countries.
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A new danger to sub-Saharan Africa.
According to this study, the area of the world that specifically includes sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become, unfortunately, the new global surface water pollution hotspot. This is leaving aside climatic and socio-economic scenarios that may change in the future but should not affect this ominous prediction.
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