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FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT WATER AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

During the 20th century the World’s urban population increased more than tenfold, where as the rural population grew only twofold.

Today, half of the World’s population lives in urban centres.

In 1800 only London and Beijing had more than 1 million inhabitants. In 1950 there were 85 cities with 1 million or more inhabitants, and 388 cities by 2000 there were 388 cities.

Only in the late 20th century did ‘megacities’ of 10 or more million inhabitants develop, with 16 cities becoming ‘megacities’ in 2000, concentrating some 4% of the world’s population.

Over 900 million urban dwellers live in slums.

One of the major challenges that human settlement faces is to ensure adequate provision for water and sanitation - Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. To meet this MDG, 961 million urban dwellers must gain access to improved water supply, and over 1 billion people must gain access to improved sanitation.

About 1.2 billion urban dwellers rely on groundwater and 1.8 billion on surface water sources.

In many African cities, only 10% to 30% of all urban households’ solid wastes are collected, and services are inevitably most deficient for informal settlements.

In Africa as many as 150 million urban residents, representing up to 50% of the urban population, do not have adequate water supplies, while 180 million, or roughly 60% of people in urban areas, lack adequate sanitation.

In urban Asia, 700 million people, constituting half the population, do not have adequate water, while 800 million people, or 60% of the urban population go without adequate sanitation.

For Latin America and the Caribbean, 120 million urban dwellers representing 30% of the urban population, lack adequate water. Those without adequate sanitation number as many as 150 million, or 40% of the urban population.

In Mahira, a section of Haruma slum in Nairobi, there is 1 toilet with 10 units and 2 bathrooms for a settlement of 332 households or 1,500 inhabitants.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, if ‘access to water’ is defined as the availability of water within 100 metres, the proportion counted as having access would be much lower than the 99% given in official statistics.

Information from:
the 1st World Water Development Report 'Water for People, Water for Life'
the ‘Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities: Local Actions for Global Goals’ publication [PDF format - 262 KB]
‘Water and Settlements’ (presented by Mr. Engin Koncagul at the METROPOLIS Meeting, 2005) [PDF format – 1,51 MB]

Source: UNESCO Water Portal, October 2005