Defining water security
In this course, we use the term water security a lot and consider when people and ecosystems experience water insecurity, water stress or shortages.
As we heard in the earlier video, people have quite different ideas on what water security means.
Here we consider what we mean by the term water security and present some broad definitions.
Broad definitions of water security
At its simplest, water security can be viewed as:
having enough water, of the right quality and minimising water-related risks
- social component (risk to people)
- environmental component (risk to ecosystems)
- economic component (risk to economies)
United Nations definition
“The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of and acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability”
View the UN’s poster on water security
Over to you
- Was this what you thought water security was about?
- How do these definitions compare with the answers in the previous step?
Let us know in the comments.
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