“I have clean water whenever I want it.” Around 5.8 billion people globally can make this claim. According to the JMP by UNICEF and WHO, approximately 3.7 billion of these fortunate individuals live in cities. They receive water through what is technically called a “centralized service”: water is sourced, treated at Water Treatment Plants (WTPs), and distributed to households via extensive networks.

However, living in a major city does not guarantee access to safe drinking water. According to United Nations estimates, nearly 1.6 billion people worldwide were living in informal settlements in 2022. Most residents of these areas lack access to household water and sanitation services.

In addition, many cities that once enjoyed daily water supply now face disruptions due to deteriorating infrastructure, depleted water resources, or a lack of electricity to pump water. Wilito Rodríguez, a resident of the Los Praditos neighborhood in Santo Domingo, describes this reality in the award-winning micro-documentary from the second edition of the We Art Water Film Festival: “We used to have water every day, but now electricity comes on Sundays at noon and goes off by 3 p.m. We have to use those three hours to collect as much water as we can with a pump connected to the pipes and then wait until the following week.”

In Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, nearly 71% of the urban population lacks full access to electricity and water services. Over the past two decades, coverage for potable water and basic sanitation has declined, and the situation in Los Praditos is mirrored in other cities across the country.

Across the globe, water issues extend far beyond informal settlements. Water scarcity has become a pressing issue even in areas theoretically supplied by operational centralized networks. Cities like Caracas, Nairobi, Lagos, Mexico City, and Jakarta face similar challenges. In Caracas, the lack of water management planning amid rapid urban growth has worsened the problem. In 1998, the water supply exceeded 20,000 litres per second. However, deteriorating infrastructure and uncontrolled consumption have reduced system capacity to 14,000 litres per second.

In such cases, government assistance often comes in water trucks while citizens find their own solutions. Communities organize to transport water in private vehicles, improvise rooftop storage tanks, or rely on rainwater harvesting for daily use in tropical cities like those in Colombia.

In Mexico City, Non-Revenue Water (NRW)—the water lost during supply due to leaks, errors, or theft—accounts for 40% of the total, and in some areas, it exceeds 55%. The capital is estimated to lose 12,000 litres of potable water every second, equivalent to 345 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Unchecked horizontal growth, the spread of informal settlements, and lack of investment in infrastructure maintenance are the primary causes. Addressing this waste would alleviate much of the city’s hydrological drought, often leaving marginalized neighbourhoods without adequate supply.

Small, poor urban centres face an even harsher reality. Whether due to contamination or climate-driven drought, many small municipalities are experiencing a gradual depletion of water resources. This is the case in Canapi, located in Brazil’s Sertão region, where deteriorating infrastructure and the effects of climate change have drastically reduced water availability.

Situated 254 kilometres from its capital, Maceió, the people of Canapi have been forced to seek alternatives. We collaborated with them on a project to implement small-scale rainwater harvesting systems using community reservoirs. This age-old resource, which is gaining global recognition, provides a sustainable and complementary solution for municipalities far from centralized supply networks.

Elsewhere, communities have adopted innovative solutions tailored to their specific needs. In El Rodeo, a small municipality in El Salvador, 85 families have overcome water source contamination and the lack of electricity to pump water from the aquifer to a distribution tank.

Through collective effort, they installed 32 solar panels to power a pumping system, enabling them to secure between 10 and 12 cubic meters of potable water monthly. This model not only highlights the community’s organizational capacity but also demonstrates the potential of renewable energy in decentralized water access projects.

In large urban centres, decentralization is becoming a key strategy to reduce distances between users and water treatment plants (ETAPs), minimize energy consumption for transport, and cut infrastructure costs. This approach also aims to reduce water losses and protect distribution networks from accidental contamination. Decentralization, tailored to each urban area’s needs and wastewater types, is emerging as a crucial solution for promoting water reuse—an increasingly necessary strategy given the rapid pace of urban growth and the uncertainties of climate change.

However, the significant investments required to implement these changes highlight the technological gap between regions. Bridging this gap demands strong public-private collaboration and investment incentives, a challenge that remains unaddressed in recent COP discussions.

In marginalized small urban centres, access systems—necessarily decentralized—require careful planning that incorporates economic, social, and climatic factors, which vary by region. The goal is to meet the JMP’s “basic” access standard: having a safe water source accessible within a total round-trip time—including travel, waiting, and return—of less than 30 minutes. Only 1.455 billion people worldwide currently achieve this standard.

This objective encompasses a wide range of scenarios, each with unique challenges and solutions. It necessitates efforts to mobilize sustainable financing, ensuring water tariffs remain affordable for the most economically vulnerable rural communities. Most importantly, it requires investment in educational programs to empower communities to manage their own water resources effectively.