Safe Drinking Water Act

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the principal federal lawin the United States intended to ensure safe drinking water for the public.^[3] Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water suppliers who implement these standards.

SDWA applies to every public water system (PWS) in the United States.^[4] There are currently about 155,000 public water systems providing water to almost all Americans at some time in their lives.^[5] The Act does not cover private wells.^[6]

The SDWA does not apply to bottled water. Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under theFederal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.^[7]

Water scarcity

Water crisis is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meetwater needs within a region. It affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of every year. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.^[1]

Water scarcity involves water shortage, water stress or deficits, andwater crisis. The relatively new concept of water stress is difficulty in obtaining sources of fresh water for use during a period of time; it may result in further depletion and deterioration of available water resources.^[2] Water shortages may be caused by climate change, such as altered weather-patterns (including droughts or floods), increasedpollution, and increased human demand and overuse of water.^[3] The term water crisis labels a situation where the available potable, unpolluted water within a region is less than that region's demand.^[4]Two converging phenomena drive water scarcity: growing freshwater use and depletion of usable freshwater resources.^[5]

Water scarcity can result from two mechanisms:

• physical (absolute) water scarcity
• economic water scarcity

  Economic water scarcity

  Economic water scarcity is caused by a lack of investment in water infrastructure or insufficient human capacity to satisfy the demand of water in areas where the population cannot afford to use an adequate source of water.

  Symptoms of economic water scarcity include a lack of infrastructure,

  Large parts of Africa suffer from economic water scarcity; developing water infrastructure there could therefore help to reduce poverty. Investing in water retention and irrigation infrastructure would also help to increase food production, especially in developing countries that largely rely on low-yield agriculture.^[2] Being able to provide a community with water that is adequate for consumption would also greatly benefit the people’s health.^[1] Overcoming this type of scarcity, however, can require more than just new infrastructure; it requires socio-economic and socio-political types of intervention that address poverty and socio-inequality but because there is a lack of funding, much planning must come into play.^[3]

  The term was first defined in a wide-ranging 2007 study on the use of water in agriculture over the previous 50 years^[4] of practitioners, researchers and policymakers, overseen by the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka, with the aim of finding out if the world had sufficient water resources to produce food for the growing population in the future. Water is one of the most crucial elements in developmental planning; efforts to develop, conserve, utilize and manage water resources have to be guided by national perspectives.^[5]

  The term physical water scarcity was used by the study to define situations where there is not enough water to meet all demands, including that needed for ecosystems to function effectively.

  Physical water scarcity

  

  Physical water scarcity is the situation when water is not abundant enough to meet all demands, such as those required by an ecosystem to function effectively. Arid regions frequently suffer from physical water scarcity. It also occurs where water seems abundant but where resources are over-committed. This can happen where there is overdevelopment of hydraulic infrastructure, often for irrigation. Symptoms of physical water scarcity include environmental degradation and declining groundwater.

  The term was first defined in a wide-ranging 2007 study on the use of water in agriculture over the previous 50 years.^[1] The study was undertaken by a broad partnership of practitioners, researchers 

  The term economic water scarcity was used by the study to define situations where demand for water is not satisfied because of a lack of investment in water or a lack of human capacity
•  with people often having to fetch water from rivers or lakes for domestic and agricultural uses (irrigation). Although much emphasis is put on improving water sources for drinkingand domestic purposes, evidence suggests that much more water is used for other uses such as bathing, laundry, livestock and cleaning than for drinking and cooking alone.^[1] This observation suggests that putting too much emphasis on drinking water needs addresses an insignificant part of the problem of water resources and therefore limits the range of solutions available.^[1]
• and policymakers, overseen by the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka, with the aim of finding out if the world has sufficient water resources to produce food for future populations. The study found that more than 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical water scarcity.