Seite - 25 - in Clean Water Using Solar and Wind - Outside the Power Grid

Towards sustainability goals 25 About 1,000 million people in the world depend on health facilities without any reliable electric power and readily available clean water. Many more people rely on facilities with unreliable access to both energy and clean water. Off-grid renewable energy can deliver affordable and clean energy to remote healthcare centres. Access to electricity and clean water has a profound influence on education. There are strong links between education, energy, clean water and economic development. Jones et  al. (2018) point out: • In sub-Saharan Africa 90% of children attending primary schools have no access to electricity; • Half of schools in Peru and a quarter of village classrooms in India have no electric power; • One child in three – an estimated 188 million children – attend schools that have no lights, no running water, no refrigerators, no fans and no computers or printers. As the authors point out, the dominating question is whether these children will be equipped with sufficient skill to help their country to grow economically. Electricity provides improved access to water. Results from Kenya clearly demonstrate the consequences: access to water means better sanitation. This in turn dramatically decreased absenteeism of both pupils and teachers due to waterborne diseases such as skin infections, typhoid and cholera (Jones et  al., 2018). Jones et  al. (2018) also note that 40–60% of the world’s unfarmed arable land is in sub-Saharan Africa. A key issue is to train farmers in the use of more effective irrigation and cultivation. Oil exploration, refining and distribution have a significant water footprint under normal operating conditions, in terms of both quantity and quality (Olsson, 2015, Chapter 11). This is further exacerbated as a result of the unprecedented impact on water resources from leakages, dredging, refining or accidents in exploration or transport. Therefore, the consequences for water resources from oil operations or oil accidents will be increasingly grave (Zabbey & Olsson, 2017). Population growth, increasing water use for agriculture and industrial activities and climate change all increase water scarcity. This will have huge social and economic consequences for large populations. Researchers have examined data collected by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission during the period 2002 to 2016 Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book-pdf/520710/wio9781780409443.pdf by IWA Publishing user