Abstract
Most of the global population will live in urban areas in the 21st century. We study impacts of urbanization on future river pollution taking a multi-pollutant approach. We quantify combined point-source inputs of nutrients, microplastics, a chemical (triclosan) and a pathogen (Cryptosporidium) to 10,226 rivers in 2010, 2050 and 2100, and show how pollutants are related. Our scenarios consider socio-economic developments and varying rates of urbanization and wastewater treatment. Today, river pollution in Europe, South-East Asia and North America is severe. In the future, around 80% of the global population is projected to live in sub-basins with multi-pollutant problems in our high urbanization scenarios. In Africa, future river pollution is projected to be 11–18 times higher than in 2010, making it difficult to meet Sustainable Development Goals. Avoiding future pollution is technically possible with advanced wastewater treatment in many regions. In Africa, however, clean water availability is projected to remain challenging. Our multi-pollutant approach could support effective water pollution assessment in urban areas.
Highlights
Urban areas currently accommodate more than half of the global population[1] and generate over two-thirds of the world gross domestic products (GDP)[2,3]
We study the impacts of urbanization on river pollution in the 21st century, taking a multi-pollutant perspective
Our five scenarios are a combination of possible trends in urbanization, socio-economic development and our assumptions on sanitation, wastewater treatment capacities and removal efficiencies of pollutants
Summary
Urban areas currently accommodate more than half of the global population[1] and generate over two-thirds of the world gross domestic products (GDP)[2,3]. In 2050, more than two-thirds of the global population will live in cities[1,4,5]. Rapid urbanization creates opportunities for economic developments[6], but may increase the use of freshwater resources[4,6,7,8,9]. This will increase competition for water between cities and agriculture[4]. River pollution poses a threat to the availability of clean water in large parts of the world[7,21], challenging the achievement of Sustainable
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