Target 6.4 – Water use and scarcity
“By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity”
What and why?
Target 6.4 addresses water scarcity, aiming to ensure there is sufficient water for the population, the economy and the environment by increasing water-use efficiency across all sectors of society. Securing environmental water requirements is essential to maintaining ecosystem health and resilience.
A high level of water stress can result in negative effects on economic development, increasing competition and potential conflict among users, which calls for effective supply and demand management policies and an increase in water-use efficiency.
Increasing water-use efficiency over time means decoupling a country’s economic growth from its water use, for example, by reducing water losses in municipal distribution networks and water use in production processes. In this regard, some sectors, for example, agriculture, industry, energy and municipal water supply are particularly relevant due to their high water use.
- Learn more about SDG target 6.4 and how it relates to the other SDGs
Photo credit: Pingz Man, Creative Commons Attribution