Location and Geography: Spans Eurasia; Contains All Terrain Types Except Tropics

CLEAN WATER IN RUSSIA

Basic Information  Location and Geography: Spans Eurasia; contains all terrain types except tropics.  Government: Semi-Presidential Federation; President: Vladimir Putin  Economy: GDP~$1.325T; natural resources and services comprise almost 85%1

Clean Water Statistics  97% of the population has access to clean water2  There were 66.2 billion cubic meters of freshwater withdrawal between 2011 and 20153  99% of the urban population has clean water access4 while 91% of the rural population does5

Population: Though Russia is the largest country in the world by total land area, it contains only 1.95% of the total global population. Russia has had a negative growth rate over the past several years.6 Even so water sanitation remains an issue in some of the more isolated rural areas of the country.

Where does Russia get its water? Most of Russia’s water resources are located on the country’s eastern side. The European side, where most of the population lives, has only 8% of the total water resources.7 The high demand in the west and the size of the country makes better water distribution especially difficult.

Infrastructure In order to address the shortage of water in western Russia, infrastructure will need to be redesigned and redeveloped for increased capacity. Another issue for Russia is water contamination from chemicals and other pollutants that are being dumped into rivers and groundwater by private companies. Clean water standards and rules set by the Russian government have been relatively ineffective in stopping this behavior.

Effects of Climate Change Climate Change refers to the changes to earth’s climate as a result of human activities, primarily in terms of the creation of greenhouse gasses that cause a rise in earth’s temperature. There are many consequences to the rising temperatures, rising sea levels and extreme weather. In particular, rising temperatures in Siberia are leading to large swaths of the Siberian Plain to release carbon dioxide and methane into the ecosystems and atmosphere through rivers, ponds, and the air, as the gases had previously been trapped in the frozen earth. Higher temperatures also are increasing fire hazards throughout the Plain, and these hazards are capable of releasing emissions equal to the cuts made by some parties of the Kyoto Protocol.8

1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html

2 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.H2O.SAFE.ZS

3 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.H2O.FWTL.K3

4 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.H2O.SAFE.UR.ZS

5 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.H2O.SAFE.RU.ZS

6 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/

7 http://www.climatechangepost.com/russia/fresh-water-resources/

8 http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-locations/western-siberia.html#end5 What is Russia Doing to fulfill the Right to Clean Water within its borders? While the government has been slow to respond to the water crisis, the Russian private sector has proposed new methods of water purification. Among these technologies is Aquifer, which was developed by Gazprom, Russia’s largest energy company. The system works by oxidizing impurities and killing bacteria through electrolysis.9

9http://rbth.com/science_and_tech/2014/09/05/russias_battle_with_water_pollution_continues_39577.html