Sanitation and wastewater treatment scenarios and effects on global water quality and SDG 6

Sanitation and wastewater treatment are key elements for global human health and aquatic biodiversity. Scenarios showed an improvement of sanitation but unimproved sanitation will not disappear before 2070. Wastewater treatment will also improve but not in all regions of the world. Emissions of pathogens will only slightly reduce, although local emissions will reduce but sewer emissions downstream will increase. Nutrient emissions will increase by 50% for nitrogen and 70% for phosphorus. The SDG targets SDG6.2 on sanitation and 6.3 on wastewater will not be met in 2030 but much later depending on the ambition. Based on a database with 200 countries, historical trends show an overall improvement of sanitation and wastewater treatment between 2000 and 2015, but this improvement is inequal between countries. Due to population growth, the number of persons without sanitation increased. Most countries without wastewater treatment in 2000, didn’t improve their wastewater treatment till 2015.