Providing access to safe water and sanitation, ensuring sound management of freshwater resources, and preventing water pollution are inter-related priority challenges of sustainable development that must be met for other goals and targets to be achieved Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Water access: Delivery models, technologies, and responsible actors for access to water and sanitation differ between urban and rural areas, so we propose to assign these challenges to the urban and rural goals, respectively. This has the added advantage of combining water supply and sanitation, which are often closely linked.

Water resources management: Integrated water resources management and the allocation of water across different uses is a cross-cutting requirement for all goals. Freshwater needs for agriculture (accounting for some 70 percent of freshwater withdrawals), industry, households, and the healthy functioning of ecosystems (sometimes referred to as “green water”) stand out as major challenges. Moreover, water-related disasters, such as floods and droughts, account for a large share of damage from natural disasters. Water resources management and associated disaster risk management cannot be pursued in isolation from the management of agriculture, cities, and ecosystems, so water is part of several goals. The proposed SDG 9 emphasizes the need for integrated water resources management. A suitable indicator for Target 9c might include the ratio of freshwater withdrawals to renewable freshwater supply which should be lower than one.

Water pollution: Water pollution is a separate management challenge. Although not limited to urban areas, water pollution is a significant urban challenge and is therefore included under SDG 7.

The question of how to deal with water challenges in the proposed Sustainable Development Goals has been intensely discussed in the Leadership Council. Some have argued for a stand-alone water goal partly to draw attention to the importance of water management. Overall, though, the proposals provide a sound basis for managing the various water challenges within the framework of ten Sustainable Development Goals, particularly if suitable indicators track the sustainable use of water resources, access to water supply, and water quality.