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ABSTRACT
Information from 2013-2015 have been analysed on water accessibility, types of water service to households, use of water pretreatment, availability of sewerage, use of sewage treatment in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and Yakutia Republic, based on evaluation information accessible in open sources, such as regional statistics and sanitary-epidemiologic reports. The main causes of the poor state of water supply and sanitation in the study regions include: very limited access to in-home running water (one-quarter of settlements in Chukotka and half of settlements in Yakutia have no regular water supply) and lack of centralised sewerage (78% and 94% of settlements correspondingly have no sewerage); lack of water pretreatment and sewage treatment, outdated technologies and systems; serious deterioration of facilities and networks, frequent accidents; secondary pollution of drinking water. Lack of open objective information on Russian Arctic water supply and sanitation in the materials of the regional and federal statistics hampers the assessment of the real state of affairs. The situation for water and sanitation supply in these Russian Arctic regions remains steadily unfavourable. A comprehensive intervention from national and regional governmental levels is urgently needed.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 20 March 2017
Accepted 1 January 2018
KEYWORDS
Chukotka; Yakutia; Russian Arctic; water supply; water accessibility; drinking water quality; water treatment; sanitation; sewerage; waste water
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #6, aims to "achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all" by 2030 [1]. Most of the global population with unmet needs for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are found in tropical or subtropical regions. However, it is not well understood that many Arctic residents lack WASH services and that the challenges of providing WASH differ in the Arctic and are incompletely understood. In addition, climate and environmental change is threatening existing water/sanitation systems by affecting water availability, making water and sewer treatment more complicated and disrupting distribution of water and sewage, particularly in areas with extensive permafrost thawing, flooding or erosion problems. This is more than a problem of inconvenience, inadequate access to WASH is known to have negative impacts on health in Arctic populations [2].
In 2015, an Arctic Council Sustainable Development Workgroup initiative was begun to document the extent of water and sanitation services in Arctic Nations,...