A new study by scientists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and the United Nations University concludes that about half of global wastewater is treated, rather than the previous estimate of 20%. Despite this promising finding, the authors warn that treatment rates in developing countries are still very low. The study and its dataset were published open access in the journal Earth System Science Data.
144 million swimming pools
The authors use national statistics to estimate volumes of wastewater production, collection, treatment and reuse. “Globally, about 359 billion cubic meters of wastewater is produced each year, equivalent to 144 million Olympic-sized swimming pools,”
