Abstract

Based on United Nations (UN) estimates, approximately one billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water, and over three million people die from waterborne diseases each year. These problems are expected to increase, with the UN estimating that by the year 2025, 2.8 billion people will experience freshwater stress or scarcity. This paper considers the problem of water sustainability from the supply chain point of view—in terms of water sourcing, collection and storage, treatment, and distribution. In particular, this paper identifies the different structural types of global water supply chain systems and evaluates the sustainability of each supply chain type on the bases of two different definitions of system sustainability, highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each type, and provides recommendations based on the analysis.