Comment by sdoering

The reality is usually less dramatic than "water completely gone" but more chronically exhausting.

For a sub-Saharan family, "severe water scarcity" often means:

Daily life shifts

Wells and water points yield less or run dry. Wait times at functioning sources grow from minutes to hours. Walking distances to water double or triple. Water quality drops as everyone crowds the remaining sources.

Who carries the burden Mostly women and girls. During dry season, water collection can expand from one hour daily to four to six hours. Girls miss school, women lose time for farming or income generation.

Practical consequences

Washing, cooking, hygiene get rationed. Livestock often gets priority because it's the livelihood. Latrine hygiene suffers, raising disease risk. Conflicts at water points increase.

What "one month per year" obscures

The statistic sounds manageable, but that month typically falls during dry season when harvests also fail and food gets scarce. The effects compound.

Water rarely just "cuts off" - it's more of a grinding struggle over a shrinking resource, where the poorest have to walk furthest.

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