Public Health Practice Report: water supply and sanitation in Chukotka and Yakutia, Russian Arctic

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(78% and 94% of settlements correspondingly have no sewerage); lack of water pretreatment and sewage treatment, outdated technologies and systems; serious deterioration of facilities and networks, frequent accidents; secondary pollution of drinking water.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.

KEYWORDS:

• Chukotka
• Yakutia
• Russian Arctic
• water supply
• water accessibility
• drinking water quality
• water treatment
• sanitation
• sewerage
• waste water

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dr Thomas Hennessy (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Anchorage, Alaska) for his editorial assistance and suggestions on the content of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author has not received any funding or benefits from industry or elsewhere to conduct this study.