26th May 2021
With only 1% of the Planet’s total water fit for human consumption “Water should not be a luxury item,” says Xiaoyuan “Charlene” Ren, awarded UNEP Young Champion of the Earth in December 2020. However, for many rural communities in China safe drinking water cannot be taken for granted.
Up to 50% of China’s shallow groundwater is contaminated by agricultural runoff and factory waste. A common problem around the world, making millions of people sick every year from polluted water sources. To combat this issue Ren has focused her attention on providing rural communities with safe drinking water.
Younger migratory working patterns from rural China often leave elderly relatives behind in the villages. How do they choose between two glasses of water that look the same but only one may be safe to drink and the other make you sick?
Having a background in environmental engineering and technology Ren has put this to good use. She developed her knowledge for mapping water quality from her previous research into rural water use in India. Here she came across a database for mapping water quality in public wells and how this helps channel resources to where they are most needed.
Ren founded the MyH2O app, a data platform that maps groundwater quality across rural China and informs residents of the nearest source of clean drinking water. The app connects communities with water filtration companies and other non-profit organisations providing potable water solutions.
The MyH2O platform is an easy to use mobile phone app relying on a nationwide network of youth volunteers, trained to test water quality, logging their results into the interactive platform. The volunteers conduct surveys on water usage to evaluate the demand for clean water, giving invaluable data for mapping the state of water across rural China.
By tapping into young volunteers, who are generally science, technology, engineering and medical students, Ren and her team hope that their exposure to MyH2O will propel these future minds to create other solutions to environmental challenges.
Ever the optimist Ren believes in order to fight planetary threats, countries must tailor solutions to the needs of their people. “If we want to solve environmental issues, we have to start at the village level. We aim to serve our communities and bring change for future generations, helping them understand the big environmental challenges we face, but also that solutions are within our reach.”
Since its launch in 2015, the platform, which services 1,000 villages in 26 provinces, has helped tens of thousands of people access clean water.