94 At least two billion people around the world use water from contaminated sources, particularly in the developing world, where access to clean water resources is often unaffordable or inaccessible. Water is taken from community taps or wells, sometimes even directly from rivers where the quality is often questionable. Contaminated water is even a problem in Israel, in the unrecognized rural enclaves in the south. One Israeli startup also dealing with the world-wide challenge of safe drinking water is a branch of Tel Aviv University’s Water Energy Lab, in the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. The lab, headed by Prof. Hadas Mamane, has developed a technology that uses LED lighting and solar energy to disinfect water. The laptop-sized device, called SoLED, operates without any chemicals or electricity to kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses from water, making it less costly and easier to use than existing solutions in remote areas. The SoLED prototype is now being tested in rural India. The ultimate goal, of course, is to produce a version that can be manufactured for mass distribution. As a result of the climate crisis, billions of people in the world today – it is estimated one person in every four – experience extreme water scarcity, for at least part of the year. As the impact of climate change increases, water scarcity will affect nearly half the world’s population by 2025, according to expert estimates. This is not only true of poor countries: large parts of the U.S. are running out of water too as a result of global warming. On both the private and academic level, Israel is sharing its expertise, technologies and policy strategies with other water-deprived countries. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, while Israel is located in the most water-scarce region of the world, it «is leading the way in developing innovative technologies for this sector. From water recycling to desalination and drip irrigation, Israeli companies are at the forefront of marrying ingenuity and science to ameliorate this global problem».
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