In Illinois, a state study shows that most urban flooding occurs outside the FEMA-designated flood zone. This counterintuitive fact arises from historical patterns of building and water infrastructure construction and management, which are designed to move water off land and into (aging and deteriorating) sewer systems as quickly as possible.
The association between WASH services and gendered vulnerability to violence in rural locales and urban slums in developing countries has received the most study, but women everywhere are vulnerable when they lack access to, or are accessing, WASH services. All of which leaves one asking why global leaders focus on the possibility of future water-related conflict rather than respond to the very real crisis conditions in which women and girls exist now?