Heavy metals in Ethiopian drinking water and public health risks: Insights from nationwide and regional analysis.

The ambitious sustainable development goal (SDG) 6 of the United Nations, which aims to achieve universal access to safe water and sanitation by 2030, remains elusive for many developing countries like Ethiopia. This is often due to a multitude of intricate factors, including the escalating degradation of water quality. Here, we present a comprehensive nationwide and regional analysis of heavy metal pollution in drinking water sources and the associated human health risks in Ethiopia based on a dataset of 11 heavy metal concentrations (n = 975) collated from available studies.