11 Facts About Our Water

Water is our most essential natural resource but the world is now facing a crisis as fewer people have access to safe drinking water and our natural reservoirs are being depleted at alarming rates.

1. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population – or 5.3 billion people – will suffer from water shortages.
2. Right now, 1.1 billion people – or one in six people worldwide – do not have access to clean water.
3. Every year, 1.8 million children die from waterborne diseases; that is one every 15 seconds. Water-related diseases caused by contaminated water and inadequate sanitation are responsible for 80% of all illness in the developing world.
4. Seasonal runoff from glaciers provides drinking water for one-sixth of the world’s population. But with global warming expected to permanently melt one-fourth
5. The agriculture industry is the largest user of water in the world today. It accounts for 70% of all fresh water used every year, and consumption of water by farms will only increase to feed a growing population: 2.7 billion people by 2050.
6. 1,374 square miles of land turns to desert every year, an environmental crisis that affects 200 million people and threatens the lives of many more. Global desertification threatens one-fifth of the world’s population and one-third of the Earth’s land surface (15 million square miles)
7. Half of the world’s 500 major rivers are seriously depleted or polluted by industrial, agricultural, and human waste.
8. Four quarts of oil discarded during an average oil change in a car can contaminate up to 1 million gallons of water.
9. Even the water in the US is not as clean as we think. Residue from antidepressants, birth control pills and antibiotics are found in 80% of US waterways and groundwater, according to the EPA.
10. Worldwide, two million tons of human, industrial, and agricultural wastes are discharged into rivers and lakes every day. On average, no more than one-third of the wastewater in developing countries is treated before being discharged into rivers, streams, and lakes, while one quart of untreated wastewater pollutes eight quarts of fresh water.
11. Many water sources have become so polluted and over-fished that one in every five of the world’s freshwater species have become extinct, threatened, or endangered in recent decades.

Sources
Blue Planet Run - The Race to Provide Safe Drivinking Water to the World