The Global Water Crisis
Water scarcity and degraded water quality are colliding with growing populations in need of more and more water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, and industry. The result poses unprecedented challenges for a rapidly growing number of communities and ecosystems around the globe.
- More than 2.8 billion people will be living in either water-scarce or water-stressed regions of the world by 2025.
- Total global water demand is doubling every 20 years.
- Freshwater ecosystems and environmental services from water resources and watersheds are increasingly at risk from human pressures including water withdrawals, dam diversions, and urban and industrial development and pollution.
- Wetland ecosystems, which serve as buffers against natural disasters and breeding grounds for fisheries, are being lost around the world at alarming rates.
- Ninety-five percent of wastewater in developing countries around the world is discharged into the environment without treatment.
- More than 1 billion people lack access to an improved water supply and more than 2 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, undermining efforts to protect public health.
- More than 50 percent of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from water-related diseases.
- Nearly 2 million people—the vast majority children under five—die from diarrhea each year.
- Seventy percent of water consumed by humans is directed to agriculture and cultivated food production, and this percentage is even higher in many developing countries.
- Ninety percent of all disaster-related deaths are water-related.
- Over 260 river basin watersheds are shared by at least two countries.
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