| Water
/ THE FACTS
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 On our blue
planet 97.5% of the water is saltwater, unfit for human use.
The majority of freshwater is beyond our reach, locked into polar
snow and ice.
Less than 1% of freshwater is usable, amounting to only 0.01% of
the Earth’s total water.1
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Even this would be enough to support the world’s population
three times over, if used with care.2
However, water – like population – isn’t distributed
evenly. Asia has the greatest annual availability of fresh-water
and Australia the lowest. But when population is taken into account
the picture looks very different. |
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Our increasing thirst is a result of growing population, industrial
development and the expansion of irrigated farming. In the past
40 years, the area of irrigated land has doubled.3
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By the mid-1990s,
80 countries home to 40% of world population encountered serious
water shortages. Worst affected are Africa and the Middle East.
By 2025 two-thirds of the world’s people will be facing water
stress. The global demand for water will have grown by over 40%
by then.1
The only ray of hope is that the growth in actual use of water has
been slower than predicted.3
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The recommended basic water requirement per person per day is 50
litres. But people can get by with about 30 litres: 5 litres for
drinking and cooking and another 25 to maintain hygiene. The reality
for millions comes nowhere near.
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By contrast the average US
citizen uses 500 litres per day,
while the British average is 200.2
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| The
rural poor
People in rural areas are four times more likely than those
in cities to have no safe supply of water. The burden falls
unequally on women who sometimes have to walk for hours to
fetch water. A jerrycan of water with a capacity of 18 litres
weighs 20 kilos.
The
urban poor
They are less likely than the well-off to be connected to
mains water supplies and pay on average 12 times more per
litre. In Jakarta, Indonesia the poor pay water vendors 60
times the price of water from a standard connection; in Karachi,
Pakistan, 83 times; and in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Nouakchott,
Mauritania, 100 times.4 |
Progress?
Viewed in percentage terms both water supply and sanitation
provision have improved in the last decade. 
However, the actual number of people in need has barely changed
due to the rise in world population.3 |
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Some 97% of liquid freshwater is stored underground in aquifers.
People, especially in rural areas, are increasingly dependent on
groundwater – up to 2 billion people, a third of the world’s
population, rely on it.1
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Aquifers
are most severely depleted in parts of India, China, the US, North
Africa and the Middle East. It can take centuries for aquifers to
recharge, so the world is currently running a groundwater overdraft
of 200 billion cubic metres a year.
Pollution is
a major problem, resulting from human and farm animal waste, naturally
occurring toxins, as well as the over 10 million different synthetic
chemicals in use today.
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1
UNEP, Global Environment Outlook 3 (Earthscan 2002).
2 Rob Bowden, Water Supply: Our Impact on the
Planet (Hodder Wayland 2002).
3 Peter Gleick et al, The World’s Water
2002-2003 (Island Press 2002).
4 Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2001
(WW Norton 2001).
5 Peter Gleick, The World’s Water 2000-2001
(Island Press 2000).
6 Lester R Brown, State of the World 2001
(Earthscan 2001).
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New
Internationalist 354
Diseases
of contamination
Insect-related
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