Water Facts
Facts about water, water crisis, drinking water, sanitation, and water-related disease.
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Drinking Water
Each year more than five million people die from water-related disease. (20)
30 percent of water-related deaths are due to diarrhea. (21)
84 percent of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 – 14. (21)
98 percent of water-related deaths occur in the developing world. (21)
For the first time, the number of people without improved drinking water has dropped below one billion. (1)
Less than 1% of the world's fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. (2)
A person can live weeks without food, but only days without water. (3)
A person needs 4 to 5 gallons of water per day to survive. (4, 5)
The average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day. (
6,
7) The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day.
(7)
90 percent of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries. (9)
Sustainable management of water resources and sanitation provides great benefits to a society and the economy as a whole...access to safe drinking water is essential for achieving gender equality, sustainable development and poverty alleviation. (8)
Water systems fail at a rate of 50% or higher. (10,11)
Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. (12)
Sanitation
2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who still have no facilities at all. (1)
The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter. (13)
At any one time, more than half the poor of the developing world are ill from causes related to hygiene, sanitation and water supply. (13)
Eighty-eight percent of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. (14)
Numbers of those living on less than US $2 a day: 2.5 billion. Numbers of those without sanitation: 2.6 billion. (9)
2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. Its five key messages are:
1) Sanitation is vital for human health, 2) Sanitation generates economic benefits, 3) Sanitation contributes to dignity and social development, 4) Sanitation helps the environment, and 5) Sanitation is achievable. Visit www.sanitation2008.org. (1)
Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. (13)
Only 62 percent of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – that is, a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. (1)
Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no facilities. (9)
Impacts on Kids
Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. (15)
Children in poor environments often carry 1000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. (9)
For children under age five, water-related diseases are the leading cause of death. (16)
1.8 million children die each year from diarrhea – 4,900 deaths each day. (12)
Impacts on Women
Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. (12)
Lack of toilets makes women and girls vulnerable to violence if they are forced to defecate only after nightfall and in secluded areas. Sanitation enhances dignity, privacy and safety, especially for women and girls. Schools with decent toilet facilities enable children, especially girls reaching puberty, to remain in the educational system. (17)
A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women’s participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness. (8)
Evidence shows that women are responsible for half of the world’s food production (as opposed to cash crops) and in most developing countries, rural women produce between 60-80 percent of the food. Women also have an important role in establishing sustainable use of resources in small-scale fishing communities, and their knowledge is valuable for managing and protecting watersheds and wetlands. (8)
Impacts on Health
At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease. (12)
It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness. (17)
No intervention has greater overall impact upon national development and public health than the provision of safe drinking water and the proper disposal of human waste. (18)
Human health improvements are influenced not only by the use of clean water, but also by personal hygiene habits and the use of sanitation facilities. (19)
Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. (12)
The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. (12)
Impacts on Productivity
Estimated economic benefits of investing in drinking-water and sanitation:
- 272 million school attendance days a year, an added 1.5 billion healthy days for children under five years of age, together representing productivity gains of US $9.9 billion a year (14)
- Values of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, amounting to US $3.6 billion a year (14)
Every US dollar in sanitation provides and economic return of eight US dollars. – WHO (12)
What Can You Do?
Help WaterPartners fight the water crisis
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Lesson Plans for teachers and children on the water crisis
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Behind the numbers: Learn about three research calculations that impact WaterPartners work.
References
1. UNICEF/WHO. 2008. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation.
2. World Health Organization Fact Sheet Health in Water Resources Development.
3. UC Davis Health System. "Scripts." January 2001.
4. The Sphere Project Handbook Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response.
5. Les Roberts Diminishing standards: How much water do people need? [in Forum: Water and War, International Committee of the Red Cross (1998)].
6. U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet "Water Q&A: Water Use at Home."
7. World Resources Institute, 1998-99 and 1996-97. "A Guide to the Global Environment."
8. UN Water. 2008. Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief.
9. UN Water. 2008. Tackling a Global Crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008.
10. The World Bank, 2000. Annual Review of Development Effectiveness.
11. World Health Organization Fact Sheet Sustainability and Optimization of Water Supply and Sanitation Services.
12. 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
13. Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). 2008. A Guide to Investigating One of the Biggest Scandals of the Last 50 Years.
14. World Health Organization. 2008. Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health.
15. Number estimated from statistics in the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
16. World Health Organization. World Health Report 2003.
17. United Nations. 2007. International Year of Sanitation Global
18. World Health Organization, Fact Sheet No. 112 - Water and Sanitation.
19. World Health Organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. Water for Life: Making it Happen 2005
20. Pacific Institute, 2002. Dirty Water: Estimated Deaths from Water-Related Diseases 2000-2020.
21. WHO, 2008. Safer water, better health.
