World Water Day Special: Shocking 5 Facts On Water Scarcity

Water scarcity isn't high on the lists of things we think about for most of us. We have our attention pulled by Facebook, news story, or videos for that day. But the water issues affect the lives of hundred million people everyday.

We haven't faced any problem when we need water, whether it is day or night. We get clean, safe water that flows out from our taps with no effort and use it for many daily chores, like drinking, washing, or even watering our garden.

But in other regions of the world, getting water to drink can make people (specially women in the developing countries) walk miles away to fetch water, which forces a strong impact on their lives. This is because it takes lot of time (about 200 million hours a day) and physical strain as they carry water on their back.

Here are the shocking 5 facts on water scarcity that makes us create awareness about water issues on this World Water Day (22 March):

1. About 800 million people have no proper access to safe and clean water every day. This is almost two and half times more than the population of the United States, in which we waste lot of water before mid-day and many others use in a month or so.
2. About three and a half million people die because of water and improper hygiene every year, where all (99%) are people from developing countries.
3. For every 22 seconds, a child is dead due to water related disease. Diarrhea, which is considered not dangerous in developed countries, is deadly and it is the second cause of death of kids below five.
4. Every day, almost 1 billion practice open defection. This not only pollute the surrounding area, but also pollute community water. Clean water and sanitation go together.
5. On an average, an American, taking shower for 5 minutes, uses a lot more than a person in a developing world in a day. You may think that a 5 minute shower is very short for many people. But it can go up to more than 5 liters of water.

Water scarcity and its related matter affect the wealth, health, education of those poor people. Support to water issues can be done in diverse ways, like sharing stories of water through social media, or even by educating people about these issues, or even volunteering in water advocacy.

This year, the theme of World Water Day is Water and Energy. It is because, these two issues are closely related and interdependent.








Tags: Water scarcity, world water day, water poverty, developing countries, developed countries, save water, environmental crisis, conservation, water pollution, how to tackle water pollution, how to fight water scarcity, why water scarcity is a problem in developing world, environmental issues

By Somanath Yadavalli
Updated: April 13th, 2014