Water Facts

There are a lot of facts out there about the Global Water Crisis, some of them are conflicting but all of them contain numbers that are way too high. Here are a few to ponder from water.org...

3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.

84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 - 14.

98% of water-related deaths occur in the developing world.

The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

About a third of people without access to an improved water source live on less than $1 a day.

More than two thirds of people without an improved water source live on less than $2 a day.

Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.

Without food a person can live for weeks, but without water you can expect to live only a few days.

The daily requirement for sanitation,bathing, and cooking needs, as well as for assuring survival, is about 13.2 gallons per person.

Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring.

More facts can be found at http://www.rivers.gov/waterfacts.html