1.2 billion people lack clean drinking water
World leaders grapple with stark stats at meeting in The Hague
There are more cellphones on Earth than clean toilets, one of the most vexing challenges facing governments on the 20th anniversary of the United Nations’ World Water Day.
Solving that developmental dilemma has confounded leaders, some of whom met Friday in The Hague to discuss water co-operation. There are six billion cellphones, according to the International Telecommunications Union, while 1.2 billion of the planet’s seven billion people lack clean drinking water and 2.4 billion aren’t connected to wastewater systems.
The most vulnerable — whether in China, India or sub-Saharan Africa — may be the young who must survive poor-quality or insufficient water while supplies are overused in other countries such as those in North America, said Maxime Serrano Bardisa, a water analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.
A Canadian taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developingcountry slum uses for an entire day, according to BEEF.
Statistics show at least one in three people don’t have a toilet. More people die from diseases caused by not having a clean, safe place to go to the bathroom than from HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Almost three-quarters of all diseases in India are caused by water contaminants.
“One of the biggest reasons for child mortality is water sanitation, we are still very underserved when it comes to water sanitation facilities,” Andreas Lindstrom, program manager at the Stockholm International Water Institute, said at a conference in Vina del Mar, Chile. “It’s still more risky to go to the bathroom in many countries than any other activity.”
The world’s population is three times larger now than it was in 1950. In the past 40 years, water use has doubled, Karla Canavan of Bunge Environmental Markets told the Prana Sustainable Water conference today in Geneva.
With fresh water unevenly distributed across the world, businesses from beverage companies to power utilities and the agricultural industry face challenges securing access to the resource, BNEF’s Serrano Bardisa said.
Increased water consumption and failure to manage the resources available may have “significant” economic impacts, according to Paul Street, director of sustainable solutions at Black & Veatch Ltd., an infrastructure company. “Water is central to our well-being and prosperity, and it is finite.”
Ninety gallons of water are needed to grow one pound of corn and 40 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil, Street said.