World Water Day
On March 22nd, people around the world celebrated World Water Day, a day recognized by the United Nations to call attention to the global water crisis.
Benedicte Kurzen | The New York Times A boy gathered water near the new stadium in Nelspruit, South Africa in February 2010. Many homes in the area lack electricity or running water. Come June, soccer's World Cup will be hosted by South Africa. Though only 4 of the 64 games are to be played here in Nelspruit, a $137 million stadium was built for the occasion. The arena's 18 supporting pylons reach skyward in the shape of orange giraffes. At nightfall, their eyeballs blink with flashes of bewitching light. A boy gathered water near t |
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884 million people around the world, almost entirely in developing countries, lack access to reliable safe drinking water.
The quality of water on our planet is in a state of crisis, primarily due to human activities. Urbanization, the use of chemical products and contaminants, and poor water management are contributing to the deterioration of water quality.
Climate change has also exacerbated the crisis. Severe and prolonged droughts reduce water availability in already arid regions, and strong rains cause residual waters to overflow, flooding the ground and dislodging sediments, nutrients, pathogens, and pesticides.
But the greatest source of contamination is poor sanitation: 39 percent of the world's population-2.6 billion people-lack adequate sanitation. The situation is gravest in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (Papua, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India), where 44 percent of the population (approximately 1.1 billion people) still defecate in the open air.
As a consequence of this practice, bacteria and pathogens freely contaminate the water supply. Children are particularly vulnerable to water-transmitted diseases due to the large quantities of water they consume in proportion to their small bodies, and the fact that their immunological systems are not well equipped to fight bacteria like E. coli, giardia, and bacteria that cause typhoid fever. More than 2 million children die from these diseases every year, and 90 percent of these children are less than 5 years old.
Fortunately, simple improvements, like building latrines and treating drinking water with chlorine, filters and other existing technologies can save millions of lives. The challenge is adopting the right strategies in the right places, as needs can vary greatly from country to country.
The long-term goal is to ensure that everyone has reliable access to safe, treated drinking water. Water is critical for human life and should be considered a basic human right. For this reason, the United Nations has included access to safe drinking water in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with the aim of reducing the proportion of people without access to potable water and basic sanitation by 50 percent.
The most recent report details the progress being made by the World Health Organization and UNICEF towards achieving this goal. Significant positive advancements have been made with 87 percent of the world's population, some 5.9 billion people who already have access to sources of safe drinking water. At this rate, we not only reach, but go beyond the Millennium Development Goal for potable water. Unfortunately, progress on sanitation has been much slower.
In 2005, the U.S. Congress put down in law specific water goals with the passage of the Water for the Poor Act, introduced by Senator Paul Simon. The law focuses on potable water and sanitation through the integration of water sanitation services in all U.S. development projects. But Congress has failed to allocate funds to pay for the law's enactment. NRDC is urging Congress to finance Sen. Paul Simon's water law, and we are helping to deliver concrete recommendations for the law's implementation.
This World Water Day, take a moment to tell Congress that they should increase the funds available for water and sanitation programs that safeguard our health and the wellbeing of our environment.
Make your voice heard here: www.nrdc.org or www.laondaverde.org.
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