Today is World Water Day. Theme -
Transboundary waters: Sharing water, sharing opportunities.
The world's 263 transboundary lake and river basins include the
territory of 145 countries and cover nearly half of the Earth's land
surface.
Over the last 60 years there have been more than 200 international
water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between states
over water.
 There
are 13 basins worldwide that are shared between 5 to 8 countries. Five
river basins, the Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine and Zambezi, are shared
between nine to 11 countries. The river that flows through the most
countries is the Danube, which passes through the territory of 18
countries. More than One billion people have no access to safe water
More than 1.1 billion people gained access to safe drinking water
between 1990-2002. The greatest access gains were achieved in South
Asia, where water access increased from 71 per cent in 1990 to 84 per
cent in 2002. Only 2.5 per cent of the water on Earth is freshwater.
Out of that 69 per cent is frozen in the polar caps and some other
regions. Actually, less than one per cent of the world's fresh water (or
about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct
human use.
The daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, as
well as for assuring survival, is about 49 liters per person.More than
2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2
billion people who have no facilities at all. 3.5 million people die
each year from water-related disease. Every 15 seconds, a child dies
from a water-related disease.
* At any one time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by
patients suffering from water-borne diseases.
* Every week an estimated 42,000 people die from diseases related to
low quality drinking water and lack of sanitation. Over 90 per cent
of them occur to children under the age of 5.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a baby's chance of dying from diarrhea is
almost 520 times the chance of that in Europe or the United States. An
investment of US$11.3 billion per year is needed to meet the drinking
water and sanitation target of the Millennium Development Goals,
yielding a total payback for US$ 84 billion a year.
Water withdrawals for irrigation have increased by over 60 per cent
since 1960. About 70 per cent of all available freshwater is used for
irrigation in agriculture.By 2025, two thirds of the world's population
(about 5.5 billion at current projection levels) will be facing a severe
water crisis.
A WHO Cost-Benefit Analysis showed that every US$1 invested in
improved drinking water and sanitation services can yield economic
benefits of US$4 to US$34 depending on the region. The economic benefits
of household water treatment - such as the application of chlorination,
solar disinfection, filters or combined flocculation and chlorination
powders - can yield benefits of US$ 5 to 140 per US$ 1 invested. |
