Water Facts

Last week, I offered up a rewrite of a previous article on water. This week I'd like to keep our thoughts running in that vein by offering you some facts. The appropriate sources have been acknowledged.

International water crisis looms as Canada waffles on selling water

LORRAYNE ANTHONY

(CP) - Currently 450 million people face water shortage problems and scientists say that number will skyrocket to 2.7 billion by 2025. Scientists, environmentalists and agricultural groups are meeting this week in Stockholm to discuss the growing problem of water scarcity that threatens the world's food ssupply.

Most of the people affected by this crisis live in the Mediterranean region, including some parts of southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, parts of India and China, most of sub-SaharaAfrica and parts of North and South America. Canada - despite a summer plagued by water shortages where farmers across the country have watched their crops and hopes for a profitable season wilt and suburbanites were asked to cut back on lawn water

***

Source

1.1 billion -- the number of people worldwide who lack an adequate and safe supply of water for their daily needs, approximately one in five

5 million --- the number of people, mostly children, who die each year from illnesses caused by poor-quality water supplies

5 -- the minimum number of gallons of water needed to meet a person's daily needs, according to the World Health Organization

4.5 -- the average number of gallons of water consumed daily per person in Haiti in 1995.

*****

24 million -- the number of people in Bangladesh estimated to be drinking water from arsenic from shallow wells

50 -- the percentage of people in Africa who suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea

20 -- the percentage of the world's freshwater supply that is in Canada, which recently banned bulk exports of water

$90 billion -- estimated annual global investments in public water supplies

$4 billion -- estimated annual sales of the U.S. bottled water industry

-- by Adam I. Lowe

Sources:

1 -- World Health Organization, "Focus on Sanitation," Environmental Health Newsletter, No. 27, October 1997.

2 -- Maude Barlow, Blue Gold: The Global Water Crisis and he Commodification of the World's Water Supply, International Forum on Globalization, June 1999.

3,4 -- Michael Norton, Neighborhood Committees Tackle Haiti's Water Shortage, Associated Press, May 4, 1998.

5 -- U.S. Water News Online, Arsenic Poison in Bangladesh

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic