Today s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access.

More people in th e world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums gr ow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to clea n water and sanitation kills thousands, leaving others with reduced quality of l ife. Choose a Topic: water sanitation children women disease economics environment Water 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eigh t people. (5) 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. (11) The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war c laims through guns. (1) People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wea lthy people living in the same city. (1) An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. http://waterfilterbusiness.info Sanitation Only 62% of the world s population has access to improved sanitation defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. (5) Lack of sanitation is the world s biggest cause of infection. (9) 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion peo ple who have no facilities at all. (5) Of the 60 million people added to the world s towns and cities every year, most oc cupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities. (8) Children Diarrhea remains in the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths about 1.5 million each year is due to diarrhea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. (13) Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. (2) Diarrhea is more prevalent in the developing world due, in large part, to the la ck of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as poorer overall hea lth and nutritional status. (13) Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. (8) In the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day fro m preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water. (13) 1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year. http://waterfilterbusiness.info The ancient Romans had better water quality than half the people alive now Onl y 63% of the world s population have access to improved sanitation Waterborne dis eases cause 1.4 million children s deaths every year Women spend thousands of hou rs each year collecting and carrying water. Half of the world s hospitalizations are due to water-related disease 70% of the world s freshwater supply is devoted

to agriculture Over 50 percent of all water projects fail in the first few year s Today s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to cl ean water and sanitation kills thousands, leaving others with reduced quality of life. http://waterfilterbusiness Water 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eigh t people. (5) 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. (11) The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war c laims through guns. (1) People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wea lthy people living in the same city. (1) An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. (1) Sanitation Only 62% of the world s population has access to improved sanitation defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. (5) Lack of sanitation is the world s biggest cause of infection. (9) 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion peo ple who have no facilities at all. (5) Of the 60 million people added to the world s towns and cities every year, most oc cupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities. (8) Children Diarrhea remains in the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths about 1.5 million each year is due to diarrhea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. (13) Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. (2) Diarrhea is more prevalent in the developing world due, in large part, to the la ck of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as poorer overall hea lth and nutritional status. (13) Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. (8) In the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day fro m preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water. (13) 1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year. (11) Women In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women s time is consumed for the m ost basic of human needs collecting water for domestic use. This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald s, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org. Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from d istant, often polluted sources. (1) A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community wate r and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than th ose that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women s

participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effecti veness. http://waterfilterbusiness.info Disease At any given time, half of the world s hospital beds are occupied by patients suff ering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inade quate sanitation and poor hygiene. (1) The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.9 Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving wa ter supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvem ents reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a susta inable way. (14) 88% of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. (9) 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age , mostly in developing countries. (8) It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-relate d deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added , such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. I t would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness. (6)

Economics Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of project s are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring. (1 0) Investment in safe drinking water and sanitation contributes to economic growth. For each $1 invested, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates returns of $3 $34, depending on the region and technology. (14) Almost two in every three people who need safe drinking water survive on less th an $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day. Households, not public agencies, often make the largest investment in basic sani tation, with the ratio of household to government investment typically 10 to 1. (15) Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more sch ool attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted fut ure earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year. Environment Less than 1% of the world s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. (12) More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluti ng rivers, lakes and coastal areas. (16) The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater stress or scarcity . Our Water.org High School Curr iculum Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far: about 70% of all fresh water withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. (14)

At home the average American uses between 100 and 175 gallons of water a day. Th at is less than 25 years ago, but it does not include the amount of water used t o feed and clothe us. Conserving water helps not only to preserve irreplaceable natural resources, but also to reduce the strain on urban wastewater management systems. Wastewater is costly to treat, and requires continuous investment to ensure that the water we return to our waterways is as clean as possible.