World Water Day 2013

March 22 was World Water Day…it’s time to make a change…what can you do to help?

World Water Day was created in 1993 by the United Nations. Water.org uses the entire week to spread the word of sustainable safe water access for the nearly a billion people currently without it. Our goal is to make this a reality in our lifetime and so we celebrate water and all the progress that has been made, and that we are continuing to make.

Some water facts around the world:
~3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease, that is almost the entire city of Los Angeles.
~780 million people lack access to clean water..that’s more than 2 1/2 times the United States population.
~More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world.
~Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
~Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities.
~780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.
~[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
~An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.
~Over 2.5 times more people lack water than live in the United States.
~More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.

Resource Links
Look for more facts in our collection of Water Resource Links.

Estimated with data from Diarhhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done. UNICEF, WHO 2009
Estimated with data from WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation. (2012). Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water, 2012 Update.
World Health Organization (WHO). (2008). Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health; Updated Table 1: WSH deaths by region, 2004.
International Telecommunication Union (ITU). (2011). The World in 2011 ICT Facts and Figures
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). (2011). State of World Population 2011, People and possibilities in a world of 7 billion
World Health Organization (WHO). (2004). Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level
UN Water. (2008). Tackling a global crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008
UN Water. (2009). The United Nations World Water Development Report 3, Water in a Changing World
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2006). Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis
Water and Sanitation Program (WSP). (2000). Linking Sustainability with Demand, Gender and Poverty: A study in community-managed water supply projects in 15 countries
Water and Sanitation Program (WSP). (2010). Financing On-Site Sanitation for the Poor, A Six County Comparative Review and Analysis
World Health Organization (WHO). (2002). The World Health Report 2002, Reducing Risks, Promoting Health Life
World Health Organization (WHO). (2004). Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level
Map data sourced from “Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water, 2010 Update.” WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.