Solving worldwide water issues means making sure that every person on the planet had enough clean, safe water to drink, prepare their food, and bathe.

So, what’s the problem?

• Inadequate water supply: More than a billion people, or 17% of the world population, do not enough water.  In places across the world, people get their water from contaminated rivers and streams – and may spend hours every day fetching water and waiting their turn.
• Unreliable water supply: Drought can devastate regions that are unprepared.  Crops and livestock can not survive; people suffer from hunger and disease.  On the other hand, flooding can spread disease by contaminating drinking water.
• Polluted water supply: In many poor places, farmers can not afford clean water to irrigate their crops.  An entire city’s food supply can be corrupted because of agricultural or mining runoff, industrial or human waste in the water used for farming.
• Unsanitary waste disposal: Only one quarter of villagers in developing countries have sanitary systems.  Without a hygiene system in place, wastes are likely to pollute the water source.

Water-related diseases
Water can give life, or it can spread disease.  Water spreads disease when it contains microbes or chemicals, or acts as a breeding ground for insects that carry disease.  Children, the old, and the infirm are the most vulnerable to water-borne disease.

• Diarrhea is the most common water-borne disease, causing three to four million deaths every year.  Fatalities are mostly in developing countries, and mostly children under five.  Hand washing cuts diarrhea cases nearly in half.
• Malaria kills 1.3 million people every year, 90% of whom are under five.  The mosquito that spreads malaria breeds in standing water; so covering water storage barrels, and clearing debris from streams can drastically reduce the spread of malaria.
• River-blindness or schistosomiasis causes visual impairment, blindness, and death.  Six million people have the disease and another 500 million are at risk.  Face-washing and improved hygiene can reduce deaths by over a quarter.
• Other microbial diseases carried by water include intestinal disease, Japanese encephalitis, Hepatitis A and E, cholera, typhoid, shigella, polio, and meningitis.  Boiling or chlorinating water with bleach kills most of the microbes it contains.
• The toxic chemical arsenic contaminates the water of at least 35 million people.  Unsafe amounts of arsenic have been found in water in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Thailand, and even the United States.
• Other chemicals that make water dangerous include fertilizers pesticides, and elevated levels of fluoride.

Turning the tide

1. Provide every person on the planet with enough clean, safe water
2. Ensure that governments adopt safe and reliable water management policies – or institute them through other agencies
3. Identify unsafe water, and either treat it, or make sure people do not use it
4. Make sure every populated area has a working sanitation system
5. Drastically cut disease rates by emphasizing simple hygiene: like washing hands and chlorinating water

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