1. The General Comment on the right to water, adopted by the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in November 2002, is a milestone in the history of human rights. For the first time water is explicitly recognized as a fundamental human right and the 145 countries that have ratified the International CESCR will now be compelled to progressively ensure that everyone has access to safe and secure drinking water, equitably and without discrimination.
2. To ensure our basic needs, we all need 20 to 50 litres of water free from harmful contaminants each and every day.
3. A child born in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times as much water resources as one in the developing world.
4. An analysis based on health statistics for the year 2000 shows that globally between 1,085,000 and 2,187,000 deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases can be attributed to the 'water, sanitation and hygiene' risk factor, 90% of them among children under five.
5. The Global Water Supply and Sanitation 2000 Assessment (WHO/UNICEF, 2000) shows that 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water supply and 2.4 billion to improved sanitation.
6. If improved water supply and basic sanitation were extended to the present-day 'unserved', it is estimated that the burden of infectious diarrhoeas would be reduced by some 17%; if universal piped, well-regulated water supply and full sanitation were achieved, this would reduce the burden by some 70%.
7. Drinkable water is becoming increasingly scarce. By the year 2025, it is predicted that water abstraction will increase by 50% in developing countries and 18% in developed countries, as population growth and development drive up water demand. Effects on the world's ecosystems have the potential to dramatically worsen the present situation, and current assessments suggest that existing practices are not adequate to avert this.
8. Although freshwater ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and wetlands occupy less than 2% of the Earth's total land surface, they provide a wide range of habitats for a significant proportion of the world's plant and animal species: the number of known freshwater species worldwide is estimated at between 9,000 and 25,000, but this number is rapidly decreasing due to human interference.
9. By some estimates, the expansion of agricultural demand for food by a wealthier and 50% larger global population could drive the conversion of an additional billion hectares of unmodified ecosystems to agriculture by 2050. This could result in nitrogen- and phosphorus-driven eutrophication of freshwater and near-shore marine ecosystems being more than doubled, with comparable increase in pesticide use.
10. An estimated 30 million people depend on Lake Victoria, a lake whose natural resources are under increasing stress. The population on the shore has grown fast over the past century with corresponding increases in the demand for fish and agricultural products. Following the introduction of gill nets by European settlers at the beginning of the 20th century, populations of indigenous fish species declined. Many were specially adapted to eat algae, decaying plant material, and snails that host the larvae of schistosomes. The lake started to eutrophicate and people became more vulnerable to disease.
As fish catches declined, non-native species were introduced, causing further stress to indigenous fish. The greatest impact resulted from the introduction of nile perch (Lates niloticus) in the 1960s, as the basis of commercial freshwater fisheries. This had repercussions on the local fishing economy and distribution of wealth. Local people who previously met most of their protein requirements from the lake began to suffer from malnutrition and protein deficiency. Although 20.000 tonnes of fish are exported annually to European and Asian markets, local people can afford only fish heads and bones from which the flesh has been removed.
11. Lake Malawi (southern Africa) is an aquatic system that was originally endowed with a great deal of fish as well as freshwater snail biodiversity. However, loss in fish biodiversity has resulted in the favouring of certain snail species that play a role in the transmission of schistosomiasis. The increased health risk has greatly affected the tourist industry of Malawi and the whole economy has declined.
12. Around 50% of the world's wetlands present in 1900 had been lost by the late 1990s, with conversion of land to agriculture being the main cause of loss.
13. Worldwide, 70% of the water that is withdrawn for human use is used for agriculture, 22% for industry and 8% is used for domestic services. In general, these proportions vary according to a country's income: in low- and middle-income countries, 82% is used for agriculture, 10% for industry and 8% for domestic services. In high-income countries, the proportions are 30%, 59% and 11%, respectively.
14. It is estimated that the average person in developed countries uses 500-800 litres of water per day (300 m³ per year), compared to 60-150 litres per day (20 m3 per year) in developing countries.
15. At the start of the twenty-first century, agriculture is using a global average of 70% of all water withdrawals from rivers, lakes and aquifers. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) anticipates a net expansion of irrigated land of some 45 million hectares in ninety-three developing countries (to a total of 242 million hectares in 2030) and projects that agricultural water withdrawals will increase by some 14% from 2000 to 2030 to meet future food production needs.
16. Hydropower is already a major contributor to the world's energy balance, providing 19% of total electricity production (2,740 terawatts per hour in 2001).
17. Golf tourism has an enormous impact on water withdrawals - an eighteen-hole golf course can consume more than 2.3 million litres a day. In the Philippines, water use for tourism threatens paddy cultivation. Tourists in Grenada (Spain) generally use 7 times more water than local people and this discrepancy is common in many developing tourist areas.
18. Developed countries show a wide range of variation in water pricing: in Germany 1m³ costs $1.91 (USD), in Denmark it cost $1.64, in Belgium $1.54, in the Netherlands $1.25, in France $1.23, in the UK $1.18, in Italy $0.76, in Finland $0.69, in Ireland $0.63, in Sweden $0.58, in Spain $0.57, in the United States $0.51, in Australia $0.50 and in Canada $0.40.
19. When the supply systems are deficient, the poor are the first to suffer. Water from informal vendors is more than 100 times more expensive than water supplied by house connection. In Vientiane (Lao PDR) the cost of water through a house connection is $0.11 m³ (USD) and the price charged by an informal vendor is $14.68 /m³, which means that there is a difference of 135.92%. In Delhi (India) the price of the water through a house connection is $0.01 /m³ and the price charged by an informal vendor can be as much as 4.89 - 489% more.
20. According to the World Commission on Dams there was a world total of 47,655 large dams in 1998 and an estimated 800,000 smaller ones.
21. 60% of the world's 227 largest rivers are strongly to moderately fragmented by dams, diversions and canals, and a high rate of dam construction in the developing world threatens the integrity of remaining free-flowing rivers.
22. In the Mobile Bay drainage basin in the United States, dam construction has had a catastrophic impact on what was probably the most diverse freshwater snail fauna in the world. Nine families and about 120 species were known from the drainage basin. At least 38 species are believed to have become extinct in the 1930s and 1940s following extensive dam construction in the basin: the system now has 33 major hydroelectric dams and many smaller impoundments, as well as locks and flood-control structures.
23. In some mountainous regions of East Africa, women spend up to 27% of their caloric intake in collecting water.
24. It has been calculated that in South Africa alone, women collectively walk the equivalent distance of 16 times to the moon and back per day gathering water for their families.
25. Some 30% of women in Egypt walk over 1 hour a day to meet water needs. In some parts of Africa, women and children spend 8 hours a day collecting water.
26. On average women and children travel 10-15 kilometres per day collecting water and carrying up to 20 kilos or 15 litres per trip.
27. Medical research has documented cases of permanent damage to women's health attributed to carrying water. Problems range from chronic fatigue, spinal and pelvic deformities, to effects on reproductive health such as spontaneous abortions. In some parts of Africa, where women expend as much as 85% of their daily energy intake fetching water, the incidence of anaemia and other health problems are very high.
28. 70% of the world's blind are women who have been infected, directly or through their children, with trachoma, a blinding bacterial eye infection occurring in communities with limited access to water.
29. The economic value of this unpaid contribution is enormous: in India it is estimated that women fetching water spend 150 million work days per year, equivalent to a national loss of income of 10 billion Rupees (228,600 million U.S. dollars).
30. From a public health perspective, it is better to provide a whole city's population with safe water supplies to taps within 50 metres of their home than to provide only the richest 20% with access to safe water.
31. Hygiene interventions including hygiene education and promotion of hand washing can reduce diarrhoeal cases by up to 45%.
32. 88% of diarrhoeal disease is attributed to unsafe water supply, inadequate sanitation and hygiene.
33. 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries.
34. Every 8 seconds a child dies from drinking contaminated water (that is 10,000 a day).
35. 500 million people are at risk from trachoma, 146 million are threatened by blindness and 6 million people are visually impaired from this disease.
36. In Bangladesh, between 28 and 35 million people consume drinking water with elevated levels of arsenic.
37. Over 26 million people in China suffer from dental fluorosis due to elevated fluoride in their drinking water.
38. Today, approximately 40% of the world's population, mostly those living in the world's poorest countries, is at risk of malaria.
39. Malaria is Africa's leading cause of mortality for children under the age of five (20%) and constitutes 10% of the continent's overall disease burden.
40. Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
41. Malaria has been estimated to cost Africa more than US$ 12 billion every year in lost GDP, even though it could be controlled for a fraction of that sum.
42. Economists believe that malaria is responsible for a growth penalty of up to 1.3% per year in some African countries. When compounded over the years, this penalty leads to substantial differences in GDP between countries with and without malaria and severely restrains the economic growth of the entire region.
43. Levels of suspended solids in rivers in Asia have risen by a factor of four over the last three decades. Asian rivers also have a biological oxygen demand some 1.4 times the global average, as well as three times as many bacteria from human waste as the global average.
44. Bangladesh is grappling with the largest mass 'poisoning' (concentrations of arsenic in drinking water) in history, potentially affecting between 35 and 77 million of the country's 130 million inhabitants.
45. Excessive amounts of fluoride in drinking water can also be toxic. Discoloration of teeth occurs worldwide, but crippling skeletal effects caused by long-term ingestion of large amounts are prominent in at least eight countries, including China, where 30 million people suffer from chronic fluorosis.
46. During a stop on El Hierro Island (Canarias) on his way to the Americas, Bartolomé de las Casas took interest in the aborigine Bimbachos' culture, which was already disappearing in the XVI century. The Bimbachos devoted a cult to a tree, the Garoe (Ocotea foetens), which supplied them with abundant freshwater. This 'holy tree' was capable of capturing the water held in the mist and drizzle, which allowed for agriculture in an area with very low rainfall. The Garoe was uprooted by a hurricane in 1610. Curiously, its disappearance coincided with that of the Bimbachos culture on El Hierro Island.
47. The water for the 350 residents of the coastal village of Chungungo (north of Chile) had to be trucked in once or twice a week from a town 40 km away. Along the coast of Chile, there is a persistent and extensive cloud deck (camanchaca) that rarely results in rain but creates fog in the slopes and peaks of the mountains that intercept it. A group of scientists have developed a method of harnessing the camanchacas as a source of water: the fog moisture is caught using collectors that resemble oversized volleyball nets. As fog passes through the nets, beads of water form on the mesh. The water runs down the nets into gutters that drain into a 100,000-litre reservoir. The fog-catchers supply the village with an average of 10,000 litres of water every day.
48. Every morning the Namib fog beetle (Onymacris unguicularis) makes an arduous journey to the top of a sand dune, where he turns his body into the wind, straightens out his rear legs and lowers his head. The fog rolling in from the sea gradually collects on his back, forming droplets of water, which glide downwards and hang from the insect's mouthparts. In this way, this beetle is always assured of a healthy morning drink, despite being miles from the nearest freshwater.
49. 25% to 40% of the water in coastal redwood forests comes from fog. The trees get some of that water through their roots, when fog-saturated leaves and branches drip water onto the ground.
50. The Nile River is the longest river in the world. From Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea the length of the Nile is 5,584 km. From its remotest headstream, the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, the river is 6,671 km long.
51. The largest river basin in the world is that drained by the Amazon. It covers about 6,145,186 km².
52. The Amazon is the river that carries the most water in the world. In Brazil, an average of 120,000 m³ of water flows from the Amazon into the Atlantic Ocean every second.
53. Over the period 1992-2001, weather and climate related disasters killed about 622,000 people, affected more then two billion, left millions more homeless, devastated arable land and spread disease.
54. Studies suggest that the number of weather-related disasters have increased threefold over the past 30 years.
55. The world's lowest annual precipitation average has been measured in Arica (Chile). In 59 years of records the annual average has been 0,8 mm.
56. The world's highest annual precipitation average has been measured in Lloro (Colombia). In 29 years of records the annual average has been 13,230 mm.
57. Because of their small size and particular geological, topographical and climatic conditions, many small islands developing States face severe constraints in terms of both the quality and quantity of freshwater.
58. Nauru Island received most of its water in ships until it installed a desalination plant, and some of the small islands of Fiji and Tonga also receive water from nearby islands by barge or boat.
59. During severe droughts or natural disasters some of the small islands of Fiji, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands have relied on coconuts for water.
60. Hong Kong receives about 50% of its potable water requirements via twin pipelines from the adjacent mainland.
61. The different assessments carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have shown that the emissions of greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere since the 19th century will lead to a 'global warming' of the earth over the period 1990-2100, with an expected increase of the average annual temperature in the range of 1.4°C to 5.8°C.
62. Among the associated effects of global warming are rises in the ocean level (in the range of 0.09 to 0.88 metres for the same period) and, as a consequence of the availability of more energy in the climate system, an intensification of the global hydrological cycle.
63. Climate change will lead to more precipitation, but also to more evaporation. In general, this acceleration of the hydrological cycle will result in a wetter world.
64. Increasingly heavy rain and snow are falling on the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere while rains have decreased in the tropics and subtropics in both hemispheres.
65. The new climate conditions may directly affect the magnitude and timing of runoff, the intensity of floods and drought and have significant impacts on regional water resources, affecting both surface water and groundwater supply for domestic and industrial uses, irrigation, hydropower generation, navigation, in-stream ecosystems and water-based recreation.
66. In large parts of eastern Europe, western Russia, central Canada and California, peak stream flows have shifted from spring to winter as more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, therefore reaching the rivers more rapidly.
67. In Africa's large basins of the Niger, Lake Chad and the Senegal river basin, total available water has decreased by 40 - 60%.
68. Glaciers and icecaps cover about 10% of the world's landmass. These are concentrated in Greenland and Antarctica and contain approximately 70% of the world's freshwater.
69. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), 96% of the world's frozen freshwater is at the South and North poles, with the remaining 4% spread over 550 000 km² of glaciers and mountainous icecaps measuring about 180 000 km³.
70. Glacial ice often appears blue when it has become very dense Years of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tiny air pockets between crystals. When glacier ice becomes extremely dense, the ice absorbs all other colours in the spectrum and reflects primarily blue, which is what we see. When glacier ice is white, that usually means that there are many tiny air bubbles still in the ice
71.If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 metres worldwide.
72. Almost 90% of an iceberg is below water-only about 10% shows above water.
73. Between 1980 and 2001 the thickness of 30 major mountain glaciers decreased by an average of 6 metres.
74. The Kutiah Glacier in Pakistan holds the record for the fastest glacial surge. In 1953, it raced more than 12 kilometres in three months, averaging about 112 metres per day.
75. Between 1962 and 2000 the Kilimanjaro has lost approximately 55% of its glaciers.
76. In Asia, almost 84% of the water withdrawal is used for agricultural purposes, compared to 71% for the world.
77. The unit cost of irrigation development varies with countries and types of irrigated infrastructures, ranging typically from US$1,000 to US$10,000 per hectare, with extreme cases reaching US$25,000 per hectare. The lowest investment costs in irrigation are in Asia, which has the bulk of irrigation and where scale economies are possible. The cost expensive irrigation schemes are found in sub-Saharan Africa, where irrigation systems are usually smaller and the development of land and water resources is costly.
78. Irrigation water withdrawal in developing countries is expected to grow by about 14% from the current 2,130 km³ per year to 2,420 km³ in 2030.
79. Harvested irrigated area (the cumulated area of all crops during a year) is expected to increase by 33% from 257 million hectares in 1998 to 341 million hectares in 2030.
80. Wetlands capture and retain rainfall, and prevent valuable sediments from being washed into lakes and rivers. They add moisture to the atmosphere, which falls as rain and cools the environment.
81. A global review of wetland resources submitted to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Wetlands in 1999, while affirming that 'it is not possible to provide an acceptable figure of the areal extent of wetlands at a global scale', indicated a 'best' minimum global estimate at between 748 and 778 million hectares.
82. 50% of the world's wetlands have been lost in the past century alone.
83. Some recent economic studies have indicated that ecosystems provide at least US$ 33 trillion worth of services annually, of which US$ 4.9 trillion are attributed to wetlands.
84. Wetlands are among the world's most productive environments. They are cradles of biological diversity, providing the water and primary productivity upon which countless species of plants and animals depend for survival.
85. Mountains are often called nature's water towers. Because of their size and shape, they intercept air circulating around the globe and force it upwards here it condenses into clouds, which provide rain and snow.
86. Each day, an estimated 1 in 2 people consumes water that originated in mountains.
87. 1 billion Chinese, Indians and Bangladeshis, 250 million people in Africa, and the entire population of California, United States, are among the 3 billion people who rely on the continuous flow of fresh, clean mountain water.
88. In humid parts of the world, mountains provide 30% to 60% of downstream freshwater. In semi-arid and arid environments, they provide 70% to 95%.
89. Floods throughout Asia in 1998 killed 7,000 people, damaged more than 6 million houses and destroyed 25 million hectares of cropland in Bangladesh, China, India and Viet Nam.
90. In September 2000, flooding and landslides in Japan forced the evacuation of 45,000 people; the rainfall was the highest ever recorded in a 24-hour period since records began in 1891.
91. In 1999 alone, natural disasters accounted for at least 50,000 deaths. The burden of loss, of course, is greatest in poor countries, where thirteen times more people die from such events than in rich ones.
92. Databases of the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) reveal that more than 2,200 major and minor water-related disasters occurred in the world during the period 1990-2001. Of these, floods accounted for half of the total disasters, water-borne and vector disease outbreaks accounted for 28% and drought accounted for 11% of the total disasters; 35% of these disasters occurred in Asia, 29% in Africa, 20 % in the Americas, 13% in Europe and the rest in Oceania.
93. A recent study estimated that desertification processes affect 46% of Africa and that 55% of that area is at high or very high risk. The worst affected areas are along desert margins, and in total about 485 million people are affected.
94. Numerous ocean and river gods such as Neptune, Poseidon, Triton and Oceanus, with their spouses and offspring, as well Nepomuk, the saint of bridges who goes back to pre-Christian tradition, bear witness that from time immemorial, humankind both feared the power of water and exploited it. As early as 3000 BC the inhabitants of Egypt and Mesopotamia used water wheels such as the ones still used today in much the same way.
95. No one knows why people started bringing drink offerings, or libations, very early on in history. Perhaps someone once noted that rinsing out one's drinking vessel is beneficial to health, whereupon this act of cleanliness was elevated to a ceremony.
96. Virtual water is an essential tool in calculating the real water use of a country, or its water footprint, which is equal to the total domestic use, plus the virtual water import, minus the virtual water export of a country.
97. 140 litres of water is the amount of water needed to produce 1 cup of coffee.
98. 550 litres is the amount of water needed to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread (400 grams).
99. The production of 1 litre of milk requires 1,000 litres of water.
100. The production of 1 kilogram of:
- rice requires 3,000 litres of water
- maize requires 900 litres of water
- wheat requires 1,350 litres of water
- beef requires 1,6000 litres of water
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