• Freshwater

    • Only a tiny fraction of Earth's water is freshwater, or water that we can drink. Freshwater is becoming a threatened natural resource in more and more places around the world.

    • Freshwater

  • Deaths from water-related diseases

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  • deaths
  • globally, this year

    • It’s bad

    Every year 3,575,000 people die from water related diseases. This is equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every hour. Most of these people are children (2.2 million).

    Really bad

    Unclean water and poor sanitation have claimed more lives over the past 100 years than any other cause. The water-crisis claims more lives through disease than any war through guns.

    Safe drinking water is a luxury

    884 million people lack access to safe drinking water. This is more than the combined populations of the United States, Brazil, Japan, Germany, France and Italy.

    Dirty water is making many people sick

    At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.

    Not all is bad

    Many organizations work to improve water conditions in developing countries. From 1990 to 2006 the number of people with access to safe drinking water has risen by 1.6 billion people.

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