Saving water, saving lives.

• Author: Ong, Ashley
• Position: Essay

water is a basic necessity of life, and it may seem inconceivable to imagine living without it. But the stark reality is that many people around the world do. The availability of fresh water for drinking and sanitation poses an urgent and challenging problem, particularly in many developing countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in March 20101 that over 2.6 billion people, or about 39 per cent of the world's population, live without improved sanitation facilities; in other words, without a proper latrine. Furthermore, WHO estimated that about 1.1 billion people across the globe--approximately 17 per cent of the world's population--lacked access to safe and improved sources of drinking water.

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The scarcity of potable water sources and the absence of adequate sanitation in many rural areas have led to a host of potentially fatal health problems such as dysentery, cholera, and other diarrhoeal diseases causing an average of 1.6 million deaths per year. Children under the age of five are especially vulnerable and account for about 90 per cent of these deaths. (2) In fact, diarrhoeal diseases kill more children than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. (3) Other problems from unsafe drinking water, such as trachoma-related blindness and intestinal parasitic worms, are rife in developing countries, totalling several hundred million cases annually. (4)

According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 7, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation should be halved by 2015;5 in numerical terms, 88.5 per cent of the world's population should have accessible drinking water by 2015. It bodes well that we are prepared to achieve this goal with sustained effort, but it must also be acknowledged that this progress is not uniform across the globe. Our goal for improving sanitation is further from attainment. Compared to the current 61 per cent of the world's population currently living with improved sanitation facilities, our target of 75 per cent would require a momentous effort as 2015 draws near. In addition to introducing and supporting inexpensive systems and technologies that are environmentally friendly, WHO is working towards this goal through the monitoring of global water supplies and sanitation facilities. An innovative example is water disinfection, using ultraviolet radiation from the sun to deactivate diarrhoea-causing organisms in...