Water Trivia
70% of the planet is covered with water but less than 1/1000 is fresh and drinkable.
About 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.
About 2.4 billion people lack access to sanitation. Most are in Africa and Asia.
Roughly one-third of the global population lives in countries with moderate-to-high water stress. Water stress occurs when water consumption exceeds 10 percent of renewable freshwater resources.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the world evaporates 1 trillion tons of water daily.
West Asia faces the severest threat. More than 90 percent of the population in the region lives under severe water stress.
About 80 countries, comprising about 40 percent of the world's population, had experienced serious water shortages by the mid 1990s.
Americans use five times more water than Europeans.
In less than 25 years, two-thirds of the world's population will live in water stressed conditions.
By 2020, water use is expected to increase globally by 40 percent.
Two billion people (about one-third the world's population) depend on groundwater. Countries around the world face rapidly depleting groundwater resources, including parts of India, China, West Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the former Soviet Union and the western United States.
The cost of bringing poor universal access to water by 2015 is projected to be $30 billion a year.
2 billion people were affected by natural disasters between 1990 and 2000 – 86% by floods or droughts.
25 litres of water can become inadequate to human use by a single drop of oil.
The industry uses around 300 litres of water to produce 1 kg of paper and 215,000 litres to make 1 ton of steel.
Saudi Arabia accounts for 25% of the whole world’s desalination process.
There are around 300 freshwater agreements between countries.
The demand for fresh water in 2000 was twice bigger than in 1980.
During a period of 100 years, an average molecule of water spends around a week in the atmosphere and 98 years in the ocean.
Source: United Nations Environment Programme, GEO-Global Environment Outlook 3, Past, Present and Future Perspectives
