Learn About The Issue
The Global Water Crisis
There are 14 billion cubic kilometers of water on earth, a volume roughly equivalent to the moon, constantly cycling through oceans, rivers and lakes, and the atmosphere. However, only 2.5 percent of earth’s water is freshwater, only 30 percent of the freshwater is accessible, and less than 1 percent of this is accessible freshwater for human consumption. In other words, only .0003 percent of the world’s total water is available for drinking and hygiene. Pollution, development, and mismanagement of our limited water resources are rapidly diminishing the health of vital ecosystems and jeopardizing the safety of water for human use.
Though many areas of the world have a plentiful supply of water, both political distribution and geography have left one out of every six people in the dust. More than 1.1 billion people – three times the population of the United States – live without safe, clean drinking water. This disparity is a public health disaster, with insufficient and contaminated water causing between 2.5 and 5 million people to die each year, 1.8 million of whom are children.
The current global water crisis is one of both environmental and human health, and in fact, the two are intimately connected. The more we pollute and alter water ecosystems, the less water is available to support human, plant, and animal life. Contaminated water causes disease, and overuse of water resources leads to loss of biodiversity and vital ecosystem services. Half of the world’s largest 500 
rivers are seriously polluted or depleted, half of global wetlands have been lost since 1960, and a third of the world’s ocean fisheries have collapsed. This is not just a problem in the developing world: in the United States, a 2001 survey detected pesticides in 97 percent of urban and farmland streams, and in Europe, 60 percent of cities with over 100,000 residents are using their groundwater faster than it can be replenished.
The crisis of human and environmental health falls overwhelmingly on the poor. Two thirds of the 1.1 billion people without safe water live on less than two dollars per day, and it is the poor – especially the rural poor – whose well-being is most dependent on the health of their immediate ecosystem. Helping poor rural communities to sustainably manage their water resources is not only critical to their welfare but also to the rich biodiversity on which people’s well-being depends. In rural Central America, which is home to 10 percent of the world’s biodiversity, over half of homes do not have a water connection and 27 percent do not have access to safe water at all. Half of the agricultural land is categorized as severely constrained for rain-fed crop cultivation. EcoLogic works with community organizations in to increase crop yields, reduce infectious disease, and protect watersheds in order to preserve both community and ecosystem well-being.
Quick Facts
Water Use and Consumption
- Water used per day by the average American: 400 liters
- Average water used per day by the 1.1 billion without safe water: 5 liters
- Recommended minimum amount of water needed per day: 20 liters.
- Lake Erie could be filled one and a half times by the water used by Americans in one year.
- The average American uses 2.5 times more water than the average Central American.
- The average child in a developed country uses up to 50 times more water than a child in a developing country.
- Average water used in one flush of an American toilet: 3.6 gallons
- Water used to produce 1 kilogram of beef: 15,000 liters
Human Health
- Three quarters of the poorest 20% of the global population do not have access to piped water.
- 27 percent of rural Central Americans do not have access to safe drinking water.
- 15 percent of the population of Latin American and Caribbean lack access to safe water.
- 77 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have a home water connection.
- By 2025, half of the global population, approximately 3.5 billion people, will live in an area whose watershed is stressed.
- To provide disinfectant at contaminated water sources would cost only $0.58 per user per year.
- Contaminated water causes 1.7 billion cases of illness per year, with diarrhoeal illnesses being most common.
- 88% of diarrhoeal illnesses are caused by the joint problem of unsafe water for drinking and hygiene and inadequate sanitation.
- 4,900 children under the age of five die each day from diarrhoeal illnesses.
- 41 million people worldwide suffer from trachoma, which leads to blindness and is caused by unsafe water for hygiene and inadequate sanitation.
- 97 percent of stream samples in the United States’ urban and agricultural areas contained pesticides in 2001.
Ecosystem Health
- Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in waterways, enough to fill 725 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
- 70 percent of developing countries’ industrial waste gets dumped into the water stream untreated.
- 12 percent of freshwater ecosystem bird species and 24 percent of freshwater ecosystem mammals are classified as threatened.
- 247 million acres of U.S. wetlands, an area the size of Texas and New Mexico combined, have been lost in the past 200 years.
- 37 percent of U.S. freshwater fish species are listed as endangered.
- Organochlorines, a slow-to-break-down insecticide, were found in fish tissues in 92% of agricultural areas and 94% of urban areas in 2001.
- 133,000 acres of North and Central American mangroves, which provide food and wood for local people and habitat for endangered plants and animals, were lost between 1980 and 2005.
- 20 percent of the world’s mangrove forests have been lost since 1980.
- A loss of one hectare of mangrove can diminish nearby fishery catch by 480 kilograms per year, which is equivalent to approximately 2000 servings of fish.