Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink

[the_future_modernes]

Rivers of gold: an examination of the water crisis

With nearly 80% of the world covered in water, why do so many people lack it?
Facts:
- Nearly 1 billion people lack reliable access to clean water
- Almost half of the people living in developing nations suffer at any time from health problems related to unclean water, such as cholera, hepatitis, and malaria.
- People in New York pay less for water than people in some of the world’s poorest nations.
- Millions of women and girls spend several hours every day fetching water.
- Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second biggest killer of children (pneumonia is first).
Researchers featured in the film FLOW: For the Love of Water believe the access and contamination problems will lead to another massive extinction.

Disease’s Best Friend
I

n rural communities with insufficient water distribution and sanitation systems, people must rely on rivers, streams, and other possibly contaminated sources. As a home for bacteria, toxins, and other detrimental microbes, water is a fast and efficient spreader of diseases. Ingesting unclean water is one of the easiest ways for humans to contract disease.
Contaminants come in the form of pesticides, fecal matter, toxic waste, and factory waste.
A particularly hazardous pesticide, atrazine, has been banned in the EU, but is approved in the U.S. The chemical is linked to interference with brain and sex organ development and has appeared in 75 percent of stream water and 40 percent of groundwater samples taken from various agricultural sites across the U.S.
Unclean water further endangers communities that lack proper medical care and are already at risk for various illnesses. MORE

ETA:For more on water issues around the world, take a look at IPS NEWS' Portal Troubled Waters