Clean Water Is for Everyone

We’ve all done it. We turn on the tap and let the cool, clean water flow for a few seconds, waiting for the temperature to change or to grab the container we are using. For just those few moments, we often waste one of our planet’s most precious resources: clean water.

Despite being a fundamental part of our daily lives, access to clean water is a luxury that many people do not have. In school, we are taught about the water cycle, a planetary phenomenon that is often shown as a simple illustration of the rain, runoff, groundwater, evaporation, oceans and clouds, bringing us back to rain.[1]

Although clean water is a basic necessity for all, it is not equally accessible worldwide. In some regions, the water cycle is further disrupted by improper sanitation systems that contaminate ground water, flooding that mixes clean and dirty water, and prolonged periods of drought. It doesn’t show how many people don’t have access to clean water.

Only 2.5 percent of the world’s water is fresh and drinkable. The other 97.5 percent is undrinkable ocean water. Of that 2.5 percent, 70 percent of that is needed for irrigation of crops. Of the rest? It’s not easily accessible. That leaves the nearly eight billion humans on this planet with a very small percentage of the accessible clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning.[2]

At least one month of a year, four billion people are estimated to have severe water scarcity, and two billion live where water is completely inadequate.[3] Mix into that the need for clean water and sanitation issues, and you have billions of people living with inadequate water conditions.