Written Statement

Water is the one substance that keeps all living things alive. Without water the Earth would be empty with no plants or animals. Today the issue of water scarcity and sanitation draws the attention of many people living in developing countries. Unfortunately, in these countries, water is not an abundant resource as it is in the United States. About one billion people today live without access to clean water.[1] Without sanitation facilities readily available, the poor are forced to drink disease infested water. Drinking this water causes many to get sick and eventually die of waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and hepatitis. Programs like the UNICEF are working to provide these developing countries with fresh water. Their idea is to drill wells in areas that do not have close access to rivers or lakes. With these wells the people of this area can easily take water whenever needed, to drink, clean, cook, and bath with. Currently this program is involved with 90 countries providing clean water to those who need it most.

While millions of people around the world live with limited water supplies, countries like the United States often waste millions of gallons of water a day. We tend to ignore the fact that many live without a reliable source of water. Instead we find ourselves using ridiculous amounts of this resource when little is really needed to complete the task. Each person in the U.S. uses about 80-100 gallons of water per day, when the daily water required is only about 13.2 gallons per person.[2] To help save the water that we do have people can start saving little amounts of water each day. Some of these methods include taking shorter showers, turning off the sink water while brushing your teeth, or even going to a car wash instead of washing it yourself. All of these things could save gallons of water each day.

While many do not think that there is any global water crisis at all, others argue that with the increase of climate change and the great population growth over the past centuries we are headed toward an incurable crisis. The shocking fact that less than 1% of the world’s fresh water is readily accessible for direct human use[3], supports the idea of a global crisis. This has already started to show in countries such as Africa with their low source of water and sanitation. The climate change has caused glaziers to melt and wash away our resource of fresh water. Another contributing factor is the population growth, which has caused the demand for water to go up significantly. These two factors cause many to question how much stability we truly have with water. It may seem that there is an abundant supply of water with the never ending flow coming out of our faucet, while in reality that endless flow will eventually end. Though there are ways to prevent a complete global crisis from occurring. By conserving as much water as possible and by proving water to areas that to not have great water supply, we can prevent waterborne deaths and hopefully find a way to use the water that we do have for good use.

[1] http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/billion/
[2] http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/
[3] http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/