Why Does the World Need Water Purification?
Water is essential to live itself; it has been called “the blood of the earth”; the lack access to clean drinking water to satisfy the global population is now a worldwide crisis.
Only 2.5% of the earth’s water is accessible for human consumption by its 6 billion inhabitants. Water resources are finite, they will not increase.
The health consequences of contaminated water impact an estimated 4 Billion people or two thirds of the global population resulting in over 1.8 M deaths annually.
- Of the 1.8 million people who die each year from diarrheal disease 90% are under the age of 5. [WHO - 2005]
- One child dies in India every minute of dehydration caused by diarrhea. [WHO]
- Improvements in drinking-water quality through household water treatment, such as at point of use, can lead to a reduction of diarrhea episodes by between 35% and 39% [WHO].
- Childhood diarrhea rates drop by 44% among communities with in-house systems, as opposed to 6% for a clean public water source (Brown, 2004). [MIT Kenya Project May 2005]
- Water scarcity will increase, for example, India is forecast to run out of drinking water by 2020 (Maxwell article)
- Rapid population growth, industrialization and agriculture usage all increase more rapid contamination of drinking water resources. Water must be cleaned more frequently as a result.
- 2.4 Billion people to not have regular access to safe water; which makes unclean water the #1 world health problem.