World Water Day 2010: Clean Water for a Healthy World

All over the world yesterday people ranging from world leaders to environmental scientists to normal citizens stopped to observe the United Nations World Water Day. March 22, 2010 marked the 17^th year that the day has been recognized, the year the theme was “Clean Water for a Healthy World”. “An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day” (Worldwaterday2010). Each year international activities are promoted and coordinated by a different UN agency involved in water issues. This year’s events were coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and focused primarily on water quality (UNWater). In the report provided by the UNEP yesterday the agency outlined exactly how much it would cost to begin relieving many of the concerns related to water scarcity but also went on to emphasize that there is a lot of work to be done at every level of government. The report outlined that an investment of $20 Million in low cost water technologies could lift 100 million poor farming families out of extreme poverty as well as to outline some disturbing facts:

- Globally, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are poured into the world's waters every day;

-At least 1.8 million children under five years-old die every year from water-related diseases, or one every 20 seconds;

- Every day, millions of tons of inadequately treated sewage and industrial agricultural wastes are poured into the world's waters;

- More people die as a result of polluted water than are killed by all forms of violence, including wars;

-Over half of the world's hospital beds are occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked with contaminated water.

(UNEP: Clearning the Waters)

(Big Picture: World Water Day)

As Americans we expect our water to be clean, cheap, and easily accessible. We have several points throughout our houses, apartments and even dorm rooms where clean water is readily available. But many in developing countries do not have access to even the basic amount of water needed for daily use. On top of this, daily our global freshwater resources are being degraded to the point that they are completely unusable. These points and several others are what the UN is trying to get across with World Water Day.

(Big Picture: World Water Day)

The UN has put this day in place not only to educate people thought, but also as a day for member nations to work on implementing recommendations laid out by the UN and to promote concrete activities in regards to the world’s water resources. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, gave a presentation to the National Geographic Society yesterday in which she emphasized the role that The US has and the role that individual Americans have in ensuring that water quality is an issue that gains more attention. (Dept of State)