• Freshwater

    • Only a tiny fraction of Earth's water is freshwater, or water that we can drink. Freshwater is becoming a threatened natural resource in more and more places around the world.

    • Freshwater

  • People severely lacking water

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  • globally, right now

    • The water crisis

    By 2030, nearly half of the world's population (3.9 billion people) are expected to be living in areas under severe lack of water. This is an increase of more than 1 billion people from today.

    Behind each number are human faces

    As one 10 year old child puts it: “Of course I wish I were in school. I want to learn to read and write. But how can I? My mother needs me to get water”. Yeni Bazan, El Alto, Bolivia.

    It’s not fair!

    The highest prices for water are often paid by poor people who do not have direct access to water. In some cases, prices can be 500 times higher than what is paid by people who have direct connection to their houses.

    It’s a problem of distribution

    Globally, there is actually enough water to meet everyone's needs. But water is not distributed equally around the planet, and this creates problems - especially in some of the world's poorer countries.

    Where does it all go?

    Most of the world's freshwater is used by agriculture (70 percent). Because of ineffective irrigation methods, overuse of water is a huge problem in agriculture - half of the water used may actually never reach the crops.

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