World Water Day: Heartbreaking facts about water scarcity
World water day is being observed on Wednesday aiming to highlight the importance of freshwater and focusing attention on the importance of water.
This year marks the 25 years of World Water Day celebration ironically the same year in which Cape Town of South Africa became the world's first modern city to reach day zero.
Today, 2.1 billion people live without safe drinking water at home; affecting their health, education and livelihoods. Water scarcity has already affected every continent and according to a report by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs around 102 billion people which is almost one-fifth of the world's population live in areas of physical water scarcity.
Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one-quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers).
Water Scarcity is right now one of the most serious problems human race is facing it is both natural and human-made phenomenon.
What people misunderstood about water scarcity is that there is a shortage of water on the planet but the according to a report by UN there is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but as due to uneven distribution of water and too much being wasted, polluted or unsustainably managed causes the water scarcity in the world leading to cities like Cape Town to day zero.
By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stressed conditions.
With the existing climate change scenario, almost half the world's population will be living in areas of high water stress by 2030, including between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa. In addition, water scarcity in some arid and semi-arid places will displace between 24 million and 700 million people.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of water-stressed countries of any region.