Statistics

Statistics tell stories, though often there is more to them than meets they eye. Scroll down to find a selection of interesting and thought-provoking statistics on global and regional statistics and trends in a number of key water-related areas. Contact the Communications Department to set up an interview with a SIWI expert who can help you learn more of the full story behind the statistics.

1. Water Resources and Scarcity

Of all water on earth, 97 % is salt water, and of the remaining 3 % fresh water, some 70% is frozen in the polar icecaps. The other 30% is mostly present as soil moisture or lies in underground aquifers. [1]
Less than 1% of the world's fresh water is readily accessible for direct human uses. [1]
Global water use: Agriculture 70 %, Industry 20 %, Domestic use 10 %. [3]
A child born in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times as much water as one in the developing world. [2]
With rapid population growth, water withdrawals have tripled over the last 50 years. [3]
An estimated 90% of the 3 billion people who are expected to be added to the population by 2050 will be in developing countries, many in regions already in water stress where the current population does not have sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. [3]
The 10 largest water users (in volume) are India, China, the United States, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico and the Russian Federation. [3]
The world’s water crisis is not related to the physical availability of water, but to unbalanced power relations, poverty and related inequalities. [5]
Water scarcity can roughly be divided into two categories: “Apparent” scarcity exists when there is plenty of water, but is inefficiently and wastefully used; “real” scarcity is caused by insuffient rain-fall or large populations depending on a limited resource. [6]
Around 20% of total water used globally is from groundwater sources (renewable or not), and this share is rising rapidly, particularly in dry areas. [8]
Water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent by 2025 in developing countries, and 18 per cent in developed countries. [9]
In 2030, 47% of world population will be living in areas of high water stress. [10]
By 2030 the number of urban dwellers is expected to be about 1.8 billion more than in 2005 and to constitute about 60% of the world’s population. As the urban population increases, many major cities have had to draw freshwater from increasingly distant watersheds, as local surface and groundwater sources no longer meet the demand for water, or as they become depleted or polluted. [11]
A nation’s water foot print is defined as the total volume of freshwater, both green and blue, that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the people of the nation, i.e. both food and other goods and services. [12]

2. Water Supply, Sanitation and Health
In 2000, world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit committed themselves to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Goal 7, target 10 addresses the aim to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) added another target: to halve by 2015, the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation.
To ensure our basic needs, we all need 20 to 50 litres of water free from harmful contaminants each and every day. [11]
Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way. [3]
Up to 50% of malnutrition is related to repeated diarrhoea or intestinal nematode infections as a result of unclean water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene. [3]
87 per cent of the world’s population - 5.7 billion people - uses drinking water from improved sources. 54 per cent uses a piped connection in their dwelling, plot or yard, and 33 per cent uses other improved drinking water sources such as public taps, standpipes, tube wells or boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collection. [13]
Current trends suggest that more than 90% of the global population will use improved drinking water sources by 2015. [13]
884 million people – about half of whom live in Asia – still rely on drinking water from unimproved sources such as ponds, streams, irrigation canals and unprotected dug wells. [13]
Women are more than twice as likely as men to go and fetch drinking water. [13]
In many places of the world, a staggering 30 to 40% of water or more goes unaccounted for due to water leakages in pipes and canals and illegal tapping. [11]
Some African countries have been making rapid progress in drinking water coverage. For example, Tanzania was only 38% covered in 1990, and in 2002 was 73% covered; Namibia was 58% covered in 1990, and in 2002 was 80% covered. [14]
2.5 billion people are without improved sanitation. [13]
Based on current trends, the total population without improved sanitation in 2015 will have decreased only slightly, from 2.5 billion to 2.4 billion. [3]
18% of the world's population, or 1.2 billion people (1 out of 3 in rural areas), defecate in the open. [13]
Sanitation coverage in developing countries (49%) is only half that of the developed world (98%). [11]
1,8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries. [15]
Improved water supply reduces diarrhoea morbidity by 21%. [15]
Improved sanitation reduces diarrhoea morbidity by 37.5%. [15]
Hygiene interventions including hygiene education and promotion of hand washing can lead to a reduction of diarrhoeal cases by up to 45%. [15]

3. Water, Economics and Finance
Almost two in three people lacking access to safe drinking water survive on less than $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day. More than 660 million people without adequate sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day. This evidence highlights clearly the financing difficulties of improving access through household investment. [5]
Every $1 invested in improved water supply and sanitation yields gains of $4-$12. [3]
Adequate investments in water management, infrastructure and services can yield a high economic return by avoiding costs related to water pollution, contamination and disasters. [3]
In aggregate, the total annual economic benefits of meeting the MDG target on water supply and sanitation accrue to USD 84 billion. [16]
Economic losses, due to the lack of water and sanitation in Africa as a result of the mortality and morbidity impacts, are estimated at $28.4 billion or about 5% of GDP. [3]
Poor countries with access to clean water and sanitation services experience faster economic growth than those without: one study found that the annual economic growth rate was 3.7 % among poor countries with better access to improved water and sanitation services, while similarly poor countries without access had an annual growth of just 0.1 %. [25]
The financial and economic crisis have deepen food insecurity in 2009: 915 million people around the world are undernourished according to FAO. [23]
Aid for sanitation and drinking-water is increasing in absolute terms, but its share of total aid decreased from 8% in 1997 to 5% in 2008. [26]
The median reported government spending on sanitation and drinking-water is 0.48% of GDP. [26]
Corruption in the water sector can raise the investment costs of achieving the Millennium Development Goals target for water and sanitation by almost $50 billion. [17]
In some countries corruption increases the cost of connecting a household to a water network by more than 30 percent. [17]
Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. [5]
The private sector's proportion in the water and sewerage sectors in developing countries is, on average, only 35%, whereas in the developed world it constitutes 80% of the market. [11]

4. Water and Climate, Disaster and Conflict
Almost two billion people were affected by natural disasters in the last decade of the 20th century, 86% of them by floods and droughts. [15]
Droughts cause the most ill-health and death because they often trigger and exacerbate malnutrition and famine, and deny access to adequate water supplies. [15]
Flooding increases the ever-present health threat from contamination of drinking-water systems from inadequate sanitation, with industrial waste and by refuse dumps. [15]
Globally, the number of great inland flood catastrophes was twice as large per decade between 1996 and 2005 as between 1950 and 1980, and economic losses were five times as great. The dominant drivers of these upward trends are socioeconomic factors, such as population growth, land use change and greater use of vulnerable areas. [3]
Climate variability and climate change will likely exacerbate the frequency and shocks of floods and droughts. [7]
Current IPCC projections of rising temperatures and sea levels and increased intensity of droughts and storms suggest that substantial population displacements will take place within the next 30-50 years, particularly in coastal zones. [3]
A global temperature increase of 3-4°C could cause floods resulting in 330 million climate refugees. [18]
A global temperature increase of 3-4°C could cause changed run-off patterns and glacial melt will force an additional 1.8 billion people to live in a water scarce environment by 2080. [18]

5. Transboundary Waters
There are 263 transboundary river and lake basins and around 300 transboundary aquifers worldwide. [19]
Transboundary lake and river basins account for an estimated 60 per cent of global freshwater flow and is home to 40 % of the world´s population. [19]
Over 75 percent of all countries, 145 in total, have shared river basins within their boundaries. And 33 nations have over 95 percent of their territory within international river basins. [19]
In the 20th century, only seven minor skirmishes took place between nations over shared water resources, while over 300 treaties were signed during the same period of time. [19]
158 of the world’s 263 international river basins, plus transboundary aquifer systems, lack any type of cooperative management framework. [19]
By jointly managing a river, riparians can generate ‘public goods’ such as flood and drought protection, increased biodiversity and improved conservation, enhanced water quality, and even greater possibilities for peace and regional stability. [20]

6. Food, Agriculture and Bioenergy
Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far – about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. [3]
Today, irrigated agriculture covers 275 million hectares – about 20% of cultivated land – and accounts for 40% of global food production. [3]
Part of the current pressure on water resources comes from increasing demands for animal feed. Meat production requires 8-10 times more water than cereal production. [3]
Producing 1 kg of meat requires as much water as an average domestic household does over 10 months (50l/person/day). [21]
Feeding everyone in 2050 – including the undernourished and additional 3 billion people expected – could require 50 % more water than is needed now. [22]
Reducing food wastage by 50% – including post-harvest losses, losses in transport and handling, and losses in the household – might vastly reduce or even negate the need for additional water to grow more food, which will ensure sufficient water is available for food in the future. [21]
Based on today’s water productivity and a projected diet of 3000 kcal/day, an additional 5600 km3/year of water needs to be appropriated by 2050 to eradicate undernutrition and feed an additional 3 billion world inhabitants. This is almost three times as much as the present global consumptive water use in irrigation. [7]
Globally, irrigation water allocated to biofuel production is estimated at 44 km3, or 2% of all irrigation water. Under current production conditions it takes an average of roughly 2,500 litres of water (about 820 litres of it irrigation water) to produce 1 litre of liquid biofuel (the same amount needed on average to produce food for one person for one day). [3]
Irrigation is very important for overall food production by enabling 40% of the production on only 17% of the cropland. [7]
Implementing all current national biofuel policies and plans would take 30 million hectares of cropland and 180 km3 of additional irrigation water. [3]
As irrigation systems come under pressure to produce more with less water, there is a danger that unequal rights and entitlements will widen inequalities. [5]
For some countries, climate change may lead to an increase in food production, as in North America and Europe, where high gains are projected. [7]
For the 40 poorest countries, with a total population of some 1–3 billion, climate change may lead them to lose on average up to a fifth of their cereal production potential in the 2080s. [7]
As many as 40 % of the Sub-Saharan countries could lose a substantial part of their agricultural production due to climate change. [7]

7. Water, Energy and Industry
Industry and energy together account for 20% of water demand. [3]
Hydropower supplies about 20% of the world’s electricity, a share that has remained stable since the 1990s. [3]
As of 2000 there were more than 50,000 large dams in operation. [3]
According to the International Energy Agency, electricity generation from hydropower and other enewable energy sources is projected to increase at an average annual rate of 1.7% from 2004 to 2030, for an overall increase of 60% through 2030. [3]
Only about 25% of the world's dams are involved in producing hydropower. [11]
Hydropower supplies about 20% of the world’s electricity,a share that has remained stable since the 1990s.[3]
Industrial water productivity varies greatly across countries and is only partially linked to a country’s level of industrialization. As an example, industrial water productivity is $138 per cubic metre in Denmark and less than $10 per cubic metre in the United States. [3]

8. Water and Ecosystems
It is estimated that less than 20% of the world’s drainage basins exhibit nearly pristine water quality. [3]
Of the world’s 292 largest river systems in 2005 (accounting for 60% of the world’s runoff), more than a third (105) were considered to be strongly affected by fragmentation, and 68 moderately affected. [11]
Dams play a major role in altering water regimes. They transform river systems, damage ecosystems and create barriers for migrating species. Social impacts of dams are also forced migration and population displacement of humans. [3]
On average freshwater species populations were reduced by half between 1970 and 2005, a sharper decline than for other biomes. [3]
70% of untreated industrial wastes in developing countries are disposed into water where they contaminate existing water supplies. [24]
More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas. [3]
Naturally occurring arsenic pollution in groundwater now affects nearly 140 million people in 70 countries on all continents. [3]

Sources
[1] U.S. Geological Survey, 2009
[2] 1st UN World Water Development Report, 2003
[3] 3rd UN World Water Development Report, 2009
[4] International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), 2007
[5] UNDP: Human Development Report, 2006
[6] SIWI: On the Verge of a New Water Scarcity, 2007
[7] SIWI: Let it Reign: The New Water Paradigm for Global Food Security, 2005
[8] Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, 2007
[9] UNEP: Global Environment Outlook Report GEO-4, 2007
[10] OECD: OECD environmental outlook to 2030, 2008
[11] 2nd UN World Water Development Report, 2006
[12] UNESCO-IHE: A Quantifi cation of Virtual Water Flows Between Nations in Relation to International Crop Trade, 2002
[13] WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP): Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation, 2008
[14] WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP): Meeting the MDG Drinking Water and Sanitation Target, A mid-term assessment of progress, 2004
[15] WHO: Water, sanitation and hygiene links to health, 2004
[16] SIWI: Making Water a Part of Economic Development: The Economic Benefits of Improved Water Management and Services, 2005
[17] Transparency International: Global Corruption Report, 2008
[18] UNDP: Human Development Report, 2007/2008
[19] UN-Water: Transboundary Waters: Sharing Benefits, Sharing Responsibilities, 2008
[20] SIWI: The TWO Analysis – Introducing a Methodology for the Transboundary Waters Opportunity Analysis, 2008
[21] SIWI: Saving Water: From Field to Fork - Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain, 2008
[22] Falkenmark, M. and J. Rockström: Balancing Water for Humans and Nature. The New Approach in Ecohydrology, 2004
[23] FAO: The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009
[24] UN-Water: Transboundary Waters: Shared Waters, Shared Opportunities, 2009
[25] Sachs, J: Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development, Report of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, Prepared for WHO, 2001
[26] UN-Water: GLAAS, 2010

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