March 22 is World Water Day. Image: wikimedia commons.

We can live three weeks without food, but only three days without water. Our world faces a water crisis. Alarmingly, every 90 seconds a child dies of a water-related disease. Both developing and developed global areas suffer water problems; Flint, Michigan shocked the United States into awareness, revealing more problems with lead in drinking water discovered in all 50 states. Marine life also suffers: more than 2,000 species are now classified as endangered or threatened. When water safety imperiled ancient Rome, the aqueducts brought fresh spring water from hills to city. The New River, an engineered waterway, similarly saved London. Half of the world’s jobs involve water. How can we respond to the goals of the Paris Agreement COP 21 to improve climate, and water?

Join the discussion:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/white-house-water-summit

https://www.facebook.com/UnitedNationsWater

http://ceowatermandate.org/

Thanks to the Comisión Nacional del Agua of México for world and regional water statistics, and to Cherie E. Potts for U.S. statistics.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License