The+CONSEQUENCES

=The CONSEQUENCES  = = = =Biodiversity and Health  = I guess your wondering if only humans are effected by the water crisis. The answer is NO. Water shortages cause environments and wildlife dependent on freshwater to suffer. Swamps like the one in the picture lose freshwater often because of human needs. The fish are left to their deaths. In Madagascar many fishes and coral reefs have been driven to extinction because of the lack of freshwater and pollution to their ecosystems.

Why should we even care?
This is an obvious question. It has no odor taste or smell, but it is the most important resource to us. But unfortunately, the earth's drinkable water is only 3% of the world's water. Say you take all the earth's water and pour it into a bucket. The amount of water that a spoon could hold is the percentage of drinkable freshwater in the world. The health of the People are at stake.



=Number count =  (Team Treehugger "Water Conservation Facts: By the Numbers" )
 * 884 million people, lack access to safe water supplies, approximately one in eight people.
 * Each year, 3.575 million people die from water-related disease.
 * 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all.
 * Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
 * Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.
 * At any given time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
 * Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease
 * **88 percent:** Of deaths from diarrhea are caused from unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation; this translates to more than 1.5 million of the 1.9 million children under five who perish from diarrhea each year. This amounts to 18% of all under-five deaths and means that more than 4,000 children are dying every day as a result of diarrhea diseases.
 * **$11.3 billion:** The amount of money required to provide basic levels of service for drinking and waste water in Africa and Asia.

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