World Water Day

This Sunday, March 22nd, is World Water Day, a celebration of water that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. This year's theme is transboundary waters: sharing water and sharing opportunities.

So why the need for a day to celebrate water? According to the Case Foundation's blog, over 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean, safe water. That is 1 in 6 of us. Every 15 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease, such as malaria. Furthermore, half of the world's schools do not have access to water and 40 billion hours of productivity are lost in Africa alone.

As water resources are facing increasing demands from a growing population, World Water Day reminds us how dependent we are on the resource and how there are so many people who need help accessing it.

For information on events around the globe for World Water Day 2009, click here. And to watch an interesting video on the importance of water, click here.