To ensure our basic needs, we all need 20 to 50 litres of water free from harmful contaminants each and every day.

The world’s population is growing by about 80 million people a year, implying increased freshwater demand of about 64 billion cubic metres a year.

Child mortality is the result of a complex web of determinants at many levels. The fundamental determinant is poverty, and an underlying determinant is undernutrition.

Rapid growth of the world's population has been one of the most visible and dramatic changes to the world over the last 100 years. Population growth has huge implications for all aspects of resource use, including water.

The global overview of water availability versus population stresses continental disparities, and in particular the pressure put on the Asian continent, which supports 60% of the world's population with only 36% of the world's water resources.

Studies have found that adequate water supply and sanitation could reduce infection rates by 77%.

1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries.

Bottled water sales in the United States in 2004 – higher than in any other country – totalled over US $9 billion for 30.8 billion litres of water, that is, enough water to meet the annual physiological needs of a population the size of Cambodia.

Some 1.1 billion people in the developing world do not have access to a minimal amount of clean water. Coverage rates are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa, but most of the people without clean water live in Asia.

In order to free people from the burden of disease and malnutrition, the need for secure access to water for the poor has been more strongly recognized.

It is estimated that more than 1.3 billion people in the developing world survive on less than a dollar a day and almost 3 billion survive on less than two dollars per day.

70% of the world's blind are women who have been infected, directly or through their children, with trachoma, a blinding bacterial eye infection occurring in communities with limited access to water.

Child mortality is the result of a complex web of determinants at many levels. The fundamental determinant is poverty, and an underlying determinant is undernutrition.

In developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, public water withdrawal represents just 50-100 litres per person per day. In regions with insufficient water resources, this figure may be as low as 20-60 litres per day.

Deprivation in sanitation is even more widespread. Some 2.6 billion people—half the developing world’s population—do not have access to basic sanitation. Many more lack access to good quality sanitation. Coverage rates are shockingly low in many of the world’s poorest countries: only about 1 person in 3 in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia has access to sanitation—in Ethiopia the figure falls to about 1 in 7.

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 where the current population does not have sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.

The Mekong River in Asia will be seriously affected by rising water levels.

In the New Testament, 'living water' or 'water of life' represents the spirit of God, that is, eternal life.

Floods accounted for over 65% of people affected by natural disasters, while famine affected nearly 20%.

A recent study estimates that climate change actually accounts for about 20% of the global increase in water scarcity, the remaining 80% accounted for by population growth and economic development.