Hotels and their guests consume vast quantities of water. In Israel, water use by hotels along the River Jordan is thought to contribute to the drying up of the Dead Sea, where the water level has dropped 16.4 metres since 1977.

By some estimates, the expansion of agricultural demand for food by a wealthier and 50% larger global population could drive the conversion of an additional billion hectares of unmodified ecosystems to agriculture by 2050. This could result in nitrogen- and phosphorus-driven eutrophication of freshwater and near-shore marine ecosystems being more than doubled, with comparable increase in pesticide use.

Around 50% of the world's wetlands present in 1900 had been lost by the late 1990s, with conversion of land to agriculture being the main cause of loss.

Each year, desertification and drought cause an estimated US$ 42 billion in lost agricultural production worldwide. The annual cost of fighting land degradation is estimated at US$ 2.4 billion.

Today, half of the World’s population lives in urban centres, compared to less than 15% in 1900.

Desertification directly affects over 250 million people. It threatens the lives of some 1.2 billion people in 110 countries who are among the world's poorest and who depend on land for most of their needs.

An estimated 80% of the pollutants entering coastal waters, mostly from land-based sources, are transported via rivers, and there are clear links between upstream river basins and associated coastal zones.

Pollution from agriculture, industry and domestic wastewater is making water resources, both surface water and groundwater, increasingly scarce and decreasingly poor in quality.

Drylands occupy 41% of the earth's land area and are inhabited by over 2 billion people worldwide.

Every day, diarrhoeal diseases cause an estimated 5,483 deaths, mostly among children under five.

Current evidence shows that 1.7 million deaths could also be avoided each year by providing access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. The single most effective intervention is hand washing with soap, which could cut diarrhoea deaths in half.

Each year 19.5 million people are infected with roundworm and whipworm alone, with the highest rate of infection among school-age children.

Most rivers carry sediment in the form of suspended load and bed load, in some cases the latter is charged with metals and other toxic materials. This sediment load is adjusted to the flow regime of the river over time, and changes to this regime accompanied by increases or decreases in the load can cause problems downstream. These include the progressive reduction of reservoir volumes by siltation, the scouring of river channels and the deposition of sediment in them, threatening flood protection measures, fisheries and other forms of aquatic life. River diversions, including dams, can produce some of these effects on sediment, but in addition they may alter the chemical and biological characteristics of rivers, to the detriment of native species.

Globally, rainfall provides about 90% of the water used by crops. Although it covers only 10% of the water used in agriculture, irrigation claims 70% of all the freshwater (so-called blue water) used for human consumption.

Most desert plants are drought- or salt-tolerant. Some store water in their leaves, roots, and stems. Other desert plants have long tap roots that penetrate the water table, anchor the soil, and control erosion. The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion.

Many dryland inhabitants are self-subsistent small scale farmers who also have some livestock. For them, retaining as much water as possible is a question of survival, yet in arid areas, a substantial amount of rainwater is lost through surface run-off, evaporation and percolation.

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.

Every 8 seconds a child dies from drinking contaminated water (that is 10,000 a day).

Irrigation water withdrawal in developing countries is expected to grow by about 14% from the current 2,130 km³ per year to 2,420 km³ in 2030.

50% of the world's wetlands have been lost in the past century alone.

Schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia) is a disease caused by parasitic worms. At various stages of the life cycle, worms and their eggs live in certain types of freshwater snails, water (where they can survive for up to 48 hours) and human hosts. They penetrate the skin of people swimming or washing in contaminated water; they then cause infection and can eventually damage the liver, intestines, lungs and bladder. About 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis.