June 3, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 1Comment

The Economist recently published a special report on water, which summarizes the difficulty of ensuring adequate clean water supplies for a growing global population. (It also touches on the related challenge of sanitation, which affects water quality.) Agriculture accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s water use, although that number varies by region. In the […]

April 3, 2009 The Pump Handle 2Comment

by Madison Hardee Studying public health over the last two years, drinking water in the US and in the developing world is a regular topic of conversation.  In my studies, I was surprised to learn that only 1% of the world’s fresh water is available for human use (drinking, sanitation crops, etc.) The rest of the […]

March 22, 2007 The Pump Handle

Today is World Water Day, and this year’s theme is “Coping with Water Scarcity.”  In its WWD report (PDF), UN-Water (the official United Nations mechanism for follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals), warns that water scarcity will increase in the coming decades, driven by four main factors:

November 18, 2006 Liz Borkowski, MPH 1Comment

by Liz Borkowski  Nearly half of Mumbai’s 18 million residents live in unofficial settlements called zopadpatti. In one of these areas, Dharavi, estimates suggest there is one toilet for every 1,4440 people, tap water flows for only two hours each day, and approximately 15 families share each water tap. Around the globe, rural residents are […]