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22 March 2010, worldwide • World Water Day

UN-Water is dedicating World Water Day 2010 to the theme of water quality, reflecting its importance alongside quantity of the resource in water management.  On World Water Day, we reaffirm that clean water is life, and our lives depend on how we protect the quality of our water.  Water is the basis of life on earth. 

The quality of life directly depends on water quality. Good water quality sustains healthy ecosystems and hence leads to improved human well-being. However, poor water quality affects the environment and human well-being. For example waterborne diseases cause the death of more than 1.5 million children each year. The quality of water resources is increasingly threatened by pollution. Human activity over the past 50 years is responsible for unprecedented pollution of water resources in history. It is estimated that over 2.5 billion people globally live without adequate sanitation. Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and other effluents drain into the world’s waters. The problem is worse in developing countries where over 90% of raw sewage and 70% of untreated industrial wastes are dumped into surface waters.

The World Water Day 2010 and its campaign is envisaged to:

• Raise awareness about sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being through addressing the increasing water quality challenges in water management and

• Raise the profile of water quality by encouraging governments, organizations, communities, and individuals around the world to actively engage in proactively addressing water quality e.g. in pollution prevention, clean up and restoration.

World Water Day 2010 activities will aim to communicate messages on water quality, ecosystems and human well-being.

World Water Day website

World Water Day 2010 brochure

Speech by the Prince of Orange, Chair of UNSGAB