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| UNESCO |
The urban poor pay up to 50 times more for a liter of water than their richer neighbours, since they often have to buy their water from private vendors.
Due to rapid urbanization, cities face a growing demand for water and sanitation services. To meet this demand, cities are going deeper and further, which leads to over-exploitation of water resources.
Pollution typically refers to chemicals or other substances in concentrations greater than would occur under natural conditions.
Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water courses.
In many cities, especially in the developing world, the lack of convenient wastewater treatment and drainage facilities lead to pollution of the ground-and surface water resources.
Lack of convenient sanitation and safe water supply in cities leads to serious health problems.
Inadequate sanitation facilities often cause contamination of drinking water.
After heavy rain, stormwater washes human waste, mainly from informal settlements lacking minimum facilities, into the open drinking water sources of the poor.
Contaminated drinking water results in cholera epidemics, faecal-oral diseases such as diarrhoea, and outbreaks of malaria.
While malaria was often considered a rural disease, it is now among the main causes of illness and death in many urban areas.
Leakage -loss- rates of 50% are not uncommon in urban distribution systems.
Some 250 to 500 million m3 of drinking water gets lost in many mega cities each year.
Saving this amount could provide an additional 10 to 20 million people with drinking water in each mega city.
The section "Did You Know…?" is taken from the UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication (UNW-DPAC) publication "Water and Cities: Facts and Figures".
