700 million international tourists per year and 500 billion dollars in annual receipts make tourism one of the biggest industries in the world, with a correspondingly serious environmental footprint.
During the 1970s, only 1 person in 13 from industrial countries had travelled to a developing country as an international tourist. By the end of the 1990s it was 1 in 5.
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Over the last decade, sales of bottled water have increased dramatically to become what is estimated to be a US $100 billion industry
From 1999 to 2004, global bottled water consumption grew from approximately 118 billion litres to more than 182 billion litres.
In several cities of the developing world, demand for bottled water often stems from the fact that municipal water supplies – if available at all – fail to meet basic criteria for drinking water quality. But companies manufacturing bottled water are also generating large revenues in developed countries.
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Of the 1.3 billion people living in abject poverty, the majority are women and children. They also happen to be the largest group systematically under-represented in water management arrangements.
Some 3,800 children die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
Diarrhoeal diseases remain the leading cause of death from water-related diseases in children, accounting for 21% of all deaths of children under 5 in developing countries
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Out of the world’s total land area of 13 billion hectares (ha), 12% is cultivated, and an estimated 27% is used for pasture. The 1.5 billion ha of cropland include 277 million ha of irrigated land, representing 18% of cropland.
In population terms, cropland amounts to a global average of 0.25 ha per person.
To satisfy the growing demand for food between 2000 and 2030, production of food crops in developing countries is projected to increase by 67%. At the same time, a continuing rise in productivity should make it possible to restrain the increase in water use for agriculture to about 14%.
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Glaciers are defined as a large mass of perennial ice of atmospheric origin generally moving slowly on land over a long period.
About 75% of the world’s entire natural freshwater is contained within ice sheets and glaciers. However 97% is not considered to be a water resource as it is inaccessible, located in the Antarctic, Arctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Land-based glaciers and permanent snow and ice cover approximately 680,000 km2 and are critical to many nations’ water resources.
Between 1980 and 2001, the thickness of 30 major mountain glaciers decreased by an average of 6 metres.
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