The 20th century, gone down in history, has handed down to the new century, along with outstanding discoveries, inventions and engineering advances, a set of challenges and troubles.

Problems related to fresh water resources and their protection from depletion and pollution are perhaps at the first place amongst other challenges.
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Water governance is defined by the political, social, economic and administrative systems that are in place, and which directly or indirectly affect the use, development and management of water resources and water service delivery at different levels of society.

The water crisis is essentially a crisis of governance and societies are facing a number of social, economic and political challenges on how to govern water more effectively.
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Land-based glaciers and permanent snow and ice cover approximately 680,000 km2 and are critical to many nations’ water resources.

The total volume of glaciers and permanent snow cover is 24,064 000 km3, which is 1.74% of the total volume of the hydrosphere and 68.7% of the world’s freshwater.

The vast majority (almost 90%) of Earth’s ice mass is in Antarctica, while the Greenland ice cap contains 10% of the total global ice mass.
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Water, sanitation and hygiene have important impacts on both health and disease.

Water-related diseases kill a child every 8 seconds, and are responsible for 80% of all illnesses and deaths in the developing world.

Water-related diseases kill more than 5 million people every year, more than ten times the number killed in wars.

Arsenicosis is caused by long-term exposure to low concentrations of arsenic in drinking-water. It causes painful skin keratosis (hardened lesions) and can result in cancers of the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. Millions of people are potentially in danger from arsenic poisoning since the water supplies they rely on are contaminated with arsenic (mainly from natural sources) and they either do not have a safe alternative for water supply or are unaware of the risks.
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It is estimated that more than 1.3 billion people in the developing world survive on less than a dollar a day and almost 3 billion survive on less than two dollars per day.

In order to free people from the burden of disease and malnutrition, the need for secure access to water for the poor has been more strongly recognized.
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