Water: ‘Biggest Crisis No One Is Talking About’

New report for World Water Day, March 22, says two-thirds of planet may face shortages by 2025.

Citing global forecasts, a recent report by GFA World suggests the toxic mix of poverty, hunger and lack of safe drinking water around the world could be “potentially much more worrying than the virus spreading.”

“Two-thirds of the world’s people could face water shortages by 2025,” said K.P. Yohannan, founder of GFA World that has currently clean water projects across Asia. “It’s been described as ‘the biggest crisis no one is talking about’.”

Several mega cities are on the verge of “running out of drinking water,” says the report, titled Water Stress: The Unspoken Global Crisis , as World Water Day -- an annual awareness event -- spotlights the rising global threat.

According to BBC News, several cities already have massive stress on their water supplies and could run out of drinking water in a few years, including:

• Mexico City, Mexico
• Beijing, China
• São Paulo, Brazil
• Cairo, Egypt
• Cape Town, South Africa
• and even London, England

Global agencies UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) place Mexico and nine African and Asian countries in the “top 10” nations with the “worst drinking water.”

In the African country of Uganda, 40 percent of the population has to trek 30 minutes or more to find safe drinking water, says the report.

Two Billion Drink From ‘Feces-Contaminated’ Sources

While Canada has the world’s third largest per-capita freshwater reserve, around the world, some 785 million people don’t have basic water service, the report says.

A staggering two billion people -- mostly in Africa and Asia -- get their drinking water from feces-contaminated ponds and watering holes, leading to often-fatal diseases such as diarrhea, cholera and dysentery.

Organizations like GFA World and World Vision have made clean water a top priority.

GFA World drills about 4,000 new community wells -- called “Jesus Wells” -- every year, providing safe drinking water for entire villages. Over the past two decades, the organization has drilled more than 30,000 wells and distributed more than 58,000 home kits, called BioSand filters, that remove 98 percent of water impurities.