Today, nearly 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water (97% salt water and 3% fresh water), however, 1.4 billion people lack access to safe drinking water: almost 1/4 of world population!



As an example, over 5,000 children die every day from diseases related to unsafe water while in France, each person consumes during a day, on average, 137 liters of drinking water and one American up to 600 liters! Or otherwise enough water to meet the needs of a man for about a month or allow an adult to drink for about 1 year. Meanwhile, a Malagasy farmer consumes an average 10 liters of water per day!

Some information on drinking water

A drinkable water is a water that, given the state of our knowledge, does not endanger human health. Drinking water, it is not a pure water. Indeed, water contains chemical elements and dissolved substances such as minerals.
It is said that water is drinkable when the level of various substances it may contain respect the minimum thresholds set by the regulations. Drinking water shall be based on standard parameters (sixty in westernized countries) for which concentration thresholds are set (Cf. file).

A parameter is an element analyzed in the composition of the water (presence and quantity). For each parameter a quality limit is set, which determines the excess limit. The quality limit is transduced into the MAC (maximum allowable concentration).

However, these standards are not always respected. For example, in Bretagne (France), the analysis of a water sample from a river, which they sometimes pump to supply the city of Rennes, revealed the presence of nine pesticides which could have long-term effects on human health.
Meanwhile, in 1993-1994, 53 million Americans have consumed contaminated water (lead, pesticides, volatile chlorinated products ); another 43 million have been exposed to cryptosporidium, micro-organism that has killed more than one hundred people in Milwaukee in 1993. Millions of men around the world have been drinking water containing fecal coliform (bacteria).

This leads us to believe that we should remain vigilant and aware that in most cases those are the humain activities which are the sources of water pollution . On the other hand, drinkable or not, the water becomes so scarce in some countries it will eventually reach the price of oil.