‘Vampiric’ water use leading to ‘imminent’ global crisis, UN warns

“If nothing is done, it will be a business-as-usual scenario—it will keep on being between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population of the world that does not have access to sanitation and roughly 20-25 percent of the world will not have access to safe water supply.”

“About 10% of the world’s population lives in a country where water stress has reached a high or critical level,” the report says.

“At least 2 billion people (globally) use a drinking water source contaminated with feces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio,” it said.

That high number does not even take into account pollution from pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pesticides, microplastics and nanomaterials.