UNITED NATIONS, March 23 (UPI) -- Pollution and a growing world population could make water even more scarce, warns U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Ban's World Water Day message said while 700 million people in 43 countries suffer today from water scarcity, the number could grow to more than 3 billion people by 2025.
"Yet even more water will be needed in the future, to grow food, to provide clean drinking water and sanitation services, to operate industries and to support expanding cities," he said in the message, released Thursday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York. "The water-supply-demand gap is likely to grow wider still, threatening economic and social development and environmental sustainability."
In New York, many top restaurants planned to ask patrons to pay $1 for their normally free tap water to commemorate water day, said U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe. The money will go to UNICEF's drinking water projects around the world.
"Thousands of children die every day from diarrhea and other water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases, making the lack of safe water the second largest killer of children under the age five," said a UNICEF news release.
Climate change has also affected water levels, hurting the world's farmers, said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organization, in a news release.
