Water Facts

Here are the answers to our Water Facts quiz, honoring World Water Day, March 22.

1. Current world population: 6.9 billion
2. Gallons of water used in taking a bath, in each run of a typical dishwasher, in a single flush of a toilet and in taking a shower, respectively: 50, 20, 3 and 2.5
3. Amount of the world's fresh water readily accessible for human consumption: less than 1 percent
4. Percentage of the world's freshwater that goes to agriculture: 70
5. Percentage of all waste that is untreated: 80
6. Economic return on every $1 invested in water and sanitation: $3 to $34
7. People worldwide who lack access to safe water supplies: 1 in 8
8. Number of people without access to adequate sanitation facilities: 2.5 billion
9. Number of viruses, bacteria and worm eggs (respectively) contained in one gram of fecal matter: 10 million, 1 million and 100
10. Number of grams of fecal matter that can kill a child under 5: 1
11. Percentage of the world's people living in poverty who are sick any given day from causes connected to water supply, hygiene or sanitation: 50
12. Number of people each year who die from waterborne illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, dengue fever, typhoid, malaria and others: 3,575,000
13. Number of children under 5 who die from diarrhea each year: 1.5 million
14. Number of children under 5 who die from waterborne illness each day: 24,000