Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services is vital to human health. However, about 650 million people, or 10% of the world's population, do not have access to safe water, putting them at risk of infectious diseases and premature death.
People gather to fetch water from a huge well in the village of Natwarghad in the western Indian state of GujaratReuters
Dirty water and poor sanitation can cause severe diseases in children, killing 900 under-fives every day across the world, according to United Nations estimates – or one child every two minutes. Among newborn babies, the World Health Organisation says infections caused by a lack of safe water and an unclean environment cause one death every minute somewhere in the world.
Slum dwellers collect drinking water from a submerged hand-pump after heavy rains in the northern Indian city of AllahabadReutersA girl collects drinking water from the Dala river outside Yangon, MyanmarReutersNorth Koreans wash their laundry as others skate on the ice on the Yalu river near the border with ChinaReutersA boy bathes on the side of the road in the southern Indian city of ChennaiReutersChildren collect water from a swamp in Mwea, KenyaAFP
This year's United Nations World Water Day (22 March) is focused on water and jobs. It aims to highlight how water can create paid and decent work and contribute to a greener economy and sustainable development.
To mark World Water Day 2016, this IBTimes UK photo essay is a reminder that one in ten people on our planet still do not have access to clean, safe water.
A boy bathes under a communal tap near a polluted water channel early one morning in Kolkata, IndiaReutersA woman carries jerry cans to fill them with water from a communal tap in Yemen's capital SanaaReutersA migrant worker carries water for drinking and cooking from a public tap at a migrant workers' village in BeijingReutersA man carries buckets filled with water on the banks of the river Ganges in Allahabad, IndiaReutersA slum dweller keeps an eye open for trains as she collects drinking water from a puddle between railway tracks in MumbaiReutersResidents use an improvised raft to cross a sewage canal at a slum in MumbaiReutersA resident digs a well in Arbeen, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta,SyriaReutersWomen queue for drinking water from a municipal corporation water tanker in the western Indian city of AhmedabadReutersA man fills barrels with potable water from a tanker truck at Lomas de Carabayllo, a shantytown north of Lima, PeruReutersA schoolgirl tries to collect water from a shallow puddle in Nongoma north west of Durban, during a drought in South AfricaAFPA man drinks water from a pump in a flooded area of Nowshera district, in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinceAFPBangladeshi and Rohingya migrants who were found drifting at sea collect rain water at a temporary shelter in Myanmar's northern Rakhine stateAFPPedestrians cover their noses as they cross a bridge over a polluted canal in east Bangalore, IndiaAFPSomalian refugees return from collecting water at the edge of the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, KenyaGetty ImagesBottles tied to ropes are lowered into an almost empty well in Bhaktapur, NepalReutersDisplaced people carry water containers on their heads at Tomping camp, near South Sudan's capital JubaJames Akena/ReutersChildren bathe in waste water at a slum in Jakarta, IndonesiaReutersA girl collects water from a hole in the ground in the Tariq district of the Saddam city neighbourhood of BaghdadReutersA girl uses a submerged hand-pump to fetch drinking water during floods at Dhuhibala village in the northeastern Indian state of AssamReutersA boy drinks coloured water from a pond in Bule Duba village, near the edge of Oroma and Somali regions of EthiopiaReutersA girl from the war-torn Blue Nile state collects water from a muddy pond in South Sudan's Doro refugee campReutersVillagers carry pitchers filled with drinking water after visiting a well at Meni village in the western Indian state of GujaratReutersA man, marooned by flood water along with his his livestock, waves towards an Army helicopter for relief handout in the Rajanpur district of Pakistan's Punjab provinceReutersA villager walks past a caked pond in the drought-hit Shilin County of Kunming, Yunnan province, ChinaReutersA man wraps a cloth around himself after a ritual dip in the polluted Yamuna river in New DelhiReutersResidents crowd around the only standpipe in Mabella slum in Sierra Leone's capital FreetownReutersA man collects water from a storage tank on the outskirts of Suining, southwest China's Sichuan provinceReutersWomen collect drinking water from a shallow bed of the Siang River at Berasapori village, some 560 kms from Guwahati, the capital city of India's northeastern state of AssamAFPA girl fetches murky water from a hole dug near a barren well in Jamam, South SudanAFPA woman collects a sample of red polluted water flowing from a sewer into the Jian River in Luoyang, north China's Henan provinceAFPA young Syrian refugee drinks water from a tank at a refugee camp in Qushtapa on the outskirts of the city of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan regionReutersChildren push a cart with water containers along a bombed-out street in Aleppo, SyriaReutersIsmael Adam, 2, drinks from a bowl of water at the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people, in El-Fasher, SudanReutersThe fingers of malnourished one-year-old Alassa Galisou are pressed against the lips of his mother Fatou Ousseini at an emergency feeding clinic in the town of Tahoua in northwestern Niger. One of the worst droughts in living memory destroyed much of the crop, leaving an estimated 3.6 million people short of food, including tens of thousands of starving childrenFinbarr O'Reilly/Reuters
World Water Day is observed on 22 March every year to celebrate water and raise awareness of water-related issues. One of the ideas behind having a special day is to make people think twice about how much water they waste. People who have plentiful access to water are encouraged to try not turning on their taps all day. Water is a finite resource that is fundamental to human well-being. Don't waste it.
