Water...A human right that is becoming harder to come by

We know that about seventy percent of the world is covered in water, but the World Health Organization has reported other statistics that are not as well known. Each year, 3.575 million people die from water-related diseases. Forty-three percent of those deaths are due to diarrhea, including 1.5 million children under the age of five. These numbers translate to about 4900 deaths every day or one child every fifteen seconds. About one billion people lack access to safe water, which is approximately eighteen percent of the global population. By the year 2025, it is estimated that one third of the global population will face severe and chronic water shortages.  It is also well known that humans rely on water for survival. Although it may not be well known that water makes up more than two-thirds of the weight of the human body; the brain is seventy-five percent water, blood is eighty-three percent water, muscles are seventy-five percent water, and the lungs are ninety percent water.

Clearly, water is something that all people need.  It is a component that humans understand as necessary to life, but still it is not safely available to all people. These statistics are hard to accept, but thankfully, this global problem has been scientifically confronted. Both biological and chemical contamination are worldwide problems that are being tackled with many different techniques, but economic viability of these techniques is essential.

A person needs 13.2 gallons/day of water for drinking, sanitation, and hygiene, yet even though there is so much water in the world and water is vital to human life, the average person in a developing country uses a mere 2.64 gallons/day. The average person in the United Kingdom uses 35.66 gallons/day. The average person in the United States uses 100-175  gallons/day. Water purification in developing countries at an affordable cost is essential.

This article describes six innovative water purification techniques that have been implemented in developing countries http://inhabitat.com/6-water-purifying-devices-for-clean-drinking-water-in-the-developing-world/.

I think that most these techniques, except for two (the “pure” water bottle that filters water with UV rays and the hamster ball-shaped Solarball) seem affordably implementable. Of the other four viable techniques, I find the Lifestraw most interesting but would like to know more about how it operates specifically. It would also be nice to know the cost and efficacy of each of these techniques in order to assess which option is best in helping aid the world water sanitation issue.