Nearly 20 percent of the world doesn?t have access to safe drinking water.
At the Center for Global Safe Water at Emory University in Atlanta, Director Christine Moe works to ensure communities have sustainable ways to provide safe drinking water.
Moe, a professor of safe water and sanitation, spoke with The Examiner about the need for safe drinking water.
Why is having safe drinking water important?
It?s hard to think of anything more important than safe drinking water. We know water is critical for life, and there is no substitute for water. If we don?t have safe, clean water, we can?t live.
Every day, it?s estimated that 5,000 children die from a lack of water and lack of sanitation. That?s a tremendous toll.
[The health risks are] bacteria, viruses, parasites. It?s usually fecal contamination of water, and there can also be health dangers from chemical contamination.
Should people in the U.S. be concerned about safe drinking water?
It?s certainly something we should be concerned about. If we let down our guard, we could have very unsafe water. Our water safety depends on us maintaining our infrastructure. It?s protecting water at the source, having good water treatment and probably the most vulnerable part is the distribution, the pipes.
Why should people care about other parts of the world without safe water?
I think it?s important to get across the idea that now we are a global community.
It?s not just the issue of water quality, it?s water quantity that affects all of us.
Our fresh water on the Earth is a limited resource … and we need to protect that resource. Water scarcity is something many parts of the U.S. are experiencing, and it?s also happening in other parts of the world.
