e-Leaders Blog: lateline

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Plenty of water in Victoria today

BoM Radar, 5:30pm

Plenty of water in Victoria today. Nearly 30mm of rain down Mallacoota way, for example.

But how long will it last?

Do you think there will be another drought in Victoria in the next 10 years?

Are we doing enough to ensure fresh water supplies for the future?

Here's Leigh Sales and Margot O'Neill on ABC television (Lateline) in August '09. "When the water runs out, will Melbourne survive?"

(michael chalk)

At present, almost a billion people on our planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight who are subject to preventable disease and sometimes death because of something that most of us here in Australia take for granted. Clean water is a global human rights issue.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses.90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation