30 Days of Gratitude - Day 27

Today I want to state how grateful that I live in a place where potable water is plenty and I do not have to worry about staying hydrated.

Sadly, there is still parts of this world that water is not as plentiful and people still struggle to just live. Here are some statistics that I found on Water.org.

• Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness. 
• Women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. 
• 3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease. That is almost the entire city of Los Angeles. Nearly all deaths, 99%, occur in the developing world.  
• 780 million people lack access to clean water. That's more than 2.5 times the United States population; or approximately one in nine people. 
• Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours. 
• Of the 60 million people added to the world's towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities. 

These are just a couple of sobering thoughts about how important water is to this world and even though it is the most abundant compound on Earth's surface, covering about 70 percent of the planet, providing it in a safe and drinkable way to all of the inhabitants is still an ongoing challenge. Consider how important water is to you the next time you fill up your glass or wash your hands or do you laundry. Imagine living in a world where it is not so readily available to you.