ABSTRACT
Sound water resources development and management underpins attainment of all the Millennium Development Goals, not only the one dealing specifically with water supply and sanitation. Moreover, it can avert tremendous human suffering (box 10.1). In this chapter and the two that follow it, we discuss the links between water resources and the Goals (especially those on poverty, hunger, health, gender, and environmental sustainability) and the actions that countries will need to take to optimize the contribution of water resources to the achievement of the Goals. Water-related disasters: facts from the World Health Organization
Almost 2 billion people were affected by natural disasters in the last decade of the twentieth century, 86 percent of them by floods and droughts.
Flooding frequently leads to contamination of drinking-water systems with human excreta from inadequate sanitation and with refuse and industrial waste from dumps.
Droughts cause the most illness and death, not only by limiting adequate water supply but also by triggering and exacerbating malnutrition and famine.
Droughts and floods have broad economic impact: the Zimbabwe drought of the early 1990s was associated with an 11 percent decline in GDP; the recent floods in Mozambique led to a 23 percent reduction in GDP; and the drought of 2000 in Brazil cut projected economic growth in half.
Source: WHO 2004a.