The Fifth World Water Forum was opened on January 16 in Istanbul of Turkey. The topic of this Forum was "Bridging Divides for Water". Approximately twenty thousands representatives who came from more than 150 countries and regions took part in this conference.
Three-fourth of the earth surface is covered with seas and oceans. However, the water resources for the direct to human use or the potential to develop are very rather limited. According to data released by the Fourth World Water Forum, the total amount of water resources around the world is 14 hundred millions cubic kilometers approximately, only 2.5% of these water resources drinkable fresh water. While more than two-thirds in these only fresh water resources is frozen in the ice cover of the South Pole and the Arctic Pole or is in the form of alpine accumulated snow and glacier. The fresh water resources easily used by human being are only a part of rivers and lakes and underground water, which are less than 0.3% of the global fresh water.
The distribution of developable and available water resources is not balanced. According to the “World Water Development Report” released by the United Nations Educational，Scientific and Cultural Organization on March 12 in this year: From the geographical perspective, Latin America is a region rich in the most water resources, with one third of the global water resources; Second is Asia, the water resources of Asia is one quarter of the global water resources. The distribution of water resources in Europe is extremely unequal, 18% of populations of the continent of Europe lives in regions lack in the water source.
Through the water resources are the regenerative resource, but affected by some factors, such as the world population growth, the human over-exploitation of natural resources, and the insufficiency base installation, the supplies of water resources are a far cry from meeting human production and living demands. From the water for human basic necessary needs, human will face some problems, such as the shortage of resources, the water not attained with a designated standard and the difficult to obtain water. According a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund and World Health Organization (WHO) last July, about 8.84 hundred million people around the world are unable to get safe drinking water. Among these, Asian countries account for half of the countries shortage of water resources, and 40% the African countries south of the Sahara.
The “World Water Development Report” points out that the human's needs for water are growing at the rate of 640 hundred million cubic meters per year. By 2030, 47% of the Global human populations will live in the water-tight highly host regions.