This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语发展报告。
The lack of clean drinking water is a major problem worldwide. The World Health Organization says more than one billion people live in areas where renewable water resources are not available. The problem is especially serious in Asia and the Pacific. A United Nations report says water availability in that area is the second lowest in the world, after Africa.
清洁饮用水资源的短缺是一个全球性的问题。世界卫生组织称，数10亿人生活在缺乏可再生水资源的地区，这个问题在亚太地区（亚洲和太平洋地区）尤其严重。联合国的一份报告称，这个地区的可利用水资源在全球范围内第2低，仅次于非洲。
Nearly seven hundred thousand people in Asia and the Pacific lack safe drinking water. The U.N. report notes that the world's poorest countries are also the ones that use the most water for agriculture. Agriculture uses about eighty percent of the water in the Asia-Pacific area. There has also been an increase in water used for industry. China and India more than tripled their industrial water use between nineteen ninety-two and two thousand two.
在亚太地区有近70万人缺乏安全的饮用水。联合国报告指出，世界上最贫穷的国家，往往也是农业用水最多的地区。农业用水在亚太地区大约占到了全部用水的百分之八十，这些地区的工业用水也在不断增长。在1992年至2002年期间，中国和印度的工业用水增长了3倍多。
The lack of clean drinking water around the world forces millions of people to drink unsafe water. This leads to an increase in diseases like diarrhea, the second leading cause of death in children under five. Floods, droughts, pollution and climate change have created even more problems.
清洁饮用水的短缺致使世界各地数百万人的只能饮用不安全的水，这就导致了像腹泻一类疾病的增加。腹泻是5岁以下儿童死亡的第2大原因。洪水，干旱，污染和气候变化引发了更多的问题。
The Millennium Development Goals for two thousand fifteen call for a fifty percent decrease in the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
2050千年发展目标呼吁降低缺乏安全饮用水和基本卫生设施的人口数量的50%。
Scientists, governments and aid organizations around the world are increasing their efforts to meet these goals. Still the U.N. says there is much work to be done. During its yearly World Water Day observance last month it called on the international community to work together to solve the water crisis. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are doing just that.
世界各地的科学家，政府和援助组织为实现这些目标不断地努力。尽管如此，联合国说，还有许多工作要做。在上月的年度世界水日纪念活动上联合国呼吁国际社会共同努力以解决水危机。美国麻省理工学院的研究人员正在做这样的努力。
The American and South Korean researchers are investigating a new technology for turning sea water into drinking water. The new technology is called ion concentration polarization. The process uses electricity to help separate electrically charged salt particles from water to make it drinkable.
美国和韩国的研究人员正在研究一项将海水转化为饮用水的新技术。这项新技术被称为离子浓差极化（ion concentration polarization）。该过程使用电力从水中分离出带电盐粒子，使水可供饮用。
The researchers tested their desalination process on a computer chip the size of a postage stamp. The chip removed ninety-nine percent of the salt and other harmful substances from water samples. So far the method purifies only small amounts of water. But the researchers say it may someday be available as a personal water purification product.
研究人员在计算机上测试了一个邮票大小的元件淡化海水的过程。该元件从水样中去除了99%的盐分和其他有害物质。该方法目前只能净化少量的水。但研究人员说，这个元件可能有一天将做为个人水净化产品使用。
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
以上就是本期的美国之音慢速英语发展报告，由June Simms撰写，我是Steve Ember。