[ti:Water Shortages Continue to Threaten the World's Growing Population] [ar:Development Report] [al:Steve Ember] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:03.36]Development Report. [00:05.55]The lack of clean drinking water [00:08.20]is a major problem worldwide. [00:11.18]The World Health Organization says [00:13.91]more than one billion people live [00:16.40]in areas where renewable water [00:20.04]resources are not available. [00:22.67]The problem is especially serious [00:25.18]in Asia and the Pacific. [00:28.56]A United Nations report says [00:31.45]water availability in that area [00:34.67]is the second lowest [00:37.12]in the world, after Africa. [00:39.75]Nearly seven hundred thousand people [00:43.39]in Asia and the Pacific lack [00:46.18]safe drinking water. [00:47.91]The U.N. report notes that [00:50.51]the world's poorest countries [00:52.75]are also the ones that [00:55.28]use the most water for agriculture. [00:58.32]Agriculture uses about [01:00.81]eighty percent of the water [01:03.00]in the Asia-Pacific area. [01:05.69]There has also been an increase [01:08.78]in water used for industry. [01:11.20]China and India more than [01:14.45]tripled their industrial water [01:17.13]use between nineteen ninety-two [01:20.02]and two thousand two. [01:22.11]The lack of clean drinking water [01:25.24]around the world forces millions [01:28.12]of people to drink unsafe water. [01:31.52]This leads to an increase [01:33.77]in diseases like diarrhea, [01:36.94]the second leading cause of death [01:39.27]in children under five. [01:41.82]Floods, droughts, pollution [01:44.66]and climate change have [01:47.15]created even more problems. [01:49.97]The Millennium Development Goals [01:52.72]for two thousand fifteen call [01:55.81]for a fifty percent decrease [01:58.76]in the number of people [02:00.56]without safe drinking water [02:02.58]and basic sanitation. [02:05.49]Scientists, governments [02:08.01]and aid organizations around [02:10.99]the world are increasing [02:13.09]their efforts to meet these goals. [02:16.31]Still the U.N. says there [02:19.50]is much work to be done. [02:21.75]During its yearly World Water Day [02:25.49]observance last month it called [02:28.22]on the international community [02:30.56]to work together to [02:32.36]solve the water crisis. [02:34.61]Researchers at the Massachusetts [02:37.06]Institute of Technology [02:39.04]are doing just that. [02:40.83]The American and South Korean [02:44.52]researchers are investigating [02:47.51]a new technology for turning sea water [02:51.23]into drinking water. [02:53.18]The new technology is called [02:55.87]ion concentration polarization. [03:00.36]The process uses electricity [03:02.59]to help separate electrically [03:05.62]charged salt particles [03:08.36]from water to make it drinkable. [03:10.90]The researchers tested [03:13.04]their desalination process [03:15.48]on a computer chip the size [03:18.01]of a postage stamp. [03:20.36]The chip removed ninety-nine [03:23.29]percent of the salt and other [03:26.04]harmful substances [03:27.88]from water samples. [03:30.02]So far the method purifies [03:32.90]only small amounts of water. [03:35.25]But the researchers say it may [03:38.63]someday be available as [03:40.94]a personal water purification product. [03:44.92]And that's the VOA Special English [03:48.40]Development Report, [03:50.25]written by June Simms. [03:52.04]I'm Steve Ember.