GLOBAL CLASSROOMS LONDON MODEL UNITED NATIONS

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Poverty, pollution and environmental degradation

Water is the basis of life on earth. The quality of life directly depends on water quality. .Good water quality sustains healthy ecosystems and
  hence leads to improved human well-being.
Poor water quality affects  the environment and human well-being. Waterborne diseases cause the  death of more than 1.5 million children each year. The quality of water resources is  increasingly threatened by pollution.
 
Human activity over the past 50 years is  responsible for unprecedented pollution of water resources in history. It is estimated that over 2.5 billion people globally live without adequate sanitation.
 
Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and other effluents drain into the world’s waters. The problem is worse in developing countries where over 90% of raw sewage and 70% of untreated  industrial wastes are dumped into surface
waters.
 
Many of the water pollutants have long-term  negative impacts on water quality, constituting a risk to human health. As a  result fresh water is severely reduced.

Also, the ability of ecosystems to  provide services is drastically reduced, at times with irreversible effects. Consequently the environment is degraded through decreased productivity of biomass, loss of biodiversity and vulnerability to other  stresses.
 
It is far cheaper to protect water resources than to clean up after pollution. Protection and maintenance of aquatic environments ensures the sustainability of their ecosystem services i.e. benefits such as potable water, fisheries, recreation and  tourism. For instance fully-functioning natural wetlands filter off nutrients and toxic substances from water. 
 
Increased funding is required to protect ecosystems and prevent water pollution. Funding should support, and be complemented with, concerted well targeted awareness raising initiatives on water quality issues.
 
Relevance of water quality for achieving MDGs by 2015:

MDG 7: Environmental sustainability
Target 1: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Target 2: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
Target 3: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic  sanitation
Target 4: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
Target  1: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality  rate

MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
Target 3: Have halted by 2015 and begun to  reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Key questions for research

How extensively is water pollution and environmental degradation in your country?
How can lack of freshwater interrupt, or even reverse development in a country?  
What needs to be done to protect our waters from pollution and degredation?

Research links

https://twitter.com/GCLondon2013
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/2013/02/un-year-of-water-cooperation/
http://www.unwater.org/statistics.html 
http://www.unwater.org/wwd10/downloads/WWD2010_Facts_web.pdf 
http://www.unwater.org/statistics_pollu.html
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/facts-and-figures/all-facts-wwdr3/fact-15-water-pollution/ 
http://www.pacinst.org/reports/water_quality/UN_Water_Statement.pdf
Picture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeY7AyfoqU&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s
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