新托福阅读材料：WaterinDevelopingCountries
水资源何其宝贵相信很多人都深有体会，今年我国南方的大面积干旱所面临的水资源危机也让人记忆犹新。其实早在1984年新奥尔良的世博会主题中大家就喊出了“河流的世界，水乃生命之源，珍惜!”这样的口号，请大家一起爱护地球，保护有限珍贵的水资源。In the developing world, water quality remains the major concern (though water quantity is certainly a major problem in certain geographic areas). In this case, scarcity results when either the physical quantity of water is low or the quality of existing water resources is unfit for human use. Rapid urbanization has outpaced the capacities of many countries to meet basic human needs for both distribution and sanitation. Simply put, most water industries within developing nations are incapable of supplying adequate and clean water to all citizens.
In many parts of the world, the lack of an adequate supply of clean water for drinking and sanitation is a serious environ­mental and health issue. Waterborne diseases remain one of the most significant threats to human health worldwide. According to the United Nations World Health Organization's 2002 report, an estimated 1.7 million deaths a year can be attributed to unsafe water supplies. Most of these deaths are from diarrheal diseases; 90 percent of which are children in developing countries.
A major problem is simply inadequate infrastructure ? not enough pipes exist to satisfy demand. To compound this, many citizens in the developing world live in large shanty towns on the outskirts of cities and lack formal property rights to their homes. Governments often refuse to recognize these dwellers because doing so would mean they would have to fulfill an obligation to supply these citizens with services, including water. The vicious cycle continues as those without water are forced to make use of whatever is available, often times bathing, cleaning, and laundering in horribly polluted streams.
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