World Water Day 2008 will be celebrated by the UN on Thursday, 20 March. In 2008 the day will highlight issues on sanitation in accordance with the International Year of Sanitation 2008. People around the world are encouraged to celebrate the day to draw attention to the world’s sanitation challenge.

Message by Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director for World Water Day.

Mr. Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, Podcast on World Water Day 2008: A Focus on Sanitation

Ask UNEP - Ms. Johanne Jelnes, Programme Officer Freshwater and Terrestrial Ecosystems Branch of UNEP's Division of Environmental Policy Implementation, answers your questions on World Water Day 2008.

Sanitation Helps the Environment
Improved disposal of human waste protects the quality of drinking water sources.  Re-use of composted waste for agriculture is an environmental, as well as economic, gain. At present, each year more than 200 million tones of human waste – and vast quantities of waste water and solid waste – go uncollected and untreated around the world, fouling the environment and exposing millions of people to disease and squalor.

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The UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Year Book 2003 includes a report and graphics on ‘Dead Zones’, or low oxygenated areas in the world’s seas and oceans, from land-based sources of water pollution, such as sewage.

Water Supply and Sanitation Coverage in UNEP Regional Seas – Need for Wastewater Emission Targets? The main objective of this study is to link sanitation provision and environmental issues and make this relation the central theme for defining objectives, targets and indicators. UNEP, 2003-2004.

• Section I: Regional presentation of data;
• Section II: Targets and Indicators for Domestic Sanitation & Wastewater Treatment;
• Section III: An Inventory of Regional Specific Data and the Feasibility of developing Regional Wastewater Emission Targets (WET)

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