Not a precious drop of water to waste

Amal Al Hoshan stands with her children in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. Next to them are 15 large plastic containers bearing 300 litres of water, the amount the family uses daily. Installed outside their home is a Unicef-provided water tank that holds two cubic metres of water, available for the entire street to use. “People who live in houses use less because a house is clean,” says Ms Al Hoshan. “In the camp, it is dirty and dusty. We need to clean a lot. My baby doesn’t sleep on a mattress, for example; she sleeps on the concrete floor because it’s cooler.” Courtesy Unicef

Photographer Ashley Gilbertson and his wife, Joanna Gilbertson, a baker, stand next to their son, 6-year-old Hugo Gilbertson, who is holding the lead of the family’s dog, Olive, outside their home in New York’s West Village. Around them are 50 large plastic containers bearing a cumulative total of 1,000 litres of water, the amount the family uses daily. 100 litres are used for flushing their toilets, 300 for showers and baths, 200 for washing their hands, faces and dishes, 80 for running their dishwasher, 100 for washing clothes, 50 for drinking and cooking, and 150 for watering their garden or cleaning their house. Courtesy Unicef

Rhoda January holds 2-year-old Tamadani January in the village of Chikosa in Malawi. Behind her are her two other children: (left-right) 8-year-old John Banda and 12-year-old Kosalata Banda. Around them are five large plastic jugs bearing a combined total of 100 litres of water, the amount the family uses each day. Forty litres goes to bathing, 20 to cooking and drinking, 20 to washing clothes and another 20 to washing dishes. They draw the water from a recently installed borehole; previously, their water came from shallow wells. “The water was really bad,” said Ms. January. “Sometimes, you could see the germs with your eyes. We were supposed to add chemicals to clean it, but we are so poor we couldn’t afford it.” Courtesy Unicef

Abdulrahman Mohammad Abu Noqta, a former lorry driver, stands outside his family’s home in Za’atari refugee camp. Near the family are 19 large plastic containers bearing a cumulative total of 380 litres of water, the amount the family uses daily. They purchased a water tank, now installed outside their home, that pipes water into their bathroom and kitchen. Camp authorities refill the tank every five days. “We’re very economical with our water because we don’t have enough,” said Ms. Abu Noqta. “We’re afraid that, some day, we will not have water because, sometimes, the water trucks go on strike.” Courtesy Unicef

Hasan Abu Ibrahim stands with his family in the desert, near the Jordanian city of Umm Al-Lulu. They are standing with 10 large plastic containers bearing a cumulative total of 200 litres of water, the amount the family uses daily for cooking, drinking, and washing clothes and dishes. The lorry nearby contains the 7,800 litres of water used daily for their 700 sheep. The family, members of the Bedouin ethnic group, move from place to place in the desert, following access to water and food for their herd. The family usually draws the 8,000 litres they require each day from a water salesman in a nearby town and use the lorry to transport it to their camp. Courtesy Unicef

Fouré Moussa stands, balancing a large plastic container of water atop her head, while (background, left-right) her husband, Moumouni Alassane, and five children sit nearby with the family’s donkey, in the village of Bara Bangou in Niger. With them are four large plastic containers bearing a combined total of 80 litres of water, the amount the family uses daily for cooking and drinking. During the rainy season, they use ponds created by rainfall to wash dishes and clothes. Ms. Moussa fetches water from a borehole that is two kilometres away and serves over 400 families; to avoid long queues, she goes at night. It takes her 30 minutes to walk there, plus another 15 minutes for every container of water she needs to fill. Courtesy Unicef

Water is something we take for granted. It flows from our taps or is delivered to our doorsteps in those familiar blue plastic, 19-litre bottles.

Not so for much of the world. This year, American photographer Ashley Gilbertson spent a month recording water supplies to families in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Gilbertson was working with the children’s charity Unicef, which says that this year 663 million people still have no access to proper sources of drinking water.

The issue is a glass that is either half full or half empty, depending on the perspective.

While the target for safe water under the UN’s Millennium Development Goals was met by 2010, 2.4 billion people still lack proper sanitation dependent on a proper water supply.

Gilbertson’s travels took him across Latin American, Asia and the Middle East. In some instances the only water supply for families was restricted and polluted. Perhaps the most shocking discovery, though, was on his own doorstep.

Photographing his own family’s requirements in New York, Gilbertson discovered that with his wife and young son, they used 1,000 litres a day, including 80 litres for the dishwasher – or as much as a family of seven in Niger.