U.N. report- Water shortage by 2025

VIENNA, Austria -- More than 2.7 billion people will face severe shortages of fresh water by 2025 if the world keeps consuming water at today's rates, the United Nations warned Friday in a report marking World Water Day.

Worldwide, about 5 billion people will be living in areas where it will be difficult or impossible to meet all their needs for fresh water, creating "a looming crisis that overshadows nearly two-thirds of the Earth's population," the report said.

It was released in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear watchdog organization leading the United Nations' effort to draw attention to the world's water crisis and urge the launching of a "blue revolution" to conserve supplies and develop new ones.

Already, an estimated 1.1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water, 2.5 billion lack proper sanitation and more than 5 million people die from waterborne diseases each year -- 10 times the number of casualties killed in wars around the globe, the report said.

Less than 3 percent of the world's water is fresh, and most of it is trapped in polar ice or buried underground in springs too deep to reach.