A/HRC/10/61 page 11 3. The right to water 28. CESCR has defined the right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses, such as drinking, food preparation and personal and household hygiene.38 The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities explicitly refer to access to water services in provisions on an adequate standard of living, while the Convention on the Rights of the Child refers to the provision of “clean drinking water” as part of the measures States shall take to combat disease and malnutrition.39 29. Loss of glaciers and reductions in snow cover are projected to increase and to negatively affect water availability for more than one-sixth of the world’s population supplied by meltwater from mountain ranges. Weather extremes, such as drought and flooding, will also impact on water supplies.40 Climate change will thus exacerbate existing stresses on water resources and compound the problem of access to safe drinking water, currently denied to an estimated 1.1 billion people globally and a major cause of morbidity and disease.41 In this regard, climate change interacts with a range of other causes of water stress, such as population growth, environmental degradation, poor water management, poverty and inequality.42 30. As various studies document, the negative effects of climate change on water supply and on the effective enjoyment of the right to water can be mitigated through the adoption of appropriate measures and policies.43 38 CESCR general comment No. 15 (2002) on the right to water (arts. 11 and 12), para. 2. While not explicitly mentioned in ICESCR, the right is seen to be implicit in arts. 11 (adequate standard of living) and 12 (heath). General comment No. 15 provides further guidance on the normative contents of the right to water and related obligations of States. 39 See CEDAW, art. 14, para. 2 (h); CRPD, art. 28, para. 2 (a); CRC, art. 24, para. 2 (c). 40 IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report, pp. 48-49. 41 Millennium Ecosystems Assessment 2005, Ecosystems and Human Well-being, Synthesis, p. 52. 42 According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2006, the root causes of the current water crisis lie in poor water management, poverty and inequality, rather than in an absolute shortage of physical supply. 43 IPCC AR4 WGII Report, p. 191. UNDP Human Development Report 2006.