About 2 billion people lack access to water worldwide (1/3 of the world) with almost a similar number living in potential severity. There is a problem definitely. By 2030 3 billion people will have no access to clean water, is water becoming scarce?
No!!
If you know the hydrological cycle/water cycle, the volume of water is constant, it just changes form through the oceans, atmosphere, land and vegetation, and ice and glaciers., it's either in a liquid state, vapour or solid (ice). So why all the scarcity? Well, at a population of 7 billion+ we all need water, the issue is how well do we use the water we have (only about 3% of the world's water is freshwater).
Management of water resources is not an issue to be left to national and municipal/county governments, you and i have a role to play (a big one) in managing water as a resource. A key issue in water management is the management of water quality, and how can we manage water quality:
- Minimizing the waste you produce: reuse, reduce, recycle and compost. Remember pollutants pollute water e.g plastics (big menace).
- Use non-toxic cleaning products, ECO labelled products to be precise. Cleaning products contaminate water making it expensive to purify.
- Do not dump in the sewer system, there are proper ways to dispose of medicines/pharmaceutical products, fuel, pesticides without contaminating our water resource.
- Where I am we don't have 'auto spas', if you are close to one, please use it don't wash your car at home/driveway.
- Reduce urban runoff by replacing impervious/paved surfaces on driveways, parking lots etc.
- Maintain a good distance between wells and contaminating activities e.g pit latrines
What are you doing to conserve our precious resource?
For more check out an earlier post on Water Stewardship: Why You should Care
References
- Mashable.com:World Water Day
- Water on Earth
Image Source: World Water Day
