WATER AWARENESS
Every day is water day!
Did your know?
- Roughly 70 percent of an adult’s body is made up of water.
- At birth, water accounts for approximately 80 percent of an infant’s body weight.
- Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries chemicals, minerals, and nutrients with it.
- Much more fresh water is stored under the ground in aquifers than on the earth’s surface.
- Of all the water on the earth, humans can used only about three tenths of a percent of this water. Such usable water is found in groundwater aquifers, rivers, and freshwater lakes.
- The earth is a closed system, similar to a terrarium, meaning that it rarely loses or gains extra matter. The same water that existed on the earth millions of years ago is still present today.
"Water Wars"
-The issue of water and the sharing of water has always been a key concern in the Middle East.
- Clear identification of "ownership" of water resources is problematic but necessary in order to enhance political stability and international relations. Negotiation of agreements can take years. In the meantime, the ecosystem of a river may continue to be harmed or even destroyed, with the accompanying deterioration of the quality and quantity of water impacting the local population.
- According to the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, there have been 507 international disputes concerning water resources in the last 50 years.
Why is this campaign important?
China's Water Crisis
The water resources of China are affected by both severe water quantity shortages and severe water quality pollution. A growing population and rapid economic development as well as lax environmental oversight have increased water demand and pollution. China has responded by measures such as rapidly building out the water infrastructure and increasing regulation as well as exploring a number of further technological solutions.
South African Situation
Climate change has affected water supplies within the region. Rains that usually come and supply the country's water has come infrequently. Interestingly enough South Africa boast one of the most clean water systems in the world, however due to the lack of sanitation and access in the country's rural communities the threat of water borne disease is steadily increasing.
India Water Scaricity
Although India has made improvements over the past decades to both the availability and quality of municipal drinking water systems, its large population has stressed planned water resources and rural areas are left out. In addition, rapid growth in India's urban areas has stretched government solutions, which have been compromised by over-privatization.
"The Water Project"
Why Water?
Women and girls especially bear the burden of walking miles at a time to gather water from streams and ponds - full of disease that is making them and their families sick.
These illnesses and the time lost to fetching water robs entire communities of their futures.
Hope is put on hold in over half of the developing world's primary schools without access to water and sanitation. But it doesn't have to be this way