Water is known as the most significant element needed for life. Without it we are unable to provide ourselves with essential nutrients. We are blessed to live in a country where we don’t have to worry about water supply and maybe that is why we take it for granted. However, on the other side of the world one cannot imagine that there are around 633 million people without access to clean water and proper sanitation.
Women and children walk for kilometres to rivers to collect water for their daily use. They keep in mind that they can take only a certain amount of water so their chores that use water are limited. Dirty water can spread terrible diseases. The lack of access to safe water makes education elusive and economic opportunity farther out of reach. It is deadly, dangerous and a major obstacle for developing nations. It is what is standing between billions of people and their health, safety and the opportunity to unlock their true potential.
Cleaning and transporting water takes a large amount of energy. When this water is wasted, larger amounts must be cleaned and transported. This requires the use of more fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources. The more water that is wasted, the faster these resources become depleted and the more quickly their dangerous by-products such as carbon dioxide build up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
We probably have never asked ourselves why water is dirty. Water is filthy because of untreated sewage, which is one of the major problems India is facing. Poor sanitation is also a considerable reason and deforestation where trees were knocked over to provide space for urbanisation. This means there will be more industrial materials being dumped into water bodies.
By realising our acts, we can come up with ways to conserve water and prevent it from getting wasted. Simple ways to conserve that we all know already – shorter showers, turning off the taps, fixing your leaks and many more. Why don’t we do it? The rate at which water is being used, it’s becoming one of the biggest concerns with regards to depleting natural resources.
- The reader is a student based in Abu Dhabi.
