Did you know that less than 1% of all the water on Earth can be used by
people? The rest is salt water or is permanently frozen and we can't drink it, wash with it, or use it to water plants. As our
population grows, more and more people are using up this limited resource. Therefore, it is important that we use our water
wisely and not waste it.
Every year, people all over the world
produce 1,500 cubic kilometres of 'wastewater.' If we treated and cleaned this water,
wastewater could be reused for
energy and
irrigation.
However that rarely
happens, especially in
developing countries where such treatment plants are too expensive to install.
In developing countries 80% of all waste is being
discharged untreated, because there aren't enough rules and regulations, and because even when there are, governments find it hard to enforce them.
In the meantime, our
population keeps growing and with it our industry. More factories and more houses increase the demand for clean water, even as they consume so much of it. The result is that there doesn't seem to be enough for
everyone. Drought and deprivation are a
problem, and both humans and the
environment suffer.
To do something about that UN-Water has chosen "Clean Water for a Healthy World" as the theme for World Water Day 2010. The overall goal of the World Water Day campaign on March 22, 2010 is to raise the profile of water quality at the political level so that water quality considerations are made alongside those of water quantity.
Why do you need water?
Without water, your body would stop working
properly. Water makes up more than half of your body weight and a person can't survive for more than a few days without it.
Why? Your body has lots of important jobs and it needs water to do many of them. For instance, your blood, which
contains a lot of water, carries oxygen to all the cells of your body. Without
oxygen, those tiny cells would die and your body would stop working.
Water is also in lymph, a fluid that is part of your immune system, which helps you fight off illness. You need water to digest your food and get rid of waste, too. And water is the main ingredient in
perspiration, also called sweat.
In addition to being an important part of the fluids in your body, each cell depends on water to
function normally. |
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