Water is life in every sense of the word. As the largest natural resource, many living things humans included rely on water for survival. From cooking, drinking, flushing toilets, washing clothes, brushing teeth amongst others, humans use water in many parts of our lives. However, despite the many things that water is used for, we rarely think about water as a resource. Water as a resource is scarce and the availability of water resources is the most serious global problem. Only 3% of the world’s water resource is available for human consumption, but even some of this is unusable because it is polluted.
The remaining 97% is frozen or too deep underground. Worldwide, a population of at least two billion people are forced to contend with drought for half of the year while another four billion live in areas of extreme scarce water conditions for at least one month a year. As the human population and the need for water-intensive activities goods and services continues to increase so will the demand for water. It is therefore important that the available freshwater reserves are maintained and protected to ensure basic human needs are met, and ecosystems and environments are not threatened.
Water resources are important for a sustainable future:
Goal six of the sustainable development goals is clean water and sanitation. The UN has been trying to promote and increase awareness on the issue by advocating for governments and the world in general to find ways to Increase water efficiency and improve water management. Water resources are vital, and failure to maintain them poses a danger to the future and an inability to achieve many different goals. Protecting the water resources for the coming generations begins with more effective water management today which is why the Global Environment Facility and Water Resources Management through a joint project, have been tasked to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, for equitable and sustainable development.
For agriculture;
Water resources are essential for the agricultural sector. This is the one sector that would suffer immensely from the depletion of water resources as it consumes 70% of the world’s water resources. Many areas in the world are already experiencing the effects of the depletion of water resources something that is directly affecting farmers’ income and food security.
Home to thousands of fish and other marine species;
As previously mentioned, water is life. Water resources are the home to a myriad of fish and marine species. The depletion of these water resources means that a lot of the species are endangered and could be on the verge of becoming extinct if water resources are depleted.
Conclusion
Due to human activities, climate changes having become unpredictable, and this is in turn affecting rainfall patterns. Because of this, it is important that natural water resources are maintained since the direction, as well as the impact of the current climate changes, are well known. Limiting access as well as human activities around water resources may be the best way of conserving the natural water resources that are left.