WATER CRISIS IN WATER PLANET

  

 

 

WATER CRISIS  IN WATER PLANET

 

Nikunja Bihari Sahu

 

       Water can create peace or spark conflict. Public health and prosperity, food and energy systems, economic productivity and environmental wellbeing all depend on a well-functioning and equitably managed water cycle. However, it is lamenting to note that although more than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders, only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water. As climate change impacts increase and populations grow, there is an urgent need, within and between countries, to unite around protecting and conserving our most precious resource.

Water in Nature

       Although Earth is called the Water planet, the stock of fresh water on Earth fit for human consumption is very much limited. This is due to the fact that around 97% of water on Earth is located in seas and oceans which is salty and not fit for human use. The remaining 2.5% is fresh water out of which a major portion, (around 68%) is located in ice caps and glaciers and 30% is underground which are again beyond the reach of humans. Only 0.3% of fresh water flows in rivers and lakes and is available for human consumption. Hence, there is great need for conserving water on our planet and this calls for its  judicious and prudent use. We have to remember: each drop counts! 

 Unique Properties of Water

     Water is a unique liquid of nature in the sense that it is the only liquid that can exists in all its three different forms in Earth’s temperature ranges. Its density is 1 gm/cc and its Melting and Boiling points are 0 and 100 degree Celsius respectively. A molecule of water comprises Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms connected together by Covalent chemical bonds in a mass ratio of 1:8. The Latent heat and Specific heat capacity of water are quite high compared to other covalent liquids of similar molecular weight. Pure water is a chemically neutral medium having a pH value of 7. Unlike all other liquids, water shows anomalous expansion with rise of temperature and the density of Water is highest at 4 degree Celsius. Due to some of these unique properties of Water, life on Earth has become possible to exist.

 Circulation of Water in Nature

  Water continuously circulates between the land and the sky through a natural mechanism called Water Cycle that includes evaporation, condensation and precipitation. This makes the total amount of water in sea and the sky constant. In India, most of the rainfall of the year occurs only during the four months of the monsoon period. Rainwater seeps through the soil through its pores in its downward journey and gets stored in numerous cracks and gaps in the underground rocky layer called Aquifer. This is the Ground Water.

  Water in Our Daily Life

     Nearly 70% of the human body is made of water and 90% of the plasma of our blood is made of water. Most of the biochemical reactions of the body take place in this watery medium. We require water for a variety of purposes in our daily life like bathing, washing, cooking, brushing toileting, gardening etc. However, the maximum amount of fresh water is used  in the agricultural sector for irrigation.

Water Crisis

   In the post Industrial Revolution times, due to man’s nature-unfriendly activities,  a situation of acute water crisis has been arisen in our planet. Effluents released from industries and biological wastes of cities into rivers and lakes pollute water sources that leads to drinking water crisis. Our holy river Ganges, known in mythology for its clean and rejuvenating flow, has become one of the ten most polluted rivers of the world due to the activities of people living near its banks. Similarly, in Odisha, another sacred river, named Brahmani, has also become polluted due to the release of hazardous chemicals from nearby industries.

     According to an estimate of the United Nations, there is a minimum need of nearly 50 litres of water (or 2.5 buckets) daily per head for leading a healthy life. However, it is a matter of grave concern that millions of people living in rural areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America are deprived of this minimum requirement of water. Similarly, there is an incredible pressure mounted on ground water due to the growing population demand and mushrooming industrial activities. This is compounded with the problem of deforestation and soil erosion due to which the water retention ability of soil has been greatly reduced.

      An environmentalist once said, if there becomes a Third World War, it would be due to water issues. This has started becoming reality, as we have been witnessing widespread conflicts on the sharing of river waters between countries like India-Pakistan, India-Bangladesh, India-China and between states like Odisha-Chhatisgarh, Odisha-Andhra and Karnataka-Tamil Nadu etc.

      Access to clean drinking water is considered to be a basic human right. However, nearly 2.2 billion people of the world now lacks the basic facility of clean drinking water including 115 million people who depend on unhealthy surface water sources. This has brought great disasters and turbulence to their lives and livelihoods. According to an estimate, half of the world's total population face problems due to water crisis during some time around the year. According to a World Bank report of 2022, water related disasters have dominated the list of disasters over the past 50 years, and have accounted for nearly 70% of the total natural disaster-related deaths. According to UN-Water report-2021Trans-boundary waters account for 60% of the world’s freshwater flows, and 153 countries have territory within at least 1 of the 310 trans-boundary river and lake basins and inventoried 468 trans-boundary aquifer systems. According to the UN-Water report-2023, only 24 countries report that all their transboundary basins are covered by cooperation arrangements.

Remedy

          As a way out to these devastating consequences, we have to adopt water conservation measures at individual and collective levels so that wastage can be prevented and economic and judicious use can be promoted. Practices like rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation systems and recharging of groundwater should be adhered to save water and sustain the onward journey of our human race.  We have to remember that Water is life and life is made of water. 

 

Education Officer

Regional Science Centre

Bhopal

To read the  same article published in The Orissa Post dated 21.03.24, please click tthe following link :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VRQAPKCezBRWx5B97XVDz8ccdioo_vF6/view?usp=sharing 

Science Horizon, OBA, December Spl issue:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vFpxl0gWY-vUoV5NY9HSWNy3JqqoLsJc/view?usp=sharing

To see the photographs and events organized to celebrate World Water Day-2024 on 22nd March 2024, please click the following link:

 :https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KTml_-F2C_orFqrAJzP674tNpTqrLi7LkQ-6Y3STm3E/edit?usp=sharing