IS WATER INFINITE?

World Water Day, which is celebrated on the 22nd of March each year, was yesterday commemorated. The celebration was under the theme:  

Nature for Water: thus exploring nature based solutions to the water challenges in the 21st century

While reading news, I came across a rather enlightening interview with Dr. Donaltus Agnorien (a research fellow at the Centre for Coastal Management of the University of Cape Coast). According to him, Ghana may be importing water soon if stringent measures are not put in place to certain human activities. He was particularly concerned about illegal mining, illegal sand winning, open defecation and the disposal of waste into water bodies.

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After hearing this, it occurred to me, is water finite? could the world one day run out of water? how much water do we have actually?

Did you know that about 71% of the earth's surface is covered with water? Unfortunately, this is not as much as it sounds, comparing the size of the planet to the amount of water on it. 

In the picture below, all earth's water is condensed into a couple drops relative to the size of the planet. You would notice that we don't have as much water as we would like to think.

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Another important fact I will like to point out is that about 96.5% of earth's water is held by the Oceans and Seas. Do you realize what this means? That is just a way of reminding us that a chunk of our water is saline water (salty water). This kind of water can not usually be used for drinking or in the performance of our domestic activities. 

So the next time you pour waste into a river/lake, just remember that we have less than 4% of those, and that includes both both ground and surface water. Contrary to popular conception, we do not have an unlimited reserve of water. If we continue to indulge in activities that leads to the destruction of our water bodies, then it's just a mater of time before the world finds itself in a water crises.

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According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2017, 

844 million people don't have access to clean water.

 31% of schools don’t have clean water. 

 Diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor toilets kills a child under 5 every 2 minutes.  

 Every minute a newborn dies from infection caused by lack of safe water and an unclean environment. 

 If everyone, everywhere had clean water, the number of diarrhoeal deaths would be cut by a third.    

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In conclusion, we are water and can not live without it. In fact, up to 60% of an adult human body is made up of water. You and I may not be directly involved in water wastage and depletion, but we are surely involved. The bucket of water you just poured away, the tap you left unlocked, the broken water pipe you have watched for the past one week, and so on and so forth. In our own individual ways, can preserve water and contribute to the fight against water wastage. 

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BY @osmansnr from #steemitghana.

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