Water is a life giving substance! We are confident that life as we know it cannot exist without the presence of clean water. People are able to live weeks without food but merely days without water. Recent tests on the moon were designed to detect any presence of water, for eventual colonization would be impossible without it.

The earth contains plenty of water for us all. It contains 326 million trillion gallons of water, meaning we could each have our own 56 billion gallons. The average person in the world has a daily requirement of water for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs of about 13.2 gallons. Thus we have enough water down here to last each of us over 11 million years (not counting population growth)! And that doesn’t take into consideration its wonderful ability to be recycled.

Of course, this is a little misleading for not all (or even most) of this water on earth is in a useable form. 98% of the water on the planet is ocean salt water. Of the 2% of the planet’s fresh water, 1.6% is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36% is locked underground in aquifers and wells. A mere trifle, just .036% of the planet’s total water supply, is found in fresh water lakes and rivers. This is still 392 million gallons each, but that isn’t much compared with the 56 billion gallons we could have. The sobering fact is that only about 0.007% of all water on earth (and less than 1% of the world’s fresh water) is accessible for direct human use.

To exacerbate the problem, this fresh water is not evenly available to the population. The average American uses more water taking a five-minute shower than the typical person living in a slum in a developing country uses in a whole day. Nearly one billion people lack access to safe water. Those 884 million amount to approximately one in eight people. Also 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation, meaning they do not have a means to separate drinking water from waste water.

Major health issues throughout the world result from a lack of sanitary drinking water. As many as half of all people in hospital beds at any given time are there because of a water related disease. As a result, a child dies from a water-related disease every 15-20 seconds in the world, usually from diarrhea. That totals a staggering 1.4 million children each year. Children of the poor often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies continually. Think of it: 88% of the cases of diarrhea worldwide are caused by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, or insufficient hygiene.

Polluted water brings death, but also an increase in disease, crime, birth defects, and decreased ability to concentrate in school. In other words, it results in major economic decline. An investment in pure water for a people, or in desalination of the sea, is an investment with big returns. On average, every US dollar invested in water and sanitation for a third world people provides an economic return for them of eight US dollars.

Some want the western civilization to feel guilty for taking a shower or watering their lawns. This is faulty thinking. Lowering our living standard in use of water only borrows their problems. America has sufficient good, clean water because we have learned how to preserve it and where to get it. Our response to criticism should not be guilt but better stewardship and an increased willingness to share our knowledge with others. When our water systems are conserved and maintained, America will continue to set a high standard for others to follow.

By: ThelmaMTA02