Solving water issue is essential for our future survival

As you all know, water is essential for the survival of all living species in our planet. You could even say that the water is the life itself. However, our use of water is constantly increasing because we need water not only for drinking, but also for transport, agriculture, electricity and recreation.

The oceans are vast and cover great deal of our planet's surface but we cannot drink this water. In fact, only 3% of all water in our planet is freshwater, suitable for drinking.  

Glaciers are the largest reservoirs of freshwater on our planet but global warming is melting them rapidly. This is a major reason for concern because world is yet do so something about the ongoing climate change, meaning that many glaciers will likely continue their melting, further shrinking our already scarce water reserves.

The human population is constantly growing meaning that our demand for water will only grow bigger with time, and we'll have to find the way(s) to preserve enough water for our future generations.

In the last 100 years human population has tripled and global water consumption has increased sixfold. If we continue this path our thirsty planet will soon become even thirstier, and this thirst will lead to new wars and millions if not billions of human deaths.

The sustainable use of water resources is one of the main challenges for our civilization, a one on which the future of human race will depend.  UN reports that that by 2025, more than 60%  of the world's population will live in areas with inadequate water supply.

We must make right choices to overcome this challenge and ensure there is enough water for all people on this planet.  More than one billion people on this planet lack access to clean, safe drinking water.  It has been estimated that around 75% deaths in developing countries are the result of different water-related diseases.

The first thing our society needs to do is to look at water as the most precious resource on this planet. Without this we might as well forget about the sustainable water use concept.

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Interesting facts about water

1. Water is the most precious resource on our planet.

2. One molecule of water has a chemical formula of H2O, which means it contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms.

3. Almost 71% of Earth's surface is covered with water (70,9%).

3. The largest amount of water on our planet is found in oceans with 96.5% while the 3,5% refers to groundwater and glaciers.

4. Despite the fact that our planet is rich with water only 2.5% of the Earth's water is freshwater.

5. Approximately one billion people in the world still lack access to safe drinking water.

6. Water shortages will become much bigger issue in years to come because human population continues to grow rapidly.

7. Climate change could also contribute to future water shortages.

8. Water is present in all three common states of matter in our planet.

9. Water is always in liquid state at standard temperature and pressure.

10. Water is tasteless and odorless.

11. Pure water is transparent.

12. Water is not excellent but good solvent.

13. Water is frequently referred to as universal solvent.

14. Pure water has low electrical conductivity.

15. Water has the maximum density at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F).

16. The scientists say that the largest amount of water in our universe occurred as a byproduct of star formations.

17. Water belongs to the weirdest substances on our planet, showing more than 80 unusual properties.

18. Some scientists say that water when chilled below the freezing point, can even shift into a new type of liquid.

19. Water can flow even at extremely low temperatures if the pressure is high. Ove Andersson, a physicist at Umeå University, has been able to produce sluggishly flowing water at 130 degree below zero under very high pressure - 10,000 times higher than normal pressure.

20. The scientists believe that water is very frequent substance in other galaxies, if not for anything else than because hydrogen and oxygen belong to the most abundant elements that can be found in space.

21. The scientists estimate that the largest reservoirs of water on our planet, the oceans, were formed more than 4.6 billion years ago.

22. The scientists still don't know the answer why there is a lot more water on the Earth than on the other planets of the Solar System.

23. Water plays key role in in many different geological processes, especially groundwater.

24. Water plays key role in photosynthesis.

25. Sea water freezes at lower temperatures than freshwater.

26. Water is an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body of all living organisms.

27. The earliest life forms on our planet appeared in water.

28. Water pollution is one of the major environmental issues of the modern world.

29. Each human body contains from 55% to 78% water, depending on the body size.

30. Sustainable water policy on global level is the only thing that can help avoid future global water crisis.

31. It is estimated that about 20% of water intake comes from food with the rest coming from drinking the water and different other beverages.

32. The UN statement from 2006 said that "there is enough water for everyone but access to it has been hampered by mismanagement and corruption."

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The role of forests in global water supply

The role of forests as one of the most important water suppliers is often being overlooked. When countries create water resource policies they don't usually include forests forgetting their role in supplying a significant amount of moisture that creates rain.

If we look at things from more global perspective then this means that by reducing and destroying forest area we are also reducing regional and continental rainfall.

Not all scientists look equally at the role forests play in global water supply – some scientists primarily see trees as water consumers and other see trees as water suppliers.

In order to determine whether trees are actually water consumers or water suppliers we first need to choose a perspective which will be used to look at the role of forests in global water supply. If we choose to look at things from our local perspective then trees are really water consumers but when looking at things from global perspective we must look at forests as the ones that supply the atmosphere with moisture that will eventually become rainfall.

Deforestation and land conversion are taking a heavy toll in many corners of the world. The scientists at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) believe that if the loss of forests continues, there is a significant risk that both rainfall and water supply will decrease in many places across the globe.

Forests are vital for our future wellbeing. Not only they play major role in global water supply but are also sinking huge amount of carbon from the atmosphere which helps reduce the climate change impact.

The sustainable use of world's forests is one of the key issues that world will have to find solution for. The survival of forests means also our very own survival.

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Is there enough water to increase global food production?

The world population is constantly growing, particularly in the developing world. It is expected that the world population will grow to 9.5 billion people in the year 2050, up from seven billion today. Will there be enough food for all of them?

The world is already being forced to increase food production and this trend will become even stronger in years to come. But is there enough water to not only increase future food production but also to quench the thirst of rapidly growing urban centers?

In order to answer this question the international team of scientists studied the 10 river basins: the Andes and São Francisco in South America; the Limpopo, Niger, Nile and Volta basins in Africa; and the Ganges, Indus, Karkheh, Mekong, and Yellow in Asia.

This was the most comprehensive study up to date and it took scientists for over 5 years to conclude that these most significant water basins have enough water to ensure increased food production in years to come.

What this means is that the water scarcity cannot be used as an excuse to justify the fact that there are still around one billion hungry people in the world. The political role of water management will be a crucial factor in enabling the adequate food production in years to come.

According to scientists the world is still letting huge volumes of rainwater go to waste, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The scientists believe that even with the minor agricultural improvements Africa could easily double or even triple its current food production.

In fact Africa has the biggest potential to increase food production but even in rice-hungry Asia there could be much more food as in the Indus and Ganges basins 23 percent of rice systems are producing about half of what they could with sustainable water management.

With more political will and adequate water management millions of people around the world would be able to improve their living standards and there wouldn't be so many poor and hungry people.

Dr. Simon Cook, of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) believes that „with a major push to intensify rainfed agriculture, we could feed the world without increasing the strain on river basins systems."

Water is the most precious resource on our planet and the efficient water management is a key thing in ensuring humanity's future wellbeing. The global politics needs to become aware of this before it is too late.

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How to solve global water shortage issue?

There are already around 3 billion people in the world struggling to keep up with the demand for the fresh water. This number is expected to double in the next 20 years and there has been several different possible solutions for this issue such as conservation and reuse but one of the most interesting solutions definitely looks to be desalination.

Why desalination? Well, lets just say that our oceans cover around 70% of our planet and therefore represent the virtually inexhaustible source of water. So why not use water desalination then and fix the water shortage problem?

The main problem with desalination is that the process of removing salt from the seawater is extremely energy intensive and therefore highly expensive. There have been many different scientific studies which tried to make desalination process commercially viable but none of it has so far managed in achieving this.

The currently dominating process of desalination is the so called reversal osmosis in which seawater is forced through a membrane that filters out the salt. The scientists have done several studies in which they tried to increases the membrane's water flux, and the latest researches which used carbon nanotubes have proved to be the most promising of them all.

One of the most interesting recent studies comes from the University of Notre Dame. According to this study it is pointless to try to increase the membrane's water flux because the current technology is already starting to approach its efficiency limit and science should instead focus on possible gains in efficiency during the pre- and post-treatment stages of desalination.

The desalination will likely play enormous role in future because this will likely remain the only available method to satisfy world's demand for water, particularly if world population continues to grow rapidly in years to come as expected.

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What is the origin of water on our planet?

Water is the most precious resource on our planet, a key ingredient together with air for development of all life on Earth, in fact even our bodies are mostly water so when you think about it you have to ask yourself a question what is the origin of all this immense amount water in our planet, and how were our oceans formed.

If we go way back in the past, around 4.5 billion years ago, we could see the Earth was bequeathed with sufficient water for oceans to form and for life to find favorable areas in the seas and on the continents that resulted from plate tectonics. But how did water arrive on our planet and filled this gigantic oceans?

The most accepted theory suggests that oceans were formed from vapors emitted during intense volcanism that happened at the time when our planet appeared in endless space. According to this theory both the ocean as well as the atmosphere were formed from volcanic gases that originated in Earth's interior. According to this theory water was key part of Earth's initial inventory, but not all scientists believe in this theory. There are some scientists like Francis Albarède of the Laboratoire des Sciences de la Terre that believe how water in fact came much later on our planet from the turbulence caused in the outer Solar System by giant planets. According to his theory the ice-covered asteroids thus reached the Earth one hundred million years after the birth of the planets.

The water on our planet could even have extraterrestrial origin.

This would of course mean that the origin of water on our planet is extraterrestrial,and could have arrived on our planet much later than dominant theories believe it had. The main thesis of his theory is that during the formation of the Solar System, the temperature between the Sun and the orbit of Jupiter never dropped enough for volatile elements to be able to condense with planetary material. The arrival of water on Earth therefore has to correspond to a later episode in Earth's history.

The water on our planet could have its origin in a space phenomenon that happened some tens of millions of years after the lunar impact, namely the big clean up of the outer Solar System initiated by many giant planets. These planets had very strong gravity, and so were able to sent the final ice-rich planetary bodies in all directions, including the direction of our planet.

These ice-rich planetary bodies then penetrated into the mantle through the surface and so the plate tectonics began creating continents surrounded by vast oceans. This theory would even explained why there is no life on Mars because Mars probably Mars dried out before water managed to penetrate in depth.

In any case this theory is rather interesting, and what ever caused water to flow on our planet enabled something to our planet that no other planet in Solar system has, it enabled Earth to harbor life.

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