World Water Day

World Water Day takes place on 22nd March every year. It is held to act on and tackle the worlds water crisis, with a target to make sure everyone on the planet has access to safe water by 2030. This year World Water Day will be celebrating their 25-year anniversary. The theme this year is ‘Nature for water?’ This explores how we can use nature to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century.

The campaign is called ‘The answer is in nature’ and raises awareness of NBS. The idea is to raise awareness of nature-based solutions to help the water-related crisis. These solutions include planting trees to replenish forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, and restoring wetlands, creating buffers of vegetation along water courses

Surprising Facts:

Water demand:

• 1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services.
• By 2050, the world’s population will have grown by an estimated 2 billion people and global water demand could be up to 30% higher than today.

Water availability:

• Today, around 1.9 billion people live in potentially severely water-scarce areas. By 2050, this could increase to around 3 billion people. Water quality:
• An estimated 1.8 billion people use an unimproved source of drinking water with no protection against contamination from human faeces.
• Globally, over 80% of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the environment without being treated or reused.

What can be done to support nature-based solutions?

Water availability and supply:

Water storage via natural wetlands, soil moisture and/or groundwater recharging can be more sustainable and cost-effective than grey infrastructure, such as dams.

Water quality:

Pollution from agriculture can be drastically reduced by NBS such as conservation agriculture, which protects soil from erosion, or riparian buffers, strips of land along water courses planted with native trees and shrubs.

We can do our bit by just following a few steps, the suggested steps are the following;

• Turn off the tap while you’re brushing your teeth
• Turn off the tap while washing up or scrubbing vegetables.
• Put rubbish, oils, chemicals and food in the bin, not down the drain. The dirtier your wastewater, the more energy and money it costs to treat it.
• Collect used water from your kitchen sink or bath and use it to water your plants
• You can also collect and use this water to wash your bike or car.

If you would like some more information on this, please visit http://worldwaterday.org/ and we can all support the fight for a everyone to have access  to a safer water supply by 2030. Let us know how you are supporting this cause by tweeting us @HighfieldREC!