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WORLD WATER DAY 2012

ARTICLE VIA: SAYEN WEBSITE (www.sayen.org/WWD.html)

“If the wars of this century were fought for oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.” Ismail Serageldin, Vice President, World Bank, 1995

Water is a precious gift from Nature and is the most valued commodity for man. It is the most important aspect of life and no one can ever think about surviving without this precious gift. However, a major concern is the alarming rise in the population. The world population has already crossed the 7 billion mark and with ever rising population the demand for water and food has raised concerns on their availability. Food security is understood in terms that all individuals have access to safe and nutritious food and thereby lead a healthy life. Water is an essential component of food that we consume as it plays an important role right from crop cultivation to production and consumption. However, with recent changes in our lifestyle natural resources including water has beenexcessively over- used which has undermined the food security. When more than a million children are dying just because of hunger, we cannot pretend that the problem is elsewhere.

QUICK FACTS

South Asia has one fourth of world’s population but contains 4.5% of world’s annual renewable water resources.

Rice an ancient crop is consumed as the staple food in many countries of South Asia However, 1500 liters of water is used for 1kg of rice!

95% of water withdrawn is consumed by agricultural sector in South Asia.

South Asia is to the tea world what South America is to coffee. Do you know that one cup of tea consumes 35 liters of water?

Nearly 70% of water in Ganges is fed from glaciers in Nepal.

Mawsynram, a small village in Assam, North East India gets the highest rainfall in the world.

As per Municipal Corporation on an average a person in Ahmedabad city, Gujarat in India uses 173litres of water per day.

With recent developments being made so fast, much water has been wasted that has resulted in rise of food inflation. The time has come when we all are bound to think as what we are going to leave for our future generation. Let us all stand united to make clean water as the universal human right and to do so let’s adopt the measures required conserving water resources.

So if you have done any phenomenal work like raising awareness campaigns, doing interviews on TV, radio, projects in relation to water like water audits, written articles etc do let us know. We will be happy to share it with others. We sincerely hope that you will be an inspiration to many other young people. You can also participate in online quiz which will be conducted on 22nd March and the winners are offered to visit camp sites. So be the first one to visit the camp.

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