Water, water everywhere ...
World Water Day – March 22

S Balakrishnan *

A child Lama quenching his thirst

It is said that future wars could be fought for water; for fresh water. Already, within our own country, there is squabbling over Cauvery river water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Across our border, China is playing games with Brahmaputra river water.

We are all familiar of the lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner "Water, water, everywhere, Nor any (Not a) drop to drink" which is invariably quoted in all references to fresh water.

Should I be an exception?

Thirukkural, the Tamil couplets, written some 2000 years ago emphasizes the importance of rain water thus – Neer (water) indri (without) amayaathu (not function) ulagu (world) – meaning ‘Without water the world will not function’. How true!

Therefore, United Nations Organisation has been observing World Water Day on 22 March every year since 1993 to focus on the importance of freshwater. World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis.

A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. In 2024, the theme will be Leveraging Water for Peace.

Yes, because water from being a tool for peace when communities and countries cooperate over this precious shared resource, can also spark and intensify conflict when access is denied and usage unfairly shared. World Water Day 2024 is about working together to balance everyone’s needs, with a dedication to ensure no one is left behind, to make water a catalyst for a more peaceful world.

The Central Government’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims that every rural household has drinking water supply in adequate quantity of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis at affordable service delivery charges, leading to improvement in living standards of rural communities. The programme plans to provide household tap connections and source sustainability measures by 2024 in rural areas.

World over, civilizations have thrived along rivers. In Indian culture we revere rivers as goddesses and worship them, and side by side pollute them also. The legend of King Bagheeratha’s severe penance to bring down river Ganges is remembered to this day by the phrase “Bagheeratha prayathan” (effort).

Similar is the religious legend of Lord Ganesh taking the form of a crow to release river Cauvery that had been arrested within the ‘kamandal’ of Saint Agasthyar. These two efforts helped human race thrive in the Bharath desh of the yore.

It is believed that a human can live without water for a maximum of three days, but with only water and no food one can survive even up to 2-3 months. Let us all strive to judiciously use the very limited fresh water resources. Because, even though our Earth is referred to as "the water planet, the Blue Planet," more than 99 percent of Earth's water is unusable by humans and many other living things.

Yes, in photographs taken from space, we can see that our planet has more water than land. But only less than three percent of Earth's water is fresh water,as the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water.

Again, even most of that three percent is inaccessible. More than 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Thus, only very meager percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps for ready use. Fresh water is indeed liquid gold that every drop counts. …