World Water Day- 2024 and its Significance

March 22, 2024 was World Water Day.

In order to raise awareness and inspire to deal with the global water and sanitation crisis, according to the decision taken at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development/UNCED), every year since 1993, March 22 has been celebrated as Water Day. Here water means fresh water.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) or Agenda-2030’s Goal: 6: Water and Sanitation for all by 2030 as the focus and choosing the theme of this day.

 This year the theme of the Day 2024 is – “Leveraging Water for Peace.” Water can create peace or create conflict among the nations of the world.

Water is essential for life, yet, water is scarce around the world due to environmental or natural or human-related pollution. For centuries, lack of access to this life-giving resource has led to conflict between communities and nations.

When there is a lack of water, or it is polluted, or when people have unequal rights to water, tensions can arise between communities and countries.

More than 3 billion people in 153 countries worldwide depend on water that crosses international borders. Of these, only 24 countries have cooperative agreements on the sharing of all their water resources.

With climate change worsening and the population growing, it is crucial for countries to unite and protect water, our most valuable resource.

The water cycle is essential for public health, prosperity, food and energy systems, economic productivity, and ecological integrity.

 Key Message of World Water Day 2024

• Water has the power to either foster peace or provoke conflict. When water is scarce or polluted, or when people struggle for just rights, tensions can rise. By cooperating with all parties on access to water, we can balance everyone’s water needs and help stabilize the world.
• Prosperity and peace depend on water. Climate change, migration, and political instability are global issues. To address these challenges, countries need to work together to create fair and effective agreements on the distribution of freshwater resources. This will help the world deal with the impacts of these problems.
• Water can get us out of trouble. We can work together to solve water problems and maintain harmony among countries by establishing fair water rights and ensuring its sustainable use. We can solve this problem by acting locally and starting with the UN conference at the international level.

Some important facts about World water:

• In 2023, the World Health Organization and UNICEF reported that 2 billion people globally lack access to safe drinking water. This includes 115 million people who rely on surface water for their drinking needs.
• According to the 2022 IPCC report, almost half of the world’s population experiences severe water shortages for at least part of the year.
• Water-related disasters have been the most common type of disaster in the past 50 years, causing 70% of all deaths from natural disasters, according to a 2022 World Bank report.
• According to United Nations 2023 data, 60 percent of the world’s water flows depend on transboundary rivers. And of world’s 310 transboundary rivers, lakes and basins and 468 discovered Aquifers, 153 countries have at least 1 area that shares water with a neighboring country.

Some more information about World Fresh water :

• Collectively, women and girls around the world spend 200 million hours walking for water every day.
• Every year 443 million school days are missed due to global water scarcity.\
• 829,000 people die every year due to water-related illnesses.
• An economic return of US$6.80 is obtained for every US$1 investment for safe water.
• 50% of hospital beds in the developing world are filled by patients with waterborne diseases.
• 6 billion people in the world lack adequate sanitation.

SDG: 6 is to ensure water and sanitation for all in the world. To protect water for the world’s benefit, we must understand its importance and value.

It is impossible to live on earth without water. Humans cannot survive more than three or four days without drinking water. Up to 60% of an adult’s body is water.

Of the planets in our solar system, only Earth has water, so Earth has life. Other planets do not have water; So there is no life on other planets.

Water is essential in every aspect of human life. Without water we cannot move for a moment. Water is needed for the production, processing and transportation of our daily necessities. Water is life, life is water.

Two-thirds of our earth’s surface is water and one-third is land. But the quantity of water for human use and drinking is very limited.

From the figure above, it can be seen that 97% of the water on earth is salt water and only 3% is fresh water. Again, of this 3% freshwater, 68.7% is ice, ice sheets and glaciers, 30.1% is groundwater and only 0.3% is surface freshwater.

Again, of this 0.3% surface fresh water, 87% is in different lakes, of which only Lake Baikal contains half of this amount, 11% is in various wetlands (Swamps) and only 2% of this is in rivers, canals for the use of the world. A

So, there is very little water for human use and drinking. This water is used by all animals, including 8 billion people and about 90% of plants. We are drinking, using in daily activities, using in agriculture, industry, fisheries.

Again, like a fool, I am polluting and poisoning. It is necessary to ensure safe access to water for people of all countries; it is a human right.