How will you celebrate World Water Day?
World Water Day is held annually on the 22nd of March to focus attention on the importance of fresh water, raise awareness of the 2 billion people living without access to safe water and sanitation and advocate the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
In 2015, the world pledged to take action to tackle the global water crisis, in support of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: the promise that everyone will have safe water and sanitation by 2030. Currently, the world is failing to meet this deadline, which is why it is now more crucial than ever to raise awareness and act together.
What are the statistics around clean water and sanitation?
Clean drinking water is not only fundamental but vital for sanitation and hygiene.
It is estimated that more than 1.4 million people die every year from diseases related to poor water, sanitation, and hygiene and a shocking 700 children under the age of seven die every day from illnesses linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognised the right to water and sanitation as a human right. However, there are still at least 2.1 billion people around the world who live without safe water in their homes. These include rural communities, people who have been displaced due to war and local conflicts and areas where climate change is making water more and more scarce.
Access to water has become increasingly difficult for many people due to increased demand for such a finite resource.
According to figures released by the UN, around 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. That is half of the world’s population. It is estimated that by 2030 as many as 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity.
What can we do to help?
Governments must now work four times faster to meet SDG 6 on time, but this is not a situation that governments can solve on their own. Water affects everyone, so everyone needs to act by changing the way we use, consume, and manage water.
Start off by learning about the water cycle:
Understanding the water cycle is integral to understanding the importance of having access to safe and clean water, which is why the University of Leeds has developed a short online course called ‘Planet Earth: Understanding and Protecting our Environment’.
In this course, you’ll start by looking at the water cycle and the ways in which human activity and climate change affect it. Get to grips with the basics of the water cycle before delving deeper into the causes and effects of water scarcity on communities across the world.
Delve deeper into the challenges around natural resources and water scarcity:
‘Environmental Challenges’ a 5-course series, hosted on the popular online learning platform, FutureLearn highlights some of the issues around water scarcity and natural resource management. The courses can be taken in any order and are free to access for the first two weeks.
- Environmental Challenges: Scarcity and Conflict in the Natural Environment will make you aware of the contrasting concepts of ‘water wars’ and ‘water peace’ over access to and management of water resources. The course will help you to understand how appropriately negotiated property rights and institutional arrangements are important for water peace.
- Environmental Challenges: Hierarchy in Property Rights will help you to learn how to recognise different types of property rights and how they affect access to, and withdrawal of, natural resources.
- Environmental Challenges: Justice in Natural Resource Management will help you to explore three aspects of justice and how they can be applied to environmental issues surrounding natural resource management around the world.
Learn about water demands and global challenges:
Take your knowledge a step further and discover how chemical engineers can help to solve some of these global challenges and find sustainable solutions to problems such as the freshwater crisis with a new online course.
In ‘Chemical Engineering, Shaping a Sustainable Future’, you will learn how chemical engineers develop new technologies for the treatment of salt water to help tackle drinking water demands in times of drought.
Play your part. Do what you can.
World Water Day is about the difference you can make to help solve the water and sanitation crisis. Gain a better understanding of how water affects us all by taking one or more of our short online courses on FutureLearn today.
- Find out more about ‘Planet Earth: Understanding and Protecting our Environment’.
- Find out more about the ‘Environmental Challenges’ collection.
- Find out more about ‘Chemical Engineering, Shaping a Sustainable Future’.
