Save Our Glaciers: What You Can Do to Celebrate World Water Day 2025
Here’s why glacier preservation matters and how you can help protect them
World Water Day is an annual United Nations observance highlighting the importance of freshwater. World Water Day began in 1993 to inspire global awareness and action on water-related challenges.
This year’s theme, Glacier Preservation, highlights the need to sustainably manage glacial meltwater and reduce manmade emissions.
As glaciers melt more quickly, it becomes harder to predict water flows. This unpredictability can have serious consequences for both people and the environment.
Global reductions in carbon emissions and local strategies to adapt to shrinking glaciers will help make sure future generations have access to water.
Glaciers are Critical to Life
Our state’s drinking water comes from 3 sources:
- Groundwater, including wells and springs
- Surface water, including lakes and rivers
- Glacial snowpack, which supplies rivers, lakes and aquifers when it melts
Washington has more glaciers than any of the other lower 48 states. Glaciers are masses of ice that form from accumulated snow. They are typically thousands of years old.
As long as the amount of snow or ice that melts each year is equal to or less than the new amount of snow accumulated, the glacier will stay intact.
But glaciers in our state are melting faster than ever before. This threatens the water supply, because Washington’s glacial meltwater is essential for drinking water, agriculture, industry, clean energy production, and healthy ecosystems. The winter snowpack is important because it refills rivers and aquifers when it melts in the spring and summer.
Historically, snowmelt left the mountains via rivers in late June. Now this happens as early as the end of May. All the glaciers that make the western mountains famous are shrinking — another sign of shifting temperatures.
According to the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, Washington will continue to face:
- Decreases in snowpack
- Increases in stream temperatures
- Widespread changes in streamflow timing, flooding, and summer minimum flows
This means less snow, warmer water, and lower water levels in streams and rivers.
While our state has more water than many of our neighboring states, we also have competing demands among fish, forests, farms, and people. These conflicts will grow as changes in temperature and weather patterns affect seasonal availability of our water supplies.
A decrease in snowpack and other disruptions to the natural storage and flow of water in rivers, lakes, and aquifers put our drinking water supply — and the health of our communities — at risk.
This World Water Day, we must work together to put glacier preservation at the core of our plans to address both climate change and the global water crisis.
What You Can Do to Help
While large-scale solutions are needed, individual actions matter too. Here’s how you can make a difference with simple water conservation habits at home.
- Don’t let it run: Shut off the water when you brush your teeth or while shaving, and don’t let it run while waiting for it to get cold. Keep a pitcher of cold water in the fridge instead.
- Fix the drip: Check all faucets, fixtures, toilets, and taps for leaks. Repair drips immediately or upgrade to water-conserving models.
- Wash smarter: Try limiting yourself to 5 minutes in the shower. Challenge your family members to do the same! Running only full loads in the dishwasher and washing machine can also make a difference.
- Water wisely: Water grass and plants during the coolest parts of the day, only when they truly need it. Follow local watering restrictions during dry periods and encourage your family and neighbors to do the same.
- Check for leaks: Check your outdoor faucets, hoses, and sprinklers to make sure they aren’t leaking.
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle: Reduce the number of things you use in daily life. Reuse and fix what you can instead of throwing it away. Recycle materials like paper, plastic, cardboard, glass, and aluminum.
- Try natural alternatives: Use all-natural or nontoxic household cleaners when possible. Materials like lemon juice, baking soda, and vinegar make great cleaning products. They’re also inexpensive and environmentally friendly.
Together we can work to help make sure future generations have sustainable water resources.
Learn more
Learn more about World Water Day and glacier preservation with these resources:
- World Water Day | United Nations
- Glaciers of Washington | Glaciers of the American West
- Washington Glaciers That Have Disappeared Since 1984 List — North Cascade Glacier Climate Project
- Responding to climate change — Washington State Department of Ecology
- Climate Change Impacts in the Northwest | USDA Climate Hubs
- Shifting Snowlines and Shorelines: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere and Implications for Washington State
