Water Is Life - In praise of water! 💧🚰
I saw this really very thoughtful piece of graffiti on the A628 recently and it inspired me to write a post about the best and most important thing that ever was (after the Sun). Also, the forecasted weather at the moment is just rain, for days on end. So, this post is about... water. H2O. Wasser. L'eau. Agua. Council pop. A cheap night in. You know, that life giving liquid that exists everywhere on this earth and even on Mars. I'd like to thank the person who decided to graffiti this bridge! They aren't wrong, water really is life.
So, as I am a water engineer and appreciator, I thought i'd pass on some fun FACTS about these silver threads of life. Here goes:
1. There is about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers(!) of water on the planet. Can you even fathom that? If you took all that water and put it in a sphere and compared it with earth, this would be the result:
Image source
Less than you would have thought right?
2. Of this mind numbing total of 13.1 billion km3 of water only 2.5-3% is fresh water. Of this meager amount of 3% almost 1% of that is on the surface (easily accessible), 30% is in the ground and the rest (68%) is held in glaciers and the polar ice caps. Which we can't get hold of. That's a small percentage for all the plants, animals and 7.7 billion people on this planet. So, is it a scare resource? Well it sounds like it, and with climate change perhaps it is even more so and unfortunately people tend to mostly live where the least amount of safe fresh water naturally occurs.
3. Water causes conflict - Water doesn't have borders, or boundaries. Those are the limitations that humans have themselves developed. Conflict over access to water has existed forever in the human and animal kingdom, but with the burgeoning population of the planet that means there is less water for more and more mouths.
What's more there is the politics of water. Call it, 'hydro-politics'. People are pretty good at sharing, but politicians not so much. The unfriendly neighbors of India and Pakistan for example share the waters of the Indus, but they don't want to. Unfortunately Pakistan a further downstream and water tends to get dammed for agriculture, drinking water and hydro-electric power and this can lead to tension as those downstream get less. There is a really famous example of this on the River Nile too.
4. Water is unequal across the planet - Look at all of the water at the north and south pole and in higher latitudes, like Canada. In Canada you have vast quantities of water, but a small population. Then look towards the warmer mid latitudes and then the tropics. Depending on the geography there may well be plenty of water around, but in many places there is not and it might not be fit for human consumption. Water can be scarce for peoples daily needs and that of farming, industry and leisure. It is this inequality of water that can lead to conflict and probably will in the yeas to come.
5. Water changes the landscape - From an post earlier in the year, I explored how the Mississippi (probably one of the greatest rivers in the world) has changed the landscape over millennia in a series of beautifully produced US Army Corps of Engineers (they are geologists, not really the Army) maps. Water, in the form of rivers over long periods of time scour out the landscape and change it continuously. Can you see the way the Mississippi has changed course so many times in the image below?
Source + larger version
6. We are drinking the same water that the dinosaurs did! - Well, I've heard this a lot and I am sure it's true! YES IT IS TRUE.
7. Water has a footprint - Well, in terms of the amount of water require to make/build/grow things. This is called the Water Footprint.
“The water footprint is a multidimensional indicator, showing water consumption volumes by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution; all components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and temporally.” (Hoekstra et al., 2011)
The info graphic tells you everything you need to know. It is important to realise that everything we consume uses a variable amount of water. Some things don't require much, but beef, for example required around 4650 litres of water just for one steak. Now compound that with the methane emissions from cows, the potential slash and burn of the rain forest to rear and the carbon emmissions to get that steak to your plate.
8. Water is inspirational - I recently came across a VERY eccentric song by a band called Henge, In Praise of Water.
Pretty freaky eh, but catchy.
And to finish with a famous quote from Samuel Coleridge, a 19th century Poet:-
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink - Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
All that water there is surrounding the desperate mariner, but none to drink, what hell!
You may think that water isn't a scare resource, but remember to respect it you must!
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This is a great post man, I didn’t realise you worked in water! Love how you structured and explored the facts.
The water is life image from the bridge is brilliant. I’ve always wondered how ‘they’ actually wrote it on there..
Cheers Ash! Yeah, I'm a water engineer by profession, though now I work more in dams/groundwater. I wondered that too, I assume they had some kit to hang over the edge... Scary stuff. I believe this particular piece of graffiti had something to do with hydraulic fracturing in the NW.