Why Is Water Conservation Important?

Freshwater is one of the most essential natural resources on our planet. It's imperative to take an integrated, sustainable approach, consider the world's water cycle, and think about the usage and conservation of freshwater. By asking why water conservation is important, we will begin to uncover the damaging effects of some of our habits and daily-use items.

Freshwater accounts for only 3% of our surface water³. And most of the fresh water on our planet is not available for use since it is locked away in various forms of storage. Such forms include ice, glaciers, and groundwater.

Usable water is already a scarce resource in many parts of the world, becoming an increasing concern. As our compilation of water pollution facts illustrates, its availability is likely one of the critical issues that humanity will face moving forward.

Those designing sustainable systems must consider how people can conserve and utilize freshwater effectively. They also need to come up with how to manage the land to maintain the integrity of the water cycle. Examples include channeling water to where it is required and ways to reclaim polluted water.

We must always bear our precious freshwater resource in our minds when designing effective systems conserving water rather than wasting it.

The Problem: Freshwater Shortage and Misuse

Many parts of our planet are already facing a freshwater crisis, and humanity causes most of these problems. We make dryland areas even drier through deforestation and poor land management.

Towns and cities surrounded by polluting industry and agriculture face water pollution on an unprecedented scale. The problem has already created an absolute shortage of fresh water for human consumption for many urban residents.

The lands allocated to agriculture, especially for growing food, are not always suitable due to a lack of freshwater sources. So we squander clean water by perpetuating non-sustainable farming systems. Planting strategies rarely take the conservation or effective management of freshwater into account.

Likewise, industrial processes use copious amounts of freshwater without consideration for how to reduce it or with any recycling or purification plans before releasing it back to the environment.

We often share the blame for the world's freshwater crisis as individuals and households. We splash tap water around, often using it without thought – running unnecessary appliances and wastewater on lawns and car washes.

Most people spare little thought for the freshwater cycle on the planet and readily take available clean water supply for granted. For ideas and tips, you can take action to save water; check out our tips to reduce water waste at home.

The good news is that our planet's perpetuating cycles mean there will always be enough freshwater to meet our needs. However, this will only happen if we encourage saving water and end the cycle of abuse and misuse. We also need to start storing and using water sustainably and treating it as a limited resource.

What Water Conservation Really Means

When we think about water conservation, we often focus on household use. We might think of water conservation measures such as turning off taps while brushing or shaving and being careful about how often we shower or wash our clothes.

Individual actions all add up. Simply reducing your time in the shower from 8 minutes to 3 can save around 25 gallons of water - and shorter showers require less hot water heating, which will also reduce your energy bills. Skipping water-based garbage disposal use can save the tap from running for long periods.

However, real water conservation means moving beyond how we define the concept in the home.

Every item we buy–from the food we eat to the clothes on our backs comes with a water cost. We need to consider this and consider how we can conserve freshwater resources when making genuinely sustainable decisions in our daily lives.

Considering a holistic approach to water conservation

Take cotton clothing, for example. Besides carrying other costs for our environment, this material also has a high water supply cost. A report from Scientific American reveals that the global average water footprint for just 1kg of cotton is 10,000 liters – as much as you might drink in almost 14 years!

One 1kg of cotton only makes around two T-shirts. The big question is, "should we be choosing two T-shirts over 14 years of fresh drinking water?"

Questions like this have helped give birth and exposure to the sustainable fashion movement.

Further, when it comes to that t-shirt, ask yourself if you really need a new one? Or perhaps cast your eye over our list of online thrift stores and pick up your next clothing essential second-hand.

Sustainable improvements in cotton growing are making a difference in water usage in the United States. Irrigated farms use less freshwater in places like India, where inefficient water use and high rates of water pollution mean a high water footprint. However, standard cotton production still wastes vast amounts of water each year.

Besides thinking about what we buy, we also need to consider the management of the earth's water supply in the context of the broader ecosystems around us. Only when we look at land management can we begin to see how we can conserve water on a global scale. And why taking this step is so important.

Why We Need To Plant Trees for Water Conservation

Understanding the world's water cycle is crucial to determining how to manage water on a macro and micro scale. How quickly water cycles depends on where it finds storage.

The oceans contain 97% of the total water (fresh and salt) on the planet⁴, and the turnover rate (to cycle completely) is 37,000 years. It is important to understand how the cycle perpetuates, both long-term and short-term if we are to effectively manage the period to sustain our lifestyle on earth.

While growing up, we learned that water from the oceans evaporates, condenses as clouds, falls as rain, and then repeats the cycle. Most people don't understand the crucial role trees play in the water cycle. Forests are essential to maintaining the water cycle, ensuring natural precipitation, and storing water after it falls as rain.

The Oceans and the Trees

The simple cycle described above mainly holds for the ocean. 100% of the rain that falls is water that comes from the ocean. Of the approximately 117,600 km3 of water that falls to the terrestrial surface as precipitation each year, less than a half, 45,800 km3 (39%), comes from the ocean. While the majority derives from the land² (71,800 km3, or 61%),

Transpiration, which is the release of water through the pores of trees and other plants, accounts for up to half or even more of all moisture returned to the air. And water vapor is the most dominant greenhouse gas on our planet.

Deforestation can significantly reduce rainfall in an area. It affects the formation of Eckman spirals and the air currents that increase precipitation. It also reduces the amount of cloud cover formed due to transpiration and evaporation.

Besides, it reduces the airborne organic particles, forming the nuclei for condensation and allowing rain to develop. Clearing our forests is detrimental to the conservation of water. It will definitely disrupt the water supply cycles.

For Water Conservation, We Need to Care for The Soil

The soil is also vital to the water cycle. Soils contain many times the water of ponds, pools, or streams. However, poor agricultural land management means our activities threaten much of the world's topsoil.

Barren areas used for crops, especially in dryland areas, often undergo degradation to the extent that they require urgent remediation work to absorb, store, and cycle water as they should.

Practices such as planting trees, adding trace elements and organic matter through mulching and organic feeds, non-destructive agricultural methods of well-managed natural yields, sparse grazing, and conservation farming can increase the ability of the soils to hold and infiltrate water by up to 70-85%¹.

Degraded land, when left bare, is prone to water run-off. This can destroy topsoil ecosystems and, in extreme cases, lead to a complete loss of the valuable growing medium.

By effectively managing water flow, sustainable land management systems can prevent and reverse land degradation and protect the world's soils while conserving fresh water simultaneously. All efforts toward conserving water will gain little momentum if we do not care for our soils.

Conclusion

It is essential to conserve water. By following sustainability ethics, principles, and practices, we can safeguard our planet's water cycle and preserve this most valuable natural resource for humanity for the future.

To make sure we are part of the solution rather than part of the problem, we need to:

• Ensure we use less indoor water supply in our homes and gardens
• Minimize high water wastage from leaky faucets and irrigation systems (keep an eye on your water meter to spot patterns that might indicate new leaks).
• Think about the water and carbon footprint of everything we buy and use.
• Work to conserve and restore the ecosystems to ensure that the world's water cycles can continue functioning as they should. We need to ensure that we don't support unsustainable and harmful degradation through our daily individual choices.

Only by taking these steps can we ensure humanity's continued survival on this planet. The effort required must join up individual action, water company responsibility, and across wider stakeholder groups using water to produce the goods we've come to take for granted. And make sure that all its precious natural resources are still intact for the benefit of future generations and all other life forms.