very year, on March 22, World Water Day is celebrated. This holiday started on March 22, 1993 thanks to the United Nations General Assembly. The UN has just established this day to honor this fundamental resource. In honor of this day, learn some trivia about water, one of nature’s most valuable gifts.
Curiosities about water that you probably didn’t know about
Every year, when World Water Day is celebrated, a theme is also set to be discussed. This year’s theme is: “Groundwater: make the invisible visible”. Despite its importance in maintaining ecosystem balance, groundwater remains invisible, but it is a vital natural resource that provides drinking water for nearly half the world’s population, according to the United Nations.
It’s a day to consider the impact of clean water in the world and make a difference. Especially considering that many people waste or abuse water because they tend to think only of how much it costs in monetary terms and not that it is a very valuable resource that we should not take lightly and that many people do not have access: 3 out of 10 people do not have access to water in the world. The most recent World Water Day themes were:
In the future, more and more areas of the world will suffer from a water deficit
However, here are the most interesting things about water that you probably didn’t know.
Water scarcity is increasing
By 2025, it is estimated that 1.8 billion people worldwide will live in water-scarce areas, with nearly two-thirds of the population living in water-scarce regions. By 2050, the number of drought-prone areas will increase up to five times over today.
Differences between developed and developing countries
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 19 liters of water is sufficient for the basic needs of drinking, cooking and washing hands in a developing country, but other common tasks that require large volumes of water such as bathing, washing clothes or washing dishes, are difficult to achieve with such a small amount. We must remember how valuable this resource is in countries where it is rare or where there is no access to this vital resource.
Contaminated water
An estimated 829,000 people die each year from contaminated water. However, diarrhea is largely preventable. This is responsible for the occurrence of several diseases.
The threat of flooding
We cannot forget that the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, known as the world’s water towers, causes other threats to the population and the planet, such as flash floods in the short term, while it could end the reduction of the reserve of water for hundreds of millions of people in the future.
Almost all the water on Earth is in the oceans
How is the planet’s water distributed? 96.5% of the water on Earth is found in our oceans as salt water, covering 71% of our planet’s surface. Only 3% of the planet’s water is fresh. And at any given time, about 0.001% is floating above us in the atmosphere.
Your body is full of water
Water is involved in many functions and is necessary for most body systems. The percentage of water varies between organs, with the brain and kidneys containing the most water – 65% of this water is found inside the cells and the rest circulates in the blood.
There is a lot of life in a drop of water
A single drop of ocean water can contain millions of bacteria and viruses. And they might also have fish eggs, crab fry, plankton or even small worms. Many things can happen in a single drop of water if you look carefully…
Why can’t you drink salt water?
Salt water cannot be drunk because it causes dehydration and the body ends up excreting more water than it consumes. Therefore, after drinking salt water, you would be more thirsty than before. To get rid of all the excess salt we would ingest by drinking seawater, we would have to urinate more water than we would have drunk. Human kidneys can only produce urine that is less salty than salt water.
Water defies gravity in plants
In plants, water molecules travel through a water- and dissolved-mineral-conducting tissue called xylem from the root to the rest of the plant , sticking to each other and to the walls of the tube. The xylem cells have small holes that allow liquid water to flow in, but do not allow gas bubbles to escape. In this way it moves from the areas with the highest water potential to the lowest, i.e. the leaf area.
