Effects of Wastage of Water

Every year we wait for the monsoon season. When we get the maximum amount of rainfall. Without the rain, life will be very tough, people would be thirsty, plants and animals would die and there would be less food to eat. Nowadays through methods such as rainwater harvesting, people collect and store rainwater and use this water for later stages. This water is collected and stored in large ponds and tanks. Once this collected water is purified and cleaned we can use it for domestic purposes, that is using it at home. We must conserve water. Water is very precious, we should not waste it and use it very wisely. Water is the most precious thing on this earth, plants, animals and human beings all need water to live. Every morning we use water to brush our teeth, wash our face, and to bathe. Most importantly we need water to drink, it is advised to drink 7 to 8 glasses of water daily to stay healthy. Water is also used to wash our hands and even used in the toilets, it is also utilized in cooking food, washing clothes, utensils, and even cleaning the house. Water is also used by the fireman to put out the fire. Plants need water to live, they need to be watered every day. Animals also use water to drink and bathe, pets need to be bathed regularly.

The water cycle is all about where the rain comes from and how the clouds are formed. When the sun heats the rivers and oceans, water becomes water vapor and rises in the air this process is called Evaporation. It is the 1st step of the water cycle. You also can see water vapor at home, if we heat the water, as the water gets heated you can see the water vapor rising in the air. When you see the water vapor rising in the sky it later turns into tiny droplets of water. These water droplets along with various gases and dust particles come together to form clouds this is known as Condensation. Now hold a cold lid over the vessel in which you have heated the water, on opening the lid after some time you will be able to see the water droplets on the lid, this is what exactly condensation is. When the cloud becomes too heavy and it cannot any more water inside it bursts open to give out rain, hail, and snow this is known as Precipitation. As it rains water gets collected in oceans, lakes, and oceans, it even seeps through the soil and becomes groundwater. Thus we can say that the water cycle is a continuous process of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Do you know even the plant’s sweat is called Transpiration, that is the reason that it rains more in the places having more trees like hill stations and forests. Sometimes snow directly turns into water vapor without melting into water that is called Sublimation, Which happens a lot in cold countries.

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Freshwater Scarcity

You might have heard that we are running out of freshwater, this might sound strange as we live in a place where water flows freely from the tap or shower at any time, hence we don’t see this as a big deal. The only obvious thing about freshwater is how much we need it. As it is essential to life we need to think about it carefully. Even at this moment, there are places here where the women and girls in particular walk hours and miles per day to get the freshwater, and even then it might not be clean. Every 15 seconds a child dies due to water-borne diseases, which is very tragic. The most compelling thing to think about the freshwater, therefore, has to do with what we might call the global common good. This is not normally something that we think about, but recognizing how much freshwater matters for the flourishing of human and non-human life on earth now and in the future. Many people think freshwater shortages are due to individual wastefulness, for example running the water while we brush our teeth or taking long showers. Most of us assume therefore water shortages can be fixed by improving our habits. But the global scarcity of water neither starts nor ends there. Globally domestic use of freshwater only accounts for 8 % of consumption. Comparing that to 70 % that goes to agriculture and 22 % that goes to industrial use. We should still cultivate water virtue in our daily life, like tanning off the tap while we brush our teeth. It would be much more straightforward and easier if the virtuous individual actions could do the trick. Agricultural and industrial patterns of water usage need serious attention. Almost all the water in the world is saltwater, so we can’t drink it or grow crops with it. About 1 % of it is in the atmosphere at only 2.5 % is fresh water in liquid form. Out of that small amount of freshwater most of it is found in the ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow, the rest of the water is found in the ground. Thus we can say that only 1 % of the freshwater is easily available to the creatures, the plants, and billions of humans that live on the land. It has been estimated that we have already consumed 50 to 60 % of the freshwater. About 1 in 8 people don’t have access to safe water and it is even worse in cities where the number is 1 in 4, on top of that our population has doubled in the last 40 years. Industrialization continues to develop in response and the use of water has quadrupled. Even places that have access to clean water are at risk, due to things like industrial accidents, agricultural waste, poor water management, natural disasters, and from all the other things that people flush down the drain.

Water Scarcity       

Water is the most basic element in life and it is required by all living organisms to perform their metabolism process and to continue their lives. There are 2 types of water scarcity

1. Physical water scarcity, which is an inadequate freshwater supply to meet the demand of a region.

2. Economic water scarcity, which resulted from the poor management of existing water resources causing it to become unsuitable for drinking and other domestic purposes.

Floods will result in water scarcity, as the debris will pollute the freshwater. Due to global warming if all the glaciers are melted away it is very difficult to be restored. As the population relies on glaciers to get freshwater supply will experience water scarcity. Excessive cutting down of the trees will enable heavy rainfall to bring down the soil particles into the water bodies, hence polluting the water, thus the amount of freshwater is reduced. Agriculture and domestic activities are major contributions to the overuse of water. Groundwater has been pumped to meet the demands of freshwater, this leads to groundwater depletion thereby causing freshwater scarcity. 

Effects on Human Body

Water is very essential for life scarcity of which would cause a lot of health issues. very limited access to the freshwater,  due to this most of getting a very limited supply, thereby the freshwater intake gets reduced, which leads to a lot of health issues.   Since blood is mainly made of water, dehydration causes a drop in blood pressure. When you have low blood pressure you can start to feel wobbly. You will have a headache or brain fog, headaches are often caused by dehydration. When the pressure of the blood vessels drops, it makes it harder for the heart to pump enough oxygen to the brain which will result in a headache. You will feel fatigued lack of water can result in feeling tiredness and sleepiness, which is a warning sign too which is connected to the low blood pressure and difficulty in supplying oxygen to the brain which it requires. Irritability, a recent study at the University of Connecticut’s Human Performance Lab has suggested links between negative mood swings and a lack of hydration, the result showed that the level of hydration didn’t even have to be severe to cause a noticeable swing in the mood. Needless to say, your body will not let you feel happy if you neglect it to give the fuel it needs. Spike in blood pressure, when someone has a low level of water in their system the blood will most likely benign to thicken. As a result of this, it becomes more difficult for the blood to flow healthy through the body. With the increase in the resistance comes an increase in the blood pressure, a condition frequently linked to heart disease and stroke. High cholesterol, here is yet another counter-institute defense mechanism of hydration in which cholesterol level is raised to keep the cells from losing water, which leads to the spike in the cholesterol level. When you get constipated you need to increase the level of fluid intake. Water helps the food move through your intestine and keeps the digestive tract flexible and clean so that it can perform its functions well. 

Hunger and Malnutrition

With a lot of water getting wasted, the water which is required for agriculture is in less supply. As a result of this, the quantity of the crop that needs to be cultivated to meet the needs of the people gets affected. This results in hundreds and millions of people going to bed without having food. We can say that 1 in 9 people do not get enough food to lead healthy, productive lives. The increase in the wastage of fresh water, will intern result in low or poor crop cultivation causing an increase in the number of hungry people. Getting enough to eat is only half the story. Millions of more people are malnourished meaning they can’t access the kinds of food their body needs as part of a nutritious and well-balanced diet. A huge amount of water is required for irrigation to enhance the crop yield.      

Drought

Can you imagine living without adequate water supply, that is what happens in a drought if the water is wasted without thinking about tomorrow. Droughts are usually defined as extended periods with less than average rainfall. This will cause a water shortage on the surface in the atmosphere or the groundwater level. It truly becomes a disaster, when it begins to affect crops, lives of people, and animals. Droughts can lead to the destruction of the crops, erosion of soil leading to a severe shortage of water supply. Droughts are classified into 4 different types  these are

1. Meteorological drought, this kind of drought is specific to different regions based on the weather. Example 20 inches of rainfall in a year is normal for place A, but the same amount could be very less for place B.

2. Agricultural drought, this accounts for the water needs for the crops and agriculture. For instance, not enough water at planting may cause low yields leading to a low plant population. 

3. Hydrological drought refers to continuous low water volume in streams, rivers, and reservoirs. Human activities can version hydrological droughts. This drought is often linked with the meteorological drought.

4. Socioeconomic drought occurs when the demand for water exceeds the supply. For example, when a state requires a lot more water than it is produced from the hydroelectric station or the underground wells.