Adelmo Fernandes
Today is “World Water Day”. World Water Day is held annually on March 22 as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources as also about taking action to tackle the water crisis. It is understood that an international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating March 22, 1993 as the first World Water Day. According to the UN today there are over 663 million people living without safe water supply close to home, spending countless hours queuing or walking to distant sources, and coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water.
Water Day is also used to highlight the needed for improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in developing countries. This year’s theme: “Why waste water?” is on improving water quality and treating and reusing wastewater. Incidentally globally, the vast majority of all the wastewater from our homes, cities, industry and agriculture flows back to nature without being treated or reused thereby polluting drinking and bathing and irrigation water and losing valuable nutrients and other recoverable materials. Reducing and safely treating and re-using waste water, for example in agriculture and aquaculture, protects worker, farmers and consumers promotes food security, health and wellbeing. Someone rightly said “There is no such thing as waste water; only water wasted”. Waste water is perceived as a valuable resource and one of the aims of the World Water Day is to halve the proportion of untreated waste water thereby increasing water recycle and safe reuse.
In Goa we may not have facilities to retreat waste water on a large scale but as individuals we can contribute in preserving this precious commodity by making sensible use of water and avoiding wastage. There are several places where the use of water needs to be minimized. One such activity where a lot of water is being used is in washing of cars and other vehicles. This can be avoided by cleaning the vehicles with a dry cloth or by using minimal of water. At the service centers water from a bore-well should be used for washing the vehicles. Many a times we leave the tap open while brushing our teeth. This leads to a lot of water going down the drain, quite literally. The unscientific disposal of garbage has led to pollution of water bodies and the ground water. The water that now flows from several of the springs in the state is now polluted. People do not think twice about throwing the garbage they produce into water bodies like rivers, lakes and ponds. This make the water in the water bodies extremely polluted which also destroy’s the marine life. It is observed that a broken or a leaking water-pipe is left unattended to by the authorities for several hours. This leads to a lot of water being lost. We need to do our best to save every drop of water.
