Why water matters so much

ENVIRONMENT

By GELINDE NAREKINE
WE cannot deny the fact that water is essential for everyday living. Whether it be in rural village setting, or in townships and major cities, clean and safe water is of paramount importance.
And without supply of reliable water, we are on the disadvantaged receiving end, and in a situation of total hopelessness. In simple terms, water does matter and therefore, we have to be conscious of its importance and its vulnerability to change due to human activities.
From a biological standpoint, water has many distinct properties that are critical for the proliferation of life. It carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allow propagation of new life. All known forms of life depend on water. Water is vital both as a solvent in which many of the body’s solutes dissolve and as an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body that are the basis of energy for life processes and the synthesis of cellular material. Without water, these particular metabolic processes basically could never exist nor occur.
Water, being an integral part of life, plays a very critical role in sustaining livelihood on planet Earth. Thus, fresh water is the lifeblood of our planet, and freshwater ecosystems connect people with the resources they need to thrive. Freshwater ecosystems connect headwaters with oceans, land with water, and people with the resources they need to thrive.
Central to biosphere
Water is central to the functioning and resilience of the biosphere. Its availability and variability strongly influences the diversity and distribution of biomes and habitats that harbor the wealth of plant and animal life on Earth. Water of specific quantity and quality is required to preserve the state and stability of ecosystems and build their resilience to localised disturbance and to global change. It mediates the persistence of ecosystem types, their composition and function, and facilitates the migration of species and habitats as key environmental conditions such as temperature, rainfall, and soil moisture change.
Fresh water is vital to human life and wellbeing. Along with food and shelter, it forms our most basic need. So vital, in fact, that access to drinking water is commonly considered a fundamental right for all humanity.
Healthy, functioning freshwater ecosystems provide reliable and quality water flows upon which these basic human needs depend. Energy, food, and health, which are all indispensable to human development, rely on the water services provided by natural ecosystems.
Freshwater ecosystems, such as wetlands and rivers, also provide crucial regulating services, such as water purification, flood mitigation and the treatment of human and industrial wastes. Now, more than ever, we must incorporate the value of water-related environmental services in our water management decisions. Eradicating poverty and hunger among the billions living in deprivation today and those in the future will depend fundamentally on water security, for both people and ecosystems.
Demand outstrips supply
Demand for fresh water is outstripping supply. Many water systems around the world are currently overburdened with human activities in the name of industrialisation and development. Some are already very close to running dry. According to one estimate, by 2030 our need for water will be 40 per cent greater than our reliable water supplies, with a billion of the world population already facing water scarcity.
Freshwater plays a fundamental role in support of the environment, society and the economy. Ecosystems such as wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes are indispensable for life on our planet. Freshwater ecosystems are also vital for directly ensuring a range of benefits and services such as drinking water and recreation, water for agriculture and energy, habitats for aquatic life forms, and natural solutions for water purification and climate resilience, among many other uses.
As we speak, the planet’s freshwater ecosystems are already in crisis. Research found that populations of monitored freshwater species have fallen by 84 per cent and nearly one third of wetland ecosystems have been lost since 1970 due to human activities that degrade habitats and decrease water quality.
But despite their vital contributions to humans and biodiversity, freshwater ecosystems receive only a small percentage of the funding and political support committed to nature conservation.
Ponds and lakes, streams and rivers, wetlands and estuaries and the plants and animals that live within them make up freshwater biomes. Human activities are significantly impacting and endangering freshwater biomes, which comprise one-fifth of the earth’s surface. Freshwater biomes are declining worldwide.
Causes of depletion and pollution
When rivers, lakes and wetlands are degraded, their ability to provide reliable supplies of clean water, and to support the species on which millions of people depend, is threatened. Agriculture, industrial processes, untreated waste and degraded lands are leading causes of pollution in freshwater systems. Poor water quality threatens freshwater species, affects fisheries all the way to coasts, increases water treatment costs and poses risks to human health.
Thus, eighty per cent of wastewater goes untreated, and therefore, affects freshwater ecosystem and life. According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Index 2016, freshwater species declined by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012.
Around the world, climate change is already affecting freshwater systems, as droughts and floods occur with greater frequency and intensity. With the degradation of ecosystems, the species that live in them are less resilient to these climate impacts, and communities that depend on the services provided by healthy freshwater ecosystems are becoming increasingly vulnerable.
In several regions of the planet, direct human impacts on the water cycle are of the same order of magnitude or even exceed the impacts expected for moderate levels of climate change.
Freshwater species and ecosystems are disproportionately threatened by human activities due to both the magnitude of disturbance and their exceptional richness as a habitat for plants and animals. Over 10,000 fish species live in fresh water, approximately 45 percent of global fish diversity. In the past 20 years, freshwater fish populations have declined by over 20 percent. Humans have destroyed habitat for freshwater plants and animals and polluted watersheds. Together, freshwater endemic fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals constitute as much as one third of all vertebrate species on Earth.
Extinction looms
Yet surface freshwater habitats contain only around 0.01 per cent of the world’s water and cover only about 0.8 per cent of Earth’s surface. Of some 25,000 freshwater plant and animal species assessed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List (a critical indicator of health of the world’s biodiversity), almost one third are threatened with extinction, over two hundred are already extinct, and their rate of loss is higher than either marine or terrestrial species.
Sound freshwater ecosystem management is central to human wellbeing. Water resilience is a prerequisite for human development, helping to protect and maintain the resilient ecosystems that people rely on for our most basic needs and for the success of our economies and society. Freshwater ecosystems also directly support terrestrial ecosystems, such as mountains and forests, large marine ecosystems and coastal zones. As such, they are essential for sustainable development and human wellbeing.
Acknowledgement of the pivotal role of freshwater in sustainable development was central to the creation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 – “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all,” would be a very important and critical undertaking.
To function properly and to remain healthy, freshwater ecosystems require the effective management of both quantity and quality of water resources. Yet these conditions are increasingly under threat. In addition to the growing demand that freshwater supplies face for human purposes, the effects of climate change are also exacerbating changes to the hydrological cycle, manifesting themselves in more frequent and severe extreme events and disasters such as drought and floods. This in turn undermines the ability of freshwater ecosystems to contribute to both climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Management of water resources must change
Water’s central role in the biosphere has long implied that several of the most important challenges confronting human development are related to fresh water. This has been true for decades and will only intensify without a change in the course of human water use. For too long, conventional approaches to water planning have focused narrowly on economic productivity, largely ignoring the costs of overdrawing water from ecosystems or disrupting natural flow regimes with hard infrastructure. If we are serious about meeting human development objectives for the coming century, the way we plan and manage water resources must change.
The quality of water, whether used for drinking, domestic purposes, food production, or recreational purposes, has important bearing on health. Water of poor quality can cause disease outbreaks and can contribute to background rates of disease manifesting themselves on different time scales. Initiatives to manage the safety of water do not only support public health, but often promote socioeconomic development and wellbeing as well.
If water really does matter, then what we as humans could do to tackle global water pollution and contamination? Conditions to answering such question may include, a conscious and collective partnership effort in advancing integrated water resources management, monitoring water quality, mainstreaming freshwater ecosystem health, addressing water-related conflict and disasters, supporting the Sustainable Development Goals, and improving and assessing world water quality.
As much as we need water, water also needs us, and our consciousness and care, now more than ever.
Sources of information:
Boltz, F, et al. 2015, Healthy freshwater ecosystems: an imperative for human development and resilience, viewed on Feb 7, 2022, http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org; Harrison, K, Ginsberg, J 2022, Freshwater ecosystem, Conservation International, viewed on Feb 7, 2022, http://www.conservation.org; United Nations Environment Program 2022, Mainstreaming freshwater ecosystem health, viewed on Feb 7, 2022, http://www.unep.org; World Health Organisation 2016, Water quality and health strategy 2013-2020, viewed on May 20, 2016, http://www.who.int

• Gelinde Narekine is a technical officer in the discipline of Medical Laboratory Science, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPNG.