Water Is Essential To Maintain Healthy Lifestyle Environmental Sciences Essay

Water is one of natures most important gifts to mankind. Essential to life, a persons survival depends on drinking water. Water is one of the most essential elements to good health — it is necessary for the digestion and absorption of food; helps maintain proper muscle tone; supplies oxygen and nutrients to the cells; rids the body of wastes; and serves as a natural air conditioning system. (Health officials emphasize the importance of drinking at least eight glasses of clean water each and every day to maintain good health).

WATER IN LIMITED SUPPLY

Global Water

There is nothing more fundamental to the human condition and global health than access to clean water and sanitation. While nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. Without

potable drinking water, it will be very difficult for people to maintain a healthy lifestyle as well as care for themselves and their family. The absence of potable water will cause challenge in the development of countries around the world as water is one of the main contributing factors.

The lack of safe drinking water is the primary cause of disease in the world today, this leads to a cycle of poverty and instability. Throughout the world, water supplies in developing countries are contaminated with a wide variety of microorganisms that cause typhoid, diarrheal diseases, amoebic dysentery, cholera, and other lethal diseases.

Due to the inadequate supply of potable water, the people without will have to go to places that have water that is fit for consumption and this in turn could cause difficulties with other areas and thus lead to clashes and disputes with each other for the water. There will also be an increase in the price of water, and people who can’t afford any will have to suffer.

What’s more, dirty water directly affects every area of development. Children cannot attend school if they are sick from dirty water, and adults suffering from water-borne illnesses overwhelm hospitals and cannot go to work. Hours spent looking for and collecting clean water mean hours not spent adding to a family’s economic well-being. Water is the lifeblood of a community. When water is unsafe to drink, the entire community suffers.  In short, the best intentioned efforts at development fail if the basic necessity of clean water is not met. Without water, crops and livestock wither and die. People go hungry and become weak. Weakness allows disease to run its course and finally the “Quiet Killer” hunger, takes its toll.

Am sorry son I am thirsty too, but there is no water for us to drink, because it is scarce and we don’t have any potable water here. Daddy has gone to see if he can get some. ok.

Ok mom, but how long will this last?

Mommy am really thirsty, can I have some water please!!!!

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Honey I am back, I have bad news. I did not get any potable water for us to drink, we will have to leave here and go somewhere else where there is potable water.

I don’t know son, but I hope it’s not long

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ACCESS TO FRESH WATER

Water is essential not only to personal health, but also to healthy economic, geopolitical, and environmental conditions around the world. Yet due to population growth, climate change, and mismanagement, the need for adequate, affordable drinking (and irrigation) water is a growing international crisis.

The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater “stress” or “scarcity”.

Its 2012 what is going to happen?

In many countries, the water problem is the primary reason people are unable to rise out of poverty. The number of people that have no access to fresh water will increase because of the population growth of some countries. This increase will lead to a rise in need for water because the more births per region is the more people that will be in need of water because the amount of water available per person is decreasing. The scarcity of fresh water will lead to a means of buying fresh water from people who have.

Access of water through rivers, streams and lakes are becoming impossible because waste is dumped there by companies and factories thus causing water pollution. The water is then unsanitary for human consumption. This pollution of waterways affects the access of fresh drinking to a lot of people because it will be difficult to get water. They will have to relocate to places where fresh water is available or adapt to their situation.

At present there are about 12,000 square kilometres of polluted fresh water in the world, and if trends are not slowed or reversed, the total will reach 18,000 sq km by 2050, nearly nine times the total amount currently used for irrigation. The Age (Melbourne)

Another factor that greatly increases the number of people with access to fresh drinking water is global warming. This is an increase in the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. This rise of temperature will decrease the levels of water in rivers and lakes through evaporation and thus make more and more difficult to access fresh water as time passes. The levels of water in seas rise drastically due to global warming and this then contaminate the waterways on land making them saline and unable to access for drinking. The impact of global warming is disrupting the flow of water and causing storms and droughts that will make it tough to gain access to fresh water for countries.

By 2050, per capita water supply is predicted to fall, leaving anywhere from 2 billion to 7 billion people with water scarcity (CBC News)