Water is the essential building block of life. It is plays a key role than just to quench thirst or protect health. Water is vital for supporting economic, social and human development. Hence, there is little left to wonder that an entire day is dedicated to water. World Water Day is celebrated every year on March 22 across the world. It was first officially added at United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. The theme for 2018 is ‘Nature-based Solutions for Water’.

Why is it celebrated

This campaign is specially promoted by one of the UN agencies every year which involves encouraging the people to listen and understand about water issues as well as co-ordinating with the international activities for the World Water Day. Since the beginning, the UN-Water has been responsible for the selection of World Water Day theme, distribution of global messages as well as leading the UN agencies for celebrating the World Water Day. Various NGOs also become involved in the promotion of clean water conservation focusing the public attention over all the critical issues of water. The water issues are highlighted to the public such as how people are inaccessible to the safe water and more.

Theme

This year the theme is ‘Nature-based Solutions for Water’. To simplify, the theme explores on how we can use nature to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century. Growing forests, creating rivers and fields rich with soil and restoring other natural elements of environments that are damaged can assist in purifying water. A statement from the UN reads that damaged ecosystems affect the quantity and quality of water available for human consumption. Environmental damage, together with climate change is driving the water-related crises we see around the world. When we neglect our ecosystems, we make it harder to provide everyone with the water we need to survive and thrive.

Significance

Today around 2.1 billion people live without safe drinking water at home, affecting their health, education and livelihoods. Millions of people around the word live without a safe water supply close to home. They spend countless hours queuing or trekking to distant sources and coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water. Sustainable Development Goal 6 commits the world to ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. It also includes targets to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase water recycling and safe reuse.

According to UN reports, over 80% of the wastewater generated by society globally flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. 91% of all plastic water bottles and bottles carrying other liquids are not recycled. These statistics are astonishing enough for us to take a pledge and to take suitable action to use water resourcefully to celebrate World Water Day.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 21, 2018 07:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).