On this World Water Day I want to share some of my water photos. This group of gardeners has been visiting Minneapolis area gardens on a hot summer day. It was bliss to sit in the shade and enjoy the lake breeze and serenity.
We can’t all have a lake in our garden, but we can arrange to have fountains like this patio fountain in Minneapolis.
This might have been my favorite Minneapolis water fountain – located at the end of a very formal vegetable garden and set on a slightly raised rocky platform
This waterfall was carefully ‘tuned’ with each step of the fall placed at a particular height to make a certain burbling sound.
A Greenfield gardener knew just what to do with this old millstone – she made it a fountain.
An important element in the serenity of a Japanese garden is the water.
All of these pretty photos are of recreational or ornamental water in gardens, and yet the water we most value is the water that comes out of our kitchen taps. We are fortunate in the U.S. to have good clean drinking water, but even here we know there have been contaminated water supplies or pipes. We must be vigilant. How will you mark World Water Day?
Today is World Water Day which teaches us that 1.5 billion people around the world do not have clean uncontaminated water to drink.
World Water Day, on 22 March every year, is about taking action on water issues. In 2017, the theme is wastewater and the campaign, ‘Why waste water?’, is about reducing and reusing wastewater. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.3 requires us by 2030 to “improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.” Progress towards target 6.3 will also help achieve the SDGs on health and well-being (SDG 3), safe water and sanitation (SDG 6), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), life below water (SDG 14), and life on land among others.
TOP LINE MESSAGES • Globally, over 80% of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused.
1.8 billion people use a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces2 , putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene cause around 842,000 deaths each year.
663 million people still lack improved drinking water sources.
By 2050, close to 70% of the world’s population will live in cities, compared to 50% today
Currently, most cities in developing countries do not have adequate infrastructure and resources to address wastewater management in an efficient and sustainable way
The opportunities from exploiting wastewater as a resource are enormous. Safely managed wastewater is an affordable and sustainable source of water, energy, nutrients and other recoverable materials.
The costs of wastewater management are greatly outweighed by the benefits to human health, economic development and environmental sustainability – providing new business opportunities and creating more ‘green’ jobs.
WASTEWATER AND THE WATER CYCLE
Water has to be carefully managed during every part of the water cycle: from fresh water abstraction, pre-treatment, distribution, use, collection and post-treatment, to the use of treated wastewater and its ultimate return to the environment, ready to be abstracted to start the cycle again.
Due to population growth, accelerated urbanisation and economic development, the quantity of wastewater generated and its overall pollution load are increasing globally. However, wastewater management is being seriously neglected, and wastewater is grossly undervalued as a potentially affordable and sustainable source of water, energy, nutrients and other recoverable materials. It therefore needs to be seen as a resource, rather than a burden to be disposed of. There are many treatment processes and operational systems that will allow us to use wastewater to meet the growing water demand in growing cities, support sustainable agriculture, and enhance energy production and industrial development.
For further reading logon to World Water Day and go to the Make Waves button on the home page.
So nice to ‘meet’ another Massachusetts garden blogger! I love water features, though I don’t have one due to the effort, other than a bird bath for the birds. The fountain made out of a millstone is beautiful! I love how water attracts the wildlife. We do have wetlands around and a detention pond out back, so we get usually get salamanders and good sized frogs visiting (other than during last year’s drought, anyway.) Water management is so important, and it is sad how there is still so much lack of clean water in a very large part of the world. We are very fortunate with our clean water here.
I read somewhere that 25% of our clean water here in the western world is used to flush our toilets. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Great post!