World Water Day   On  March 22, 2010 world celebrate  the 17th annual United Nations- sponsored water awareness day. Clean Water for a Healthy World is the theme for World  Water Day 2010. World water Day renewed emphasis should be put to curb unrestrained groundwater exploitation and make water conservation an issue of national priority.  These can include the usual suspects, such as rivers and lakes, as well as subterranean aquifers that so many rely on for drinking water. Although water covers more than 70 percent of the planet's surface, only about 0.3 percent of surface water is in rivers and lakes, and underground aquifers hold about only another 1.6 percent of the earth's water.    More than half of the world's population lives in river basins shared with other countries, according to the U.N., yet only 16 countries have signed the group's Convention on Non- navigational Uses of International Watercourses .

Clean Water for a Healthy World is the theme for World  Water Day 2010

The United Nations forecasts that by 2030, nearly half of the world's population will be living in areas of "high water stress". Climate change will cause droughts in some areas, and floods in others, scientists say. In Africa alone, between 75 million and 250 million people may experience increased water stress due to climate change by 2020, according to a UN report out last week. Areas of very dry land have more than doubled since the 1970s, and more intense droughts have been seen over the last 10 years.   Water scarcity will see as many as 700 million people displaced, the report warns. Rising demand for energy and meat will also exacerbate water shortages - it takes four times more water to produce a kilo of beef than a kilo of wheat. advertisement  Water Crisis  Unrestrained exploitation of groundwater, global warming and climate change, less rainfall and environmental pollution are the major causes of water crisis worldwide. As per the recent World Bank Report the water level in India has been going down consistently.   A total of 880 million people around the globe do not have access to clean water, while 2.7 billion lack proper sanitation facilities, the Red Cross said Monday, the 22nd March 2010. Climate change, rapid unplanned. urbanisation and migration are increasingly having a negative effect on the poorest communities in the world, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in Kuala Lumpur. “The time to act is now,” said Jane Edgar, the group's water, sanitation and hygiene promotion coordinator for South-East Asia. He said  “Access to clean water, sanitation and health education should not be all about luck, depending on where you were born. It is a human right that should be given to everyone, rich or poor,.”  The UN figures indicates that, with a billion plus people worldwide living in areas where water is in short supply and more than a third of the global population lacking sanitation facilities. The rate is which global water consumption is rising - more than twice as fast as the rate of population growth. Diminishing water supplies are clearly due to the contamination of water ways and underground water by untreated sewage and waste water discharge by enterprises and urban drainage system. At this rate, the World Bank estimates that three billion people will not get any safe drinking water by 2035.   Water Conservation    It is still not too late to switch alternative technology like low-flush toilets or improved pit  latrines, recycling of water, waste water treatment etc.  Water conservation must also be practiced more efficiently in the fields, using drip irrigation to ensure all the water gets to the crops. Even sewage water could be treated with soda to recycle it and irrigate crops like cotton while water from domestic uses could irrigate vegetable beds. The planner should also consider using technology to exploit the country's long coastline so that saline water could be made portable.   Rain water harvesting  Rain water harvesting is a simple technique in which the rainwater that falls on the surface or roof top is guided to borwells or pits to recharge the underground water. Groundwater recharging process  technique has immense potential and now used in diffrent parts of the country by several institutions, industries, housing complexes and government bodies.   WATER WARS    In the future it will be water wars as the scarcity of water has inflamed existing conflicts. Nearly four billion people live in countries where there is serious political tension over lakes and rivers that cross international borders. Current hotspots include India and Bangladesh; the Middle East; and China and its neighbours. According to Fred Pearce, author of the book When The Rivers Run Dry, water is one of the defining crises of the 21st century. "As more and more countries run short of water, the threat of wars over water will grow," he warns.. Recently an award-winning new film, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, gets its Scottish premiere at Strathclyde University. Its publicity material asks: "Past civilisations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?"

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