By Bhavita Kukreja:
Water is essential for life. Water is a necessity for all living creatures on earth. Over the years we have seen that the level of water that can be put to use has reduced. Water available for irrigation is 3% out of which only 1% is put to use as the rest 2% is in the form of icebergs and glaciers. The level of water in the rivers and oceans has also gone down due to excess usage of water by the population of the world, and this is not replenishing in any way because the monsoon cycle has been disrupted and thus we do not have sufficient amount of rains to replenish the rivers and oceans. The need of the hour is not to debate over this but to find ways to conserve and manage water such that future generations can also make use of this water.
Water Conservation is a sound way to store water for future use. Conservation of water should start from home at first and then we should talk about using this measure on large scale.
Some steps that we can take at home are:
– Turn off the tap when not in use.
– Repair all leaks immediately.
– Use all those appliances which use minimal electricity as well as water like efficient dishwashers and washing machines.
– We should use water from air conditioners and put them to use in other domestic work like cleaning, etc.
– We should try and water plants either in the early morning hours or in the evening so that water does not get wasted because of evaporation.
– We can use water sprinkler to water our lawns and gardens which will use less amount of water and will also serve our purpose of watering the plants.
Large industries can also take up measures to conserve water. They can recycle water and reuse it for different purposes in the industry. They should use cooling towers that use less amount of water.
One measure that we can easily take up is RAIN WATER HARVESTING. It is a method of collecting, storing, conserving local surface run off water for later use. It is one of the most efficient and best ways of conserving water and making it available for future use. We need not use modern techniques to store rain water; by adopting simple measures too we can conserve water. We can simply store water falling from our roof top by either using a bucket or by digging a pit where water would fall and in this way we can even replenish ground water which can be later used for domestic purposes. With the help of rain water harvesting we can even replenish bore-wells and wells that have dried up. Not only this, we can even store rain in water tanks. Using rain water harvesting we can avoid flooding of roads and can meet the increasing demands of water; we can also reduce ground water contamination.
If each of us take up these simple steps and work on them we can certainly give our contribution in conserving water, and not just water, but environment on the whole.