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Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a solvent). It is vital for all known forms of life, despite not providing food energy or organic . Its chemical formula, , indicates that each of its contains one oxygen and two hydrogen , connected by . The hydrogen atoms are attached to the oxygen atom at an angle of 104.45°. In liquid form, is also called "water" at standard temperature and pressure.
Because Earth's environment is relatively close to water's triple point, water exists on Earth as a solid, a liquid, and a gas. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and in the form of fog. Clouds consist of suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor.
Water covers about 71.0% of the Earth's surface, with seas and oceans making up most of the water volume (about 96.5%). Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%), and in the air as vapor, clouds (consisting of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation (0.001%). Water Vapor in the Climate System , Special Report, AGU, December 1995 (linked 4/2007). Vital Water UNEP. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and Surface runoff, usually reaching the sea.
Water plays an important role in the world economy. Approximately 70% of the freshwater used by humans Irrigation. Fishing in Saline water and fresh water bodies has been, and continues to be, a major source of food for many parts of the world, providing 6.5% of global protein. Much of the long-distance trade of commodities (such as oil, natural gas, and manufactured products) is transported by boats through seas, rivers, lakes, and canals. Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of substances, both mineral and organic; as such, it is widely used in industrial processes and in cooking and washing. Water, ice, and snow are also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, diving, ice skating, snowboarding, and skiing.
At 1 atm pressure, it reaches its maximum density of at .
Below that temperature, but above the freezing point of , it expands becoming less dense until it reaches freezing point, reaching a density in its liquid phase of .
Once it freezes and becomes ice, it expands by about 9%, with a density of . (2025). 9780534395971, Thomson Brooks/Cole. ISBN 9780534395971 (2025). 9789814338967 ISBN 9789814338967 This expansion can exert enormous pressure, bursting pipes and cracking rocks. As a solid, it displays the usual behavior of contracting and becoming more dense as it cools. These unusual thermal properties have important consequences for life on earth.
In a lake or ocean, water at sinks to the bottom, and ice forms on the surface, floating on the liquid water. This ice insulates the water below, preventing it from freezing solid. Without this protection, most aquatic organisms residing in lakes would perish during the winter. In addition, this anomalous behavior is an important part of the thermohaline circulation which distributes heat around the planet's oceans.
The melting and boiling points depend on pressure. A good approximation for the rate of change of the melting temperature with pressure is given by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation:
where and are the of the liquid and solid phases, and is the molar latent heat of melting. In most substances, the volume increases when melting occurs, so the melting temperature increases with pressure. However, because ice is less dense than water, the melting temperature decreases. In glaciers, pressure melting can occur under sufficiently thick volumes of ice, resulting in .
The Clausius-Clapeyron relation also applies to the boiling point, but with the liquid/gas transition the vapor phase has a much lower density than the liquid phase, so the boiling point increases with pressure. Water can remain in a liquid state at high temperatures in the deep ocean or underground. For example, temperatures exceed in Old Faithful, a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. In hydrothermal vents, the temperature can exceed .
At sea level, the boiling point of water is . As atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude, the boiling point decreases by 1 °C every 274 meters. High-altitude cooking takes longer than sea-level cooking. For example, at , cooking time must be increased by a fourth to achieve the desired result. Conversely, a pressure cooker can be used to decrease cooking times by raising the boiling temperature. In a vacuum, water will boil at room temperature.
The water/vapor phase curve terminates at and . This is known as the critical point. At higher temperatures and pressures the liquid and vapor phases form a continuous phase called a supercritical fluid. It can be gradually compressed or expanded between gas-like and liquid-like densities; its properties (which are quite different from those of ambient water) are sensitive to density. For example, for suitable pressures and temperatures it can miscibility with nonpolar compounds, including most . This makes it useful in a variety of applications including high-temperature electrochemistry and as an ecologically benign solvent or catalysis in chemical reactions involving organic compounds. In Earth's mantle, it acts as a solvent during mineral formation, dissolution and deposition.
The details of the chemical nature of liquid water are not well understood; some theories suggest that its unusual behavior is due to the existence of two liquid states.
In nature, the color may also be modified from blue to green due to the presence of suspended solids or algae.
In industry, near-infrared spectroscopy is used with aqueous solutions as the greater intensity of the lower overtones of water means that glass with short path-length may be employed. To observe the fundamental stretching absorption spectrum of water or of an aqueous solution in the region around 3,500 cm (2.85 μm) (1997). 9780471163947, Wiley. ISBN 9780471163947 a path length of about 25 μm is needed. Also, the cuvette must be both transparent around 3500 cm and insoluble in water; calcium fluoride is one material that is in common use for the cuvette windows with aqueous solutions.
The Raman-active fundamental vibrations may be observed with, for example, a 1 cm sample cell.
, algae, and other Photosynthesis organisms can live in water up to hundreds of meters deep, because sunlight can reach them. Practically no sunlight reaches the parts of the oceans below of depth.
The refractive index of liquid water (1.333 at ) is much higher than that of air (1.0), similar to those of and ethanol, but lower than those of glycerol (1.473), benzene (1.501), carbon disulfide (1.627), and common types of glass (1.4 to 1.6). The refraction index of ice (1.31) is lower than that of liquid water.
Other substances have a tetrahedral molecular structure, for example methane () and hydrogen sulfide (). However, oxygen is more electronegative than most other elements, so the oxygen atom has a negative partial charge while the hydrogen atoms are partially positively charged. Along with the bent structure, this gives the molecule an electrical dipole moment and it is classified as a polar molecule.
Water is a good polar solvent, dissolving many salts and hydrophilic organic molecules such as sugars and simple alcohols such as ethanol. Water also dissolves many gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide—the latter giving the fizz of carbonation beverages, and beers. In addition, many substances in living organisms, such as , DNA and , are dissolved in water. The interactions between water and the subunits of these biomacromolecules shape protein folding, Base pairing, and other phenomena crucial to life (hydrophobic effect).
Many organic substances (such as lipids and alkanes) are hydrophobic, that is, insoluble in water. Many inorganic substances are insoluble too, including most metal , , and .
These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces. The capillary action refers to the tendency of water to move up a narrow tube against the force of gravity. This property is relied upon by all , such as trees.
Liquid water can be split into the Chemical element hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electric current through it—a process called electrolysis. The decomposition requires more energy input than the heat released by the inverse process (285.8 kJ/mol, or 15.9 MJ/kg).
The viscosity of water is about 10 Pa·second or 0.01 poise at , and the speed of sound in liquid water ranges between depending on temperature. Sound travels long distances in water with little attenuation, especially at low frequencies (roughly 0.03 decibel/km for 1 khertz), a property that is exploited by cetaceans and humans for communication and environment sensing (sonar).UK National Physical Laboratory, Calculation of absorption of sound in seawater . Online site, last accessed on 28 September 2016.
The collective mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet is called the hydrosphere. Earth's approximate water volume (the total water supply of the world) is .
Liquid water is found in bodies of water, such as an ocean, sea, lake, river, stream, canal, pond, or puddle. The majority of water on Earth is seawater. Water is also present in the atmosphere in solid, liquid, and vapor states. It also exists as groundwater in .
Water is important in many geological processes. Groundwater is present in most rocks, and the pressure of this groundwater affects patterns of faulting. Water in the mantle is responsible for the melt that produces at . On the surface of the Earth, water is important in both chemical and physical weathering processes. Water, and to a lesser but still significant extent, ice, are also responsible for a large amount of sediment transport that occurs on the surface of the earth. Deposition of transported sediment forms many types of , which make up the geologic record of Earth history.
Water moves perpetually through each of these regions in the water cycle consisting of the following transfer processes:
Water runoff often collects over Drainage basin flowing into rivers. Through erosion, runoff shapes the environment creating river and river delta which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centers. A flood occurs when an area of land, usually low-lying, is covered with water which occurs when a river overflows its banks or a storm surge happens. On the other hand, drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. This occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation either due to its topography or due to its location in terms of latitude.
are the cyclic rising and falling of local sea levels caused by the of the Moon and the Sun acting on the oceans. Tides cause changes in the depth of the marine and estuary water bodies and produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams. The changing tide produced at a given location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth coupled with the Coriolis effect and the local bathymetry. The strip of seashore that is submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide, the intertidal zone, is an important ecological product of ocean tides.
Water is fundamental to both photosynthesis and respiration. Photosynthetic cells use the sun's energy to split off water's hydrogen from oxygen. In the presence of sunlight, hydrogen is combined with (absorbed from air or water) to form glucose and release oxygen. All living cells use such fuels and oxidize the hydrogen and carbon to capture the sun's energy and reform water and in the process (cellular respiration).
Water is also central to acid-base neutrality and enzyme function. An acid, a hydrogen ion (, that is, a proton) donor, can be neutralized by a base, a proton acceptor such as a hydroxide ion () to form water. Water is considered to be neutral, with a pH (the negative log of the hydrogen ion concentration) of 7 in an ideal state. Acids have pH values less than 7 while bases have values greater than 7.
Aquatic vertebrates must obtain oxygen to survive, and they do so in various ways. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. , such as dolphins, whales, , and pinniped need to surface periodically to breathe air. Some amphibians are able to absorb oxygen through their skin. Invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters including breathing tubes (see insect and mollusc siphons) and gills ( Carcinus). However, as invertebrate life evolved in an aquatic habitat most have little or no specialization for respiration in water.
Water that is not fit for drinking but is not harmful to humans when used for swimming or bathing is called by various names other than potable or drinking water, and is sometimes called safe water, or "safe for bathing". Chlorine is a skin and mucous membrane irritant that is used to make water safe for bathing or drinking. Its use is highly technical and is usually monitored by government regulations (typically 1 part per million (ppm) for drinking water, and 1–2 ppm of chlorine not yet reacted with impurities for bathing water). Water for bathing may be maintained in satisfactory microbiological condition using chemical disinfectants such as chlorine or ozone or by the use of ultraviolet light.
Reclaimed water is the process of converting wastewater (most commonly sewage, also called municipal wastewater) into water that can be for other purposes. There are 2.3 billion people who reside in nations with water scarcities, which means that each individual receives less than of water annually. of municipal wastewater are produced globally each year.
Freshwater is a renewable resource, recirculated by the natural hydrologic cycle, but pressures over access to it result from the naturally uneven distribution in space and time, growing economic demands by agriculture and industry, and rising populations. Currently, nearly a billion people around the world lack access to safe, affordable water. In 2000, the United Nations established the Millennium Development Goals for water to halve by 2015 the proportion of people worldwide without access to safe water and sanitation. Progress toward that goal was uneven, and in 2015 the UN committed to the Sustainable Development Goals of achieving universal access to safe and affordable water and sanitation by 2030. Poor water quality and bad sanitation are deadly; some five million deaths a year are caused by water-related diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that safe water could prevent 1.4 million child deaths from diarrhea each year.
In developing countries, 90% of all Sewage still goes untreated into local rivers and streams. Some 50 countries, with roughly a third of the world's population, also suffer from medium or high water scarcity and 17 of these extract more water annually than is recharged through their natural water cycles. (2025). 9781402001048, Springer. ISBN 9781402001048 The strain not only affects surface freshwater bodies like rivers and lakes, but it also degrades groundwater resources.
Access to fresh water is often taken for granted, especially in developed countries that have built sophisticated water systems for collecting, purifying, and delivering water, and removing wastewater. But growing economic, demographic, and climatic pressures are increasing concerns about water issues, leading to increasing competition for fixed water resources, giving rise to the concept of peak water. As populations and economies continue to grow, consumption of water-thirsty meat expands, and new demands rise for biofuels or new water-intensive industries, new water challenges are likely.United Nations Press Release POP/952 (13 March 2007). "World population will increase by 2.5 billion by 2050".
An assessment of water management in agriculture was conducted in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka to see if the world had sufficient water to provide food for its growing population., Molden, D. (Ed). Water for food, Water for life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Earthscan/IWMI, 2007. It assessed the current availability of water for agriculture on a global scale and mapped out locations suffering from water scarcity. It found that a fifth of the world's people, more than 1.2 billion, live in areas of physical water scarcity, where there is not enough water to meet all demands. A further 1.6 billion people live in areas experiencing economic water scarcity, where the lack of investment in water or insufficient human capacity make it impossible for authorities to satisfy the demand for water. The report found that it would be possible to produce the food required in the future, but that continuation of today's food production and environmental trends would lead to crises in many parts of the world. To avoid a global water crisis, farmers will have to strive to increase productivity to meet growing demands for food, while industries and cities find ways to use water more efficiently.Chartres, C. and Varma, S. (2010) Out of water. From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World's Water Problems. FT Press (US).
Water scarcity is also caused by production of water intensive products. For example, cotton: 1 kg of cotton—equivalent of a pair of jeans—requires water to produce. While cotton accounts for 2.4% of world water use, the water is consumed in regions that are already at a risk of water shortage. Significant environmental damage has been caused: for example, the diversion of water by the former Soviet Union from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to produce cotton was largely responsible for the disappearance of the Aral Sea.
The Kelvin temperature scale of the SI system was based on the triple point of water, defined as exactly , but as of May 2019 is based on the Boltzmann constant instead. The scale is an absolute temperature scale with the same increment as the Celsius temperature scale, which was originally defined according to the boiling point (set to ) and melting point (set to ) of water.
Natural water consists mainly of the isotopes hydrogen-1 and oxygen-16, but there is also a small quantity of heavier isotopes oxygen-18, oxygen-17, and hydrogen-2 (deuterium). The percentage of the heavier isotopes is very small, but it still affects the properties of water. Water from rivers and lakes tends to contain less heavy isotopes than seawater. Therefore, standard water is defined in the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water specification.
Healthy kidneys can excrete 0.8 to 1 liter of water per hour, but stress such as exercise can reduce this amount. People can drink far more water than necessary while exercising, putting them at risk of water intoxication (hyperhydration), which can be fatal. The popular claim that "a person should consume eight glasses of water per day" seems to have no real basis in science. Studies have shown that extra water intake, especially up to at mealtime, was associated with weight loss. Adequate fluid intake is helpful in preventing constipation. "Water, Constipation, Dehydration, and Other Fluids". . Science Daily. Retrieved on 28 September 2015.
An original recommendation for water intake in 1945 by the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S. National Research Council read: "An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 milliliter for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods." The latest dietary reference intake report by the U.S. National Research Council in general recommended, based on the median total water intake from US survey data (including food sources): for men and of water total for women, noting that water contained in food provided approximately 19% of total water intake in the survey.
Specifically, pregnant and breastfeeding women need additional fluids to stay hydrated. The US Institute of Medicine recommends that, on average, men consume and women ; pregnant women should increase intake to and breastfeeding women should get 3 liters (12 cups), since an especially large amount of fluid is lost during nursing. Also noted is that normally, about 20% of water intake comes from food, while the rest comes from drinking water and beverages (Caffeine included). Water is excreted from the body in multiple forms; through urine and feces, through , and by exhalation of water vapor in the breath. With physical exertion and heat exposure, water loss will increase and daily fluid needs may increase as well.
Humans require water with few impurities. Common impurities include metal salts and oxides, including copper, iron, calcium and lead, Conquering Chemistry (4th ed.), 2008 and harmful bacteria, such as Vibrio. Some solutes are acceptable and even desirable for taste enhancement and to provide needed .
The single largest (by volume) freshwater resource suitable for drinking is Lake Baikal in Siberia.
In the nuclear power industry, water can also be used as a neutron moderator. In most , water is both a coolant and a moderator. This provides something of a passive safety measure, as removing the water from the reactor also void coefficient. However other methods are favored for stopping a reaction and it is preferred to keep the nuclear core covered with water so as to ensure adequate cooling.
Use of water in fire fighting should also take into account the hazards of a steam explosion, which may occur when water is used on very hot fires in confined spaces, and of a hydrogen explosion, when substances which react with water, such as certain metals or hot carbon such as coal, charcoal, or coke graphite, decompose the water, producing water gas.
The power of such explosions was seen in the Chernobyl disaster, although the water involved in this case did not come from fire-fighting but from the reactor's own water cooling system. A steam explosion occurred when the extreme overheating of the core caused water to flash into steam. A hydrogen explosion may have occurred as a result of a reaction between steam and hot zirconium.
Some metallic oxides, most notably those of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals, produce so much heat in reaction with water that a fire hazard can develop. The alkaline earth oxide Calcium oxide, also known as calcium oxide, is a mass-produced substance that is often transported in paper bags. If these are soaked through, they may ignite as their contents react with water.
Drinking water is often collected at springs, extracted from artificial borings (wells) in the ground, or pumped from lakes and rivers. Building more wells in adequate places is thus a possible way to produce more water, assuming the aquifers can supply an adequate flow. Other water sources include rainwater collection. Water may require purification for human consumption. This may involve the removal of undissolved substances, dissolved substances and harmful . Popular methods are filtering with sand which only removes undissolved material, while chlorination and boiling kill harmful microbes. Distillation does all three functions. More advanced techniques exist, such as reverse osmosis. Desalination of abundant seawater is a more expensive solution used in coastal arid .
The distribution of drinking water is done through municipal water systems, tanker delivery or as bottled water. Governments in many countries have programs to distribute water to the needy at no charge.
Reducing usage by using drinking (potable) water only for human consumption is another option. In some cities such as Hong Kong, seawater is extensively used for flushing toilets citywide to conserve freshwater resources.
Water pollution may be the biggest single misuse of water; to the extent that a pollutant limits other uses of the water, it becomes a waste of the resource, regardless of benefits to the polluter. Like other types of pollution, this does not enter standard accounting of market costs, being conceived as externality for which the market cannot account. Thus other people pay the price of water pollution, while the private firms' profits are not redistributed to the local population, victims of this pollution. Pharmaceuticals consumed by humans often end up in the waterways and can have detrimental effects on marine biology life if they bioaccumulation and if they are not biodegradable.
Municipal and industrial wastewater are typically treated at wastewater treatment plants. Mitigation of polluted surface runoff is addressed through a variety of prevention and treatment techniques.
Water is used in power generation. Hydroelectricity is electricity obtained from hydropower. Hydroelectric power comes from water driving a water turbine connected to a generator. Hydroelectricity is a low-cost, non-polluting, renewable energy source. The energy is supplied by the motion of water. Typically a dam is constructed on a river, creating an artificial lake behind it. Water flowing out of the lake is forced through turbines that turn generators.
Pressurized water is used in Hydrodemolition and water jet cutters. High pressure water guns are used for precise cutting. It works very well, is relatively safe, and is not harmful to the environment. It is also used in the cooling of machinery to prevent overheating, or prevent saw blades from overheating.
Water is also used in many industrial processes and machines, such as the steam turbine and heat exchanger, in addition to its use as a chemical solvent. Discharge of untreated water from industrial uses is water pollution. Pollution includes discharged solutes (chemical pollution) and discharged coolant water (thermal pollution). Industry requires pure water for many applications and uses a variety of purification techniques both in water supply and discharge.
Solutes such as salts and sugars found in water affect the physical properties of water. The boiling and freezing points of water are affected by solutes, as well as air pressure, which is in turn affected by altitude. Water boils at lower temperatures with the lower air pressure that occurs at higher elevations. One mole of sucrose (sugar) per kilogram of water raises the boiling point of water by , and one mole of salt per kg raises the boiling point by ; similarly, increasing the number of dissolved particles lowers water's freezing point.
Solutes in water also affect water activity that affects many chemical reactions and the growth of microbes in food. Water activity can be described as a ratio of the vapor pressure of water in a solution to the vapor pressure of pure water. Solutes in water lower water activity—this is important to know because most bacterial growth ceases at low levels of water activity. Not only does microbial growth affect the safety of food, but also the preservation and shelf life of food.
Water hardness is also a critical factor in food processing and may be altered or treated by using a chemical ion exchange system. It can dramatically affect the quality of a product, as well as playing a role in sanitation. Water hardness is classified based on concentration of calcium carbonate the water contains. Water is classified as soft if it contains less than 100 mg/L (UK) or less than 60 mg/L (US).
According to a report published by the Water Footprint organization in 2010, a single kilogram of beef requires of water; however, the authors also make clear that this is a global average and circumstantial factors determine the amount of water used in beef production.
([https://web.archive.org/web/20160715053715/http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.23/DiscoverofWater.html archive link])
On 22 July 2011, a report described the discovery of a gigantic cloud of water vapor containing "140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined" around a quasar located 12 billion light years from Earth. According to the researchers, the "discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence".
Water has been detected in interstellar clouds within the Milky Way. Water probably exists in abundance in other galaxies, too, because its components, hydrogen, and oxygen, are among the most abundant elements in the universe. Based on models of the formation and evolution of the Solar System and that of other star systems, most other are likely to have similar ingredients.
And is also likely present on:
Earth's gravity allows it to hold an atmosphere. Water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provide a temperature buffer (greenhouse effect) which helps maintain a relatively steady surface temperature. If Earth were smaller, a thinner atmosphere would allow temperature extremes, thus preventing the accumulation of water except in polar ice caps (as on Mars).
The surface temperature of Earth has been relatively constant through geologic time despite varying levels of incoming solar radiation (insolation), indicating that a dynamic process governs Earth's temperature via a combination of greenhouse gases and surface or atmospheric albedo. This proposal is known as the Gaia hypothesis.
The state of water on a planet depends on ambient pressure, which is determined by the planet's gravity. If a planet is sufficiently massive, the water on it may be solid even at high temperatures, because of the high pressure caused by gravity, as it was observed on exoplanets Gliese 436 b and GJ 1214 b.
Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.
1.6 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990. "The Millennium Development Goals Report". , United Nations, 2008 The proportion of people in developing countries with WASH is calculated to have improved from 30% in 1970 to 71% in 1990, 79% in 2000, and 84% in 2004.
A 2006 United Nations report stated that "there is enough water for everyone", but that access to it is hampered by mismanagement and corruption.UNESCO, (2006), "Water, a shared responsibility. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2". In addition, global initiatives to improve the efficiency of aid delivery, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, have not been taken up by water sector donors as effectively as they have in education and health, potentially leaving multiple donors working on overlapping projects and recipient governments without empowerment to act.Welle, Katharina; Evans, Barbara; Tucker, Josephine; and Nicol, Alan (2008). "Is water lagging behind on Aid Effectiveness?"
The authors of the 2007 Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture cited poor governance as one reason for some forms of water scarcity. Water governance is the set of formal and informal processes through which decisions related to water management are made. Good water governance is primarily about knowing what processes work best in a particular physical and socioeconomic context. Mistakes have sometimes been made by trying to apply 'blueprints' that work in the developed world to developing world locations and contexts. The Mekong river is one example; a review by the International Water Management Institute of policies in six countries that rely on the Mekong river for water found that thorough and transparent cost-benefit analyses and environmental impact assessments were rarely undertaken. They also discovered that Cambodia's draft water law was much more complex than it needed to be.
In 2004, the UK charity WaterAid reported that a child dies every 15 seconds from easily preventable water-related diseases, which are often tied to a lack of adequate sanitation.
Since 2003, the UN World Water Development Report, produced by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme, has provided decision-makers with tools for developing sustainable Water politics. The 2023 report states that two billion people (26% of the population) do not have access to drinking water and 3.6 billion (46%) lack access to safely managed sanitation. People in urban areas (2.4 billion) will face water scarcity by 2050. Water scarcity has been described as endemic, due to overconsumption and pollution. The report states that 10% of the world's population lives in countries with high or critical water stress. Yet over the past 40 years, water consumption has increased by around 1% per year, and is expected to grow at the same rate until 2050. Since 2000, flooding in the tropics has quadrupled, while flooding in northern mid-latitudes has increased by a factor of 2.5. The cost of these floods between 2000 and 2019 was 100,000 deaths and $650 million.
Organizations concerned with water protection include the International Water Association (IWA), WaterAid, Water 1st, and the American Water Resources Association. The International Water Management Institute undertakes projects with the aim of using effective water management to reduce poverty. Water related conventions are United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Ramsar Convention. World Day for Water takes place on 22 March and World Oceans Day on 8 June.
In Christianity, holy water is water that has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects, or as a means of repelling evil. Chambers's encyclopædia, Lippincott & Co (1870). p. 394.Altman, Nathaniel (2002) Sacred water: the spiritual source of life. pp. 130–133. .
In Zoroastrianism, water ( aban) is respected as the source of life.
The theory of the Humorism associated water with phlegm, as being cold and moist. The classical element of water was also one of the five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy (along with earth, fire, wood, and metal).
Some traditional and popular Asian philosophy take water as a role-model. James Legge's 1891 translation of the Dao De Jing states, "The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving (to the contrary), the low place which all men dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao" and "There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it—for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed." Guanzi in the "Shui di" 水地 chapter further elaborates on the symbolism of water, proclaiming that "man is water" and attributing natural qualities of the people of different Chinese regions to the character of local water resources. "Guanzi : Shui Di". Chinese Text Project. . Retrieved on 28 September 2015.
Painter and activist Fredericka Foster curated The Value of Water, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, which anchored a year-long initiative by the Cathedral on our dependence on water. The largest exhibition to ever appear at the Cathedral, it featured over forty artists, including Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Mark Rothko, William Kentridge, April Gornik, Kiki Smith, Pat Steir, Alice Dalton Brown, Teresita Fernandez and Bill Viola. Foster created Think About Water, an ecological collective of artists who use water as their subject or medium. Members include Basia Irland, Aviva Rahmani, Betsy Damon, Diane Burko, Leila Daw, Stacy Levy, Charlotte Coté, Meridel Rubenstein, and Anna Macleod.
To mark the 10th anniversary of access to water and sanitation being declared a human right by the UN, the charity WaterAid commissioned ten visual artists to show the impact of clean water on people's lives.
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