The Importance of Freshwater and Why We Should Protect It

Water is one of nature's most important gifts to mankind. it is essential to life and a person's survival depends on drinking freshwater. Water is vital to good health since it helps digest and absorb food and also helps maintain proper muscle tone, supplies sufficient oxygen and nutrients to the cells, get rid of body wastes, and serves as a natural air conditioning system. An average person should drink at least eight glasses of clean water every singe day to be in good health. If a person drank saltwater, they would eventually die because the cells in their body will dehydrate when they try to get rid of the excess salt from the water. Freshwater contains less than 0.2% of dissolved salts.

Although water is highly essential, there isn't adequate amounts of it. Despite the fact that 70% of the world is covered with water, more than 97% of it is unsafe water leaving about 3% of it to be fresh, clean water. Out of this amount, 70% of the freshwater is frozen in polar icecaps or glaciers. Therefore, all human and other life depend on less than 1% of the total amount of water on this planet! This water can be found on the surface of lakes, rivers, and even underground.

Even though there is an extremely low amount of freshwater, it is thought to be enough to meet human needs, if it is distributed evenly around the world. Unfortunately, freshwater isn't distributed evenly around the globe with regard to either location or time of need. Some areas in the world have enormous quantities of freshwater while some other places have limited supplies of it. Furthermore, in some areas, nature supplies them with a lot of freshwater at times when people have enough already. If there is no mechanism to store this freshwater, large amounts of it is being wasted or causes serious flooding. That is why it is important to use water wisely and not waste it.

Unfortunately, a lot of waterborne diseases and aquatic vectors continue to be the largest single cause of human illness and death around the world. One of the main reasons is because humans find it convenient to throw away unwanted wastes and byproducts in watercourses. Even though the amount of freshwater is very little, our society continues to contaminate this precious resource.

In conclusion, we should ALL use water wisely and protect freshwater due to many important reasons mentioned above. Mainly, we should protect freshwater because there isn't enough amounts of it left and if chemicals or other substances get in contact with the freshwater and someone drinks it, it can cause severe and serious health problems. So everyone, PROTECT FRESHWATER!