Water in Australia and blog action day

16Oct/100

Coming from a country that was wrested from the water (Holland) and always has too much of it, living on the driest continent on earth is still strange in many aspects.

Australia, and Melbourne has had almost nine years of drought, resulting in water restrictions in many parts of the country, (including a prohibition on washing your own car and watering lawns) that have only very recently been lifted. The most important river system on the continent (the Murray-Darling basin) was about to dry up with catastrophic consequences, and it's only now that the federal government has decided to pull a plan together to avert an environmental and economic disaster.

Water has been front page news here for a number of years, and eventhough the drought has broken, it still is. The desalination plant being built here in Victoria, the above mentioned plan that will cut water allocation to farmers and the direct impact people have felt in their day-to-day life had made it an accute topic of discussion.

But we still have drinking water. Here, we may have some inconveniences, but this is the global picture (s0urce Wikipedia):

Inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people^[9]
Inadequate access to water for sanitation and waste disposal for 2.5 billion people^[10]
Groundwater overdrafting (excessive use) leading to diminished agricultural yields^[11]
Overuse and pollution of water resources harming biodiversity
Regional conflicts over scarce water resources sometimes resulting in warfare

In Australia, many of us have never had to consider living with plentifull supply of clean water, but the past few years have given many a wake up call. Hopefully this will translate into action to help the millions of people around the world who don't have this most basic of human necessities.

Here is one way to do it if you feel inspired.