Celebrating #worldwaterday: how to save a precious resource

World Water Day, is a day to celebrate one of the planet’s most precious resources, fresh water. This World Water Day we honor the projects, people, and programs working tirelessly to achieve more with less water and creating innovative systems for the future.

|
John Raoux/AP/File
Asa Meslar swims along the Rock Springs Run, a natural free-flowing spring that has an average flow of 26,000 gallons of fresh water per minute and maintains a constant temperature of 68 degrees, at Kelly Park in Apopka, Fla. World Water Day is Sunday, March 22.

March 22nd, World Water Day, is a day to celebrate one of the planet’s most precious resources, fresh water. But that resource is being rapidly depleted.

“The world is thirsty because it is hungry,” reports the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Forty-seven percent of the global population could be living under severe water stress by 2050, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Agriculture is a major user of both ground and surface water for irrigation—accounting for about 70 percent of water withdrawal worldwide. As water supplies face growing pressures from a growing population, climate change, and an already troubled food system, water security has become even more important. Unfortunately, we are way behind in our efforts to protect both the quantity and quality of the water our growing world needs today.

Irrigation causes excessive water depletion from aquifers, erosion, and soil degradation, but more sustainable irrigation practices, including center pivot irrigation systems and solar drip irrigation, can help improve crop productivity and yields and reduce water usage. Using rainwater harvesting, zai pits, micro-irrigation, bottle irrigation, gravity drip buckets, rotational grazing systems, and other water-saving practices can all help create diverse landscapes, supporting wildlife and culture.

In fact, all over the world farmers are using innovative practices to utilize water more efficiently and in lesser quantities to produce more nutritious foods. And eaters can profoundly reduce water waste and consumption through the food choices they make each day.

In India, the Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) regenerates watershed communities by harvesting rainwater, organizing communities to sustainably manage the land, optimizing irrigation, and planting crops based on water availability. WOTR has reached more than 300,000 people in 300 villages, rejuvenating 200,000 hectares of land.

Perennial crops protect the soil longer than annual crops, which reduces water loss from runoff. Jerry Glover, agroecologist and Senior Sustainable Agriculture Advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Developmentexplains, “perennial roots go deep — some as deep as 10 feet — and they will sustain the plant for many years. Way down there, the roots can capture more groundwater. Those deep, better-established roots also help cycle nutrients in the soil and make them more available to plants.” Developing perennial varieties of grains, legumes, and vegetables can help save precious soil. Researchers at The Land Institute are currently working to develop perennial grain varieties that create substantial yields—and more resilient food systems.

Using soil conservation techniques, including no-till farming, can make some of the biggest differences when it comes water use. According to the FAO, no-till farming techniques increase the amount of water that land can hold, and improve crops’ ability to use water resources efficiently.

According to Matthew Liebman, Professor of Agronomy and Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, “conversion of small amounts of corn and soybean fields to prairie buffer strips can provide disproportionately large improvements in soil and water conservation, nutrient retention, and densities of native plants and birds.” His research focuses on crop rotations, cover crops, green manures, intercrops, conservation strips, animal manures, and composting. “I want to see conservation practices put in place across the landscape now and further developed by the next generation of scientists and farmers,” Liebman explains.

And soil health is also critical to water conservation. 2015 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Soils. Practices like incorporating cover crops, planting trees on farms, and intercropping, or planting complementary crops in the same field, can help keep nutrients and water in the soil. These practices can protect plants from drought and make sure that every drop of water from rain or irrigation can be used. Fazenda da Toca in Sao Paulo, Brazil is an organic family farm using agroecological principles, including better water conservation practices. “I believe it is possible to create abundance without destroying the planet. We could thrive with it instead,” explained Pedro Diniz, founder of Fazenda da Toca. The methods used on Diniz’s farm also restore degraded soils, produce high yields, and eliminate the use of pesticides.

And eaters and consumers can all do their part to save water by incorporating more native foods into their diets, eating more locally grown foods and less meat, eggs, and dairy produced in industrial operations, reducing food waste, reconsidering lawn and garden irrigation methods, and supporting family farmers that use less water intensive practices.

This World Water Day we honor the projects, people, and programs working tirelessly to achieve more with less water and creating innovative systems for the future.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Celebrating #worldwaterday: how to save a precious resource
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Bite/2015/0322/Celebrating-worldwaterday-how-to-save-a-precious-resource
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe