The ultimate need to ensure water security and protect watersheds is an emergency
About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, with the oceans holding about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. This implies about 5% of freshwater is available for daily use. Water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers. Water among many uses and relevances is a naturally existent life support system; acting as a habitat to a varied range of plant and animal species all round the globe, its daily significance in human body systems are far unprecedented. Access to clean water has been termed as a basic need and necessity of life by the United Nations.
Natural sources of water have long been in existence and source of livelihoods for various local communities and indigenous groups around the globe, providing water for domestic sustenance, small scale and local industries plus many more. The sustainability chain with regards to access and use of water resources derived from natural sources has seemingly taken a negative trend. A number of factors have been attributed to the eminently increasing population rates coupled with the magnificent anthropogenic influences that have not spared the naturally thriving watersheds; rivers, streams, wetlands, lakes. Today, the need for access to clean, safe and fresh water has drastically increased, used in large scale industries as raw materials, industrial coolants, detoxicants, reactants in chemical industries. This poses a threat to the safety of water for the present and possibly forthcoming generations. Predictably, the demand for water is gradually exceeding the rates of supply.
Cases of water related disasters have seemingly sprung up exponentially in the recent times with flooding as the most imminent. Urban and peri-urban centers have been identified to be most significantly faced with a series of chronic and con-current water challenges, all as a result of poor water management techniques and systems coupled with the absolutely high demand. Several of these challenges are not limited to urban storm water flooding, coastal flooding and erosion in cases of coastal cities, river flooding, water insecurity, landslides among many others.
Protection of watershed and catchment areas is way critical and vital to ensure safety of water and as well protect the integrity of natural water sources. Grey infrastructure is meant to facilitate the efficiency and effectiveness in access to clean, safe and freshwater and should thus be made a priority for both urban and peri-urban centers. Only then will the water crisis face a send off to its origin.
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