World Water Day 2022

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March 22, 2022

World Water Day is March 22. The theme for this year, 2022, is Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible.

World Water Day logo

The day is a creation of the United Nations, dating to 1993. The U.N. has adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, of which availability of clean, safe drinking water is a major part, in the part of Sustainable Development Goal 6. In fact, the U.N. in 2010 declared access to safe, clean water a human right. And it's not just water for drinking: water for sanitation is part of that right.

The U.N. released a World Water Development Report, focusing on the need to make better use of groundwater. Examining the various uses of groundwater in turn, the report details facts and figures for how much groundwater people use, how they extract it from the ground, and how they make use of it once it is extracted.

Primary uses of groundwater include for drinking water, for agriculture, for sanitation, and for power generation. The report also evaluates each of the world's region in the light of how much groundwater is available in that region and how the people in that region are using the groundwater to which they have access.

The report references the role that climate change plays in the availability of groundwater, including increasing numbers of natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes and increasing instances of heavy rainfall. In many cases, such events overwhelm existing aquifers and other water storage systems, leading to some groundwater's going unstored. In the same vein, the report found that global sea level rise due to an increase in temperatures has led to some contamination of freshwater aquifers by saltwater from the oceans.

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Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2023
David White

Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2024
David White