Facts about water

The most common substance found on earth is water. Water is the only substance found naturally in three forms: solid, liquid and gas.

The amount of water is constant and recycled throughout time; actually, it is possible to drink water that was part of the dinosaur era.
Eighty percent of the earth's surface is water.
Ninety-seven percent of the earth's water is saltwater in oceans and seas. Of the 3% that is freshwater, only 1% is available for drinking - the remaining 2% is frozen in the polar ice caps.
Water serves as nature's thermometer, helping to regulate the earth's temperature.
Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius.
Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees Celsius.
Once evaporated, a water molecule spends ten days in the air.
Forty trillion gallons of water a day are carried in the atmosphere across the United States.
An acre of corn gives off 4000 gallons of water per day in evaporation.
Forty percent of the atmosphere's moisture falls as precipitation each day.
It would take 1.1 trillion gallons of water to cover one square mile with one foot of water.
One gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds; one cubic foot contains 7.84 gallons of water.
People need about 2.5 quarts of water a day (from drinking and eating) to maintain good health. A person can live without water for approximately one week, depending upon the conditions.
While usage varies from community to community and person to person, on average, Americans use 183 gallons of water a day for cooking, washing, flushing, and watering purposes. The average family turns on the tap between 70 and 100 times daily.
About 74% of home water usage is in the bathroom, about 21% is for laundry and cleaning, and about 5% is in the kitchen.
A clothes washer uses about 50 gallons of water (the permanent press cycle uses an additional 15 gallons).
It takes 12 to 20 gallons of water to run an automatic dishwasher for one cycle.
About 2 gallons of water are used to brush our teeth.
Flushing a toilet requires 2 to 7 gallons of water.
A 10-minute shower can take 25-50 gallons of water. High flow shower heads spew water out at 6-10 gallons a minute. Low Flow shower heads can cut the rate in half without reducing pressure.
About 25-50 gallons are needed for a tub bath.
A typical garden hose can deliver 50 gallons of water in just 5 minutes.
It takes about four times the amount of water to produce food and fiber than all other uses of water combined.
About 4000 gallons of water are needed to grow one bushel of corn, 11,000 gallons to grow one bushel of wheat, and about 135,000 gallons to grow one ton of alfalfa.
It takes about 1000 gallons of water to grow the wheat to make a two pound loaf of bread, and about 120 gallons to produce one egg.
About 1400 gallons of water are used to produce a meal of a quarter-pound hamburger, an order of fries and a soft drink.
About 48,000 gallons are needed to produce the typical American Thanksgiving dinner for eight people.
About 1800 gallons of water are needed to produce the cotton in a pair of jeans, and 400 gallons to produce the cotton in a shirt.
It takes 39,000 gallons of water to produce the average domestic auto, including tires.
Producing an average-size Sunday newspaper requires about 150 gallons of water.
Water makes up almost two-thirds of the human body, and seventy percent of the brain.
Four hundred gallons of water are recycled through our kidneys each day.
Water makes up 80% of an earthworm, 70% of a chicken, and 70% of an elephant.
Water makes up 90% of a tomato, 80% of pineapples and corn, and 70% of a tree.
About 60,000 public water systems across the United States process 34 billion gallons of water per day for home and commercial use. Eighty-five percent of the population is served by these facilities. The remaining 15 percent rely on 13 million private.
It can take up to 45 minutes for a water supplier to produce one glass of drinking water.
You can refill an 8 oz. glass of water approximately 15,000 times for the same cost as a six pack of soda pop. And, water has no sugar or caffeine.
An average of 800,000 water wells are drilled each year in the United States. That's tapping into our underground water supplies at approximately 100 times each hour for domestic, farming, and commercial needs.
The United States and Canada have about one million miles of pipelines and aqueducts - enough to circle the planet 40 times.

My favourite quotes.

    Water, the Hub of Life.
    Water is its mater and matrix, mother and medium.
    Water is the most extraordinary substance!
    Practically all its properties are anomolous, which enabled life to use it as building
    material for its machinery.
    Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.
        -  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1972)

    Water is the driver of Nature.
        - Leonardo da Vinci
        
    We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.
        - Jacques Cousteau

    The crisis of our diminishing water resources is just as severe (if less obviously
    immediate) as any wartime crisis we have ever faced.
    Our survival is just as much at stake as it was at the time of Pearl Harbor, or the Argonne,
    or Gettysburg, or Saratoga.
        -Jim Wright, U.S. Representative, The Coming Water Famine, 1966
        
    High quality water is more than the dream of the conservationists, more than a political
    slogan; high quality water, in the right quantity at the right place at the right time,
    is essential to health, recreation, and economic growth. Of all our planet's
    activities--geological movements, the reproduction and decay of biota, and even the
    disruptive propensities of certain species (elephants and humans come to mind) -- no force
    is greater than the hydrologic cycle.
        - Richard Bangs and Christian Kallen, Rivergods, 1985
    
    Between earth and earth's atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never
    a drop more, never a drop less.
    This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself.
        - Linda Hogan, "Northern Lights," Autumn 1990 

    If you could tomorrow morning make water clean in the world, you would have done, in one
    fell swoop, the best thing you could have done for improving human health by improving
    environmental quality.
        - William C. Clark, speech, Racine, Wisconsin, April 1988
        
    In every glass of water we drink, some of the water has already passed through fishes,
    trees, bacteria, worms in the soil, and many other organisms, including people. . .
    Living systems cleanse water and make it fit, among other things, for human consumption.
        - Elliot A. Norse, in R.J. Hoage, ed., Animal Extinctions, 1985 

    Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children's lifetime.
    The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land."
        -  Luna Leopold

    A river is the report card for its watershed.
        -  Alan Levere

    To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together."
        -  Barry Lopez 

    When we save a river, we save a major part of an ecosystem, and we save ourselves as well
    because of our dependence--physical, economic, spiritual,--on the water and its community
    of life.
        -  Tim Palmer, - The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America 

    Water is also one of the four elements, the most beautiful of God's creations. It is both
    wet and cold, heavy, and with a tendency to descend, and flows with great readiness.
    It is this the Holy Scripture has in view when it says, "And the darkness was upon the
    face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
    Water, then, is the most beautiful element and rich in usefulness, and purifies from all
    filth, and not only from the filth of the body but from that of the soul, if it should
    have received the grace of the Spirit.
        -  John of Damascus (679?-749) Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 

‘Tips for saving water’

There are many effective ways to conserve water in and around your home, apartment, villa, office etc. Following are  simple ways for water conservation.

1. When washing dishes by hand, don’t let the water run while rinsing. Fill one sink with wash water and the other with rinse water.
2. Run your clothes washer and dishwasher only when they are full. You can save up to 1,000 gallons a month.
3. Install covers on pools and spas and check for leaks around your pumps.
4. Monitor your water bill for unusually high use. Your bill and water meter are tools that can help you discover leaks.
5. Encourage your family to keep looking for new ways to conserve water in and around your home.
   
6. Housing Society or Apartment owners association must adopt rainwater harvesting.
7. Turning the water off while you lather the soap can save as many as 5 gallons of water each time you wash. Use one glass of water for brushing teeth instead of running the faucet.
8. In order to reduce the usage of water during toilet flushes, put a One liter bottle filled with water inside each of the flush tanks. This displaces 1-liter volume of water in the tank and thus, saves 1 liter with every full flush.
9. Use dual piping one pipe for drinking, bathing and utensil cleaning where other pipe will bring in rain water and treated water for toilet, lawns etc
10. Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway and sidewalk and save water every time.
11. Shorten your shower by a minute or two and you’ll save up to 150 gallons per month.
12. Teach your children to turn off faucets tightly after each use.
13. A water leak detector or water leak detection system can alert you of any possible plumbing malfunctions in your home or apartment. Even a small leakage can cause huge water losses.
14. Wash your vehicle with bucket of water and sponge than using a hose.
15. Toilet is one of the source wastes water unnecessarily. Upgrade your toilet with new water efficient models.
16. Water your plants deeply but less frequently to encourage deep root growth and drought tolerance.
17. A trained property manager can manage water systems such as saving water in swimming pool, proper management of waste water, detection of leakage etc.
18. The practice of installing individual water meters on multi-family apartment units and billing based on actual consumption results in water savings 8,000 gallons per year.
19. Everyday water is wasted, while bathing and other activities, therefore all new buildings should implement the systems to collect and recycle used water.
20. One must check usage by maids and domestic servants, since it is these people who are the end users of the resource in apartments, villa, office etc.

 
                                      http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/index.php

What is National Water Harvesters Network (NWHN)?

National Water Harvesters' Network (NWHN) is a far-reaching network that addresses water issues through people from diverse background in India and abroad. The members of NWHN are primarily professionals, bureaucrats, grassroots functionaries, interested citizens and all those committed in developing or undertaking water harvesting programme. The network addresses and highlights the local issues and the traditional systems relating to water harvesting to further the cause of community based water management.

what is water harvesting ?

It means capturing rain where it falls or capturing the run off in your own village or town. And taking measures to keep that water clean by not allowing polluting activities to take place in the catchment.

Therefore, water harvesting can be undertaken through a variety of ways

• Capturing runoff from rooftops
• Capturing runoff from local catchments
• Capturing seasonal floodwaters from local streams
• Conserving water through watershed management

These techniques can serve the following the following purposes:

• Provide drinking water
• Provide irrigation water
• Increase groundwater recharge
• Reduce stormwater discharges, urban floods and overloading of sewage treatment plants
• Reduce seawater ingress in coastal areas.

In general, water harvesting is the activity of direct collection of rainwater. The rainwater collected can be stored for direct use or can be recharged into the groundwater. Rain is the first form of water that we know in the hydrological cycle, hence is a primary source of water for us. Rivers, lakes and groundwater are all secondary sources of water. In present times, we depend entirely on such secondary sources of water. In the process, it is forgotten that rain is the ultimate source that feeds all these secondary sources and remain ignorant of its value. Water harvesting means to understand the value of rain, and to make optimum use of the rainwater at the place where it falls.

How much water can be harvested?

Urban scenario
The total amount of water that is received in the form of rainfall over an area is called the rainwater endowment of the area. Out of this, the amount that can be effectively harvested is called the water harvesting potential.

Water harvesting potential = Rainfall (mm) x Collection efficiency

The collection efficiency accounts for the fact that all the rainwater falling over an area cannot be effectively harvested, because of evaporation, spillage etc. Factors like runoff coefficient and the first-flush wastage are taken into account when estimated the collection efficiency.
The following is an illustrative theoretical calculation that highlights the enormous potential for water harvesting. The same procedure can be applied to get the potential for any plot of land or rooftop area, using rainfall data for that area..
Consider your own building with a flat terrace area of 100 sq m. Assume the average annual rainfall in your area is approximately 600 mm (24 inches). In simple terms, this means that if the terrace floor is assumed to be impermeable, and all the rain that falls on it is retained without evaporation, then, in one year, there will be rainwater on the terrace floor to a height of 600 mm.

1. Area of plot = 100 sq. m. (120 square yards)
2. Height of the rainfall = 0.6 m (600 mm or 24 inches)
3. Volume of rainfall over the plot = Area of plot x height of rainfall
4. Assuming that only 60 per cent of the total rainfall is effectively harvested
5. Volume of water harvested = 36,000 litres (60,000 litres x 0.6)

This volume is about twice the annual drinking water requirement of a 5-member family. The average daily drinking water requirement per person is 10 litres.
Rural scenario
Community based rainwater harvesting in rural areas of India - the paradigm of the past - has in it as much strength today as it ever did before. It is, in fact, only with this rudimentary technology that people are able to survive in water scarce areas. Recognising this fact, our ancestors had learnt to harvest water in number of ways:

• They harvested the rain drop directly. From rooftops, they collected water and stored it in tanks built in their courtyards. From open community lands, they collected the rain and stored it in artificial wells.
• They harvested monsoon runoff by capturing water from swollen streams during the monsoon season and stored it various forms of water bodies.
• They harvested water from flooded rivers

Assuming that the average Indian population of an Indian village in November 2000 is approximately 1200. India's average rainfall is about 1170 mm. If even only half this water can be captured, though with technology this can be greatly increased, an average Indian village needs 1.12 hectares of land to capture 6.57 million litres of water it will use in a year for cooking and drinking. If there is a drought and rainfall levels dip to half the normal, the land required would rise to a mere 2.24 hectares. The amount of land needed to meet the drinking water needs of an average village will vary from 0.10 hectares in Arunachal Pradesh (average population 236) where villages are small and rainfall high to 8.46 hectares in Delhi where villages are big (average population 4769) and rainfall is low. In Rajasthan, the land required will vary from 1.68-3.64 hectares in different meterological regions and, in Gujarat, it will vary from 1.72-3.30 hectares.  And of course any more water the villagers catch can go for irrigation.
Does this sound like an impossible task? Is there any village that does not have this land availability? India's total land area is over 300 million hectares. Let us assume that India's 587,000 villages can harvest the runoff from 200 million hectares of land, excluding inaccessible forest areas, high mountains and other uninhabited terrains, that still gives every village on average access to 340 hectares or a rainfall endowment of 3.75 billion litres of water. These calculations show the potential of rainwater harvesting is enormous and undeniable.

How water can heal ?

Water has been here, a gift to us since the beginning of time. Many of us take water for granted, never realizing its healing properties, nor honoring its sacredness. We all have heard how we should drink 8 to 10 glasses a day. Some think, that is alot, but if you actually counted how much liquid you do put into you per day, soda, juice, tea, coffee etc., you would find that you really wouldn't have a problem getting down at least that amount if you substituted it with water. Actually it has been proven that we really should drink 2 quarts of water minimum for optimal health.
Not only does water help you to lose weight, by washing out excess fats from your system, but it also helps wash away harmful toxins we consume in the foods we eat.
Lets talk about water therapy. This is something I have found to work in wonderous ways. If you are upset, stressed, or sick, you can stand in a hot shower, and wash your frustrations, sickness or woes away. If you are ill, picture your sickness, the germs and disease or infection, washing down from the top of your head all the way to your toes and down the drain. If you are stressed, stand with your back facing the shower head. Tilt your head back just far enough so that the water is running down right at the top of your forehead line, then slowly move your head foward, letting the water hit the top of your head, then slowly to the back of your head, to the base of your skull, down your neck, to your spinal column, all the way down, slowly, each vertebrae, down to your buttocks, your legs, calves and feet. All of this is done in a slow motion, as the water passes each point, you will feel a tingling, or energy sensation. This sensation is unblocking most of your chakras, releasing tension, balancing and nourishing your body. If you still feel out of whack, repeat again, slowly. Let the water massage you, heal you, nurture you.
Sometimes when you are upset, you cry in the shower, at least I do, its my sanctuary. I let my tears and sadness wash down the drain. By the time my shower is through, my stress is gone, and so is my sadness. Its at this time you can face and logically handle the situation that made you sad. Water has a way of enveloping us into its spirit, like our mothers arms, warm and loving, water caresses us, cradles us within its power.
If you are overweight and trying to lose. Drink water, 2 glasses one half hour before a meal. Its not going to just fill you up and make you eat less, its actually going to help with the digestion of your food. When we don't drink water before our meals, our bodies take the liquid we already had stored inside us, to process our food and we get dehydrated to a point and all backs up. By drinking the water ahead of time it makes for a speedy digestion.
          

The Importance Of Water and Human Health

Water makes up more than two thirds of the weight of the human body, and without it, humans would die in a few days. The human brain is made up of 95% water, blood is 82% and lungs 90%. A mere 2% drop in our body's water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on smaller print, such as a computer screen. (Are you having trouble reading this? Drink up!) Mild dehydration is also one of the most common causes of daytime fatigue. An estimated seventy-five percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration. Pretty scary statistic for a developed country, where water is readily available through the tap or bottle.
Water is important to the mechanics of the human body. The body cannot work without it, just as a car cannot run without gas and oil. In fact, all the cell and organ functions made up in our entire anatomy and physiology depend on water for their functioning.
* Water serves as a lubricant
* Water forms the base for saliva
* Water forms the fluids that surround the joints.
* Water regulates the body temperature, as the cooling and heating is distributed through perspiration.
* Water helps to alleviate constipation by moving food through the intestinal tract and thereby eliminating waste- the best detox agent.
* Regulates metabolism
In addition to the daily maintenance of our bodies, water also plays a key role in the prevention of disease. Drinking eight glasses of water daily can decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45%, bladder cancer by 50% and it can potentially even reduce the risk of breast cancer. And those are just a few examples! As you follow other links on our website, you can read more in depth about how water can aid in the prevention and cure of many types of diseases, ailments and disorders that affect the many systems of our bodies.