The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day. Since then, World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of water and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. The UN, its member nations, non-government organizations, and the public get involved to implementing UN recommendations and promoting concrete activities within their countries regarding the world’s water resources.
World Water Day is coordinated by a different UN agency each year. This year is the turn of the Food and Agriculture Organization. The theme is Water and Food Security, which aims to highlight the relationship between fresh water and food production. It can take 2,000 to 5,000 L of water to produce one person’s daily food. At all steps of the supply chain, from producers to consumers, actions can be taken to save water and ensure food for all:
- follow a healthier, sustainable diet;
- consume less water-intensive products;
- reduce food wastage: 30 % of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it is definitively lost!
- produce more food of better quality with less water.
To celebrate World Water Day, ChemistryViews presents some of our recent, water-related content along with new articles on the topic.
New Articles:
- Clever Picture: Amount and Composition of Global Water
The Earth’s surface is 71 % water, yet only 0.3 ‰ of this is accessible as fresh water - Video: Global Water Experiment
Presented at the World Water Forum in Marseille, France, on March 12–13, by IUPAC and UNESCO, the coordinators of the global experiment “Water: A Chemical Solution” - News: Bottled Water: Safe Drinking?
Concerns about antimony leaching from plastic drinking water bottles are unfounded according to new data from UK chemists
Recent ChemistryViews Highlights:
- Research Highlight: Google Water
David Bradley,
Google PageRank has been adapted to help chemists understand complex systems such as water’s hydrogen-bonding network - News: pH Tunable Hydrogelators for Water Purification
Library of potential low molecular weight hydrogelators synthesized; will guide production of novel inexpensive, easy to use water purification platforms - Video: pH Tunable Hydrogelators for Water Purification
The pH switchable, color changing gels can sequester large, but varying quantities of the aromatic cationic dye from aqueous solution - Videos: Desalination Competition
Teams taking part in the DeSal Challenge, Munich, explain their designs for a low-cost, sustainable-energy-driven desalination plant - Book: Gravity-Driven Water Flow in Networks: Theory and Design
Gerard F. Jones
Gravity-driven water flow networks are a crucial method of delivering clean water to millions of people worldwide, and an essential agricultural tool. This book provides an all-encompassing guide to designing these water networks.
For more information on World Water Day see:
See also:
- World Water Day: A global awareness campaign to tackle the water crisis,
Stéfanie Neno,
Biotechnol. J. 2012.
DOI: 10.1002/biot.201200100