20 March 2013

Water is humans’ basic need. Humans need water for food, daily needs and even industrial needs. Water is vital for humans and humans cannot live without water.

About 70% of Earth is covered by water, but availability of freshwater is only 3% of that amount, with even clean water availability only 1%. From that amount, 69% of water in the world is used for irrigation, 15% for household needs, 15% for industries and 1% for other needs

In 2012, it was estimated that there were seven billion people in the world and the number is expected to increase to nine billion in 2050. If no measures were taken to halt the growing population, there would be water crisis, a condition where there is water shortage. There will be lack of water supplies if the growing human population is not compensated with clean water availability. Developed countries have taken actions to halt the growing population and some countries have even decreased their population growth. However, in developing countries, population is still growing. This condition might be caused by lack of awareness towards water availability, especially in dealing with population growth and daily needs.

Even though desalination technologies are able to create clean water, Indonesia is still unable to implement them across all regions as they require a high number of human resources and advanced tools that Indonesia is still not able to produce. Importing them is also not an option as they are expensive.

The United Nations declared 2013 as International Year of Water Cooperation to raise awareness towards enhancing cooperation to overcome challenges in supplying water for food, household needs, industries and other needs.

Source: promedia.co.id

http://en.kebebasaninformasi.org/2013/03/20/2013-tahun-kerjasama-air-internasional/