#wabag

Groundwater is invisible, but its impact is visible everywhere. Out of sight, under our feet, groundwater is a hidden treasure that enriches our lives.

Almost all of the liquid freshwater in the world is groundwater. Groundwater provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide, about 40% of water for irrigated agriculture and about one third of water supply required for industry.

It sustains ecosystems, maintains the base flow of rivers and prevents land subsidence and seawater intrusion. Despite its importance, groundwater is invisible. In addition, out of sight often means out of mind.

As climate change gets worse, groundwater will become more and more critical. We need to work together to sustainably manage this precious resource. There are also some strategies to promote sustainable groundwater supply. Conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater, desalination, recycling and wastewater reuse, water harvesting, increase recharge to the groundwater system are few effective measures to promote sustainable groundwater supply.

Groundwater may be out of sight, but it must not be out of mind. The theme of groundwater should be able to shape the campaign through suggestions of activities but also get the information and the tools needed to raise awareness of groundwater in all public forums.

Water scarcity is one of the biggest global problems that the whole world is facing and the future could be alarming if we do not take up the right measures today. The factors contributing to water stress can easily be associated with population growth and the climate change. And hence, the world in many parts is fighting for a clean and safe drinking water.

The applicable solution here could be treatable municipal water supply which could also be a drought proof source for a potable water resource and this practice has been employed from many years now. The most exemplary and prominent examples of water treatment practices could be Water Reclamation Plant at Windhoek, Namibia, built by WABAG, Singapore NEWater (Public Utility Board) and the Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System/California (Orange County Water District). With addition to these water practices, there are also other water projects which are under development and one such project is in Texas and California where recycled water is made use of by turning it into crafted beer. Also, countries like India, South Africa and Brazil are examples of considering the effective use of potable reuse.

There is also another major water issue in this regard and that is the right provision of sufficient water treatment reliability. To define it in another way, water reclamation process is directed to achieve the desired degree of water purification by measuring it in inherent robustness, redundancy and resilience.

Talking about redundancy, it can be described as the means of employment of various individual and independent barriers that is for safeguarding the public health in times of need and requirement. And robustness directly constitutes the capability of addressing a varied variety of containments while also helping in reducing the occurrence and events of catastrophic failures. Now, resilience can be represented as the ability to quickly adapt and restore the required performance that comes in the process of threats and treatment failures.

There should also be another key factor to be considered and that is the Public Acceptance, which can only be through the right adequate and comprehensive information and educational programs in this regard.

WABAG’s aim in this matter is to simply convince people that “Water should not be judged by its history but by its quality”, as said by Dr. Lucas Van Vuuren.