Precious Resource

Water is a necessity of life — not only to you and I, but to all living things. What’s more, water is constantly being re-circulated. This means that water isn’t just used, it’s re-used. The water we see and use today is the same water that was here when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

It's Everywhere in Our Lives

Water makes up about 70% of our body weight and we each need to drink about two litres per day to help us stay healthy. Water improves the quality of our lives; it is used to produce power and manufacture goods. Water also provides ways of transporting people and products all over the world. We use water everyday at home and at work in so many ways that we often take it for granted.

How Much is There?

97% of the Earth’s water is salt water in the form of seas and oceans. Salt water cannot be used practically with our current water delivery or plumbing systems — to upgrade these systems to prevent corrosion would cost an astronomical amount. It also takes a great deal of energy (and money) to turn salt water into usable freshwater (known as desalinization) and only a select few economically wealthy nations are able to afford this.

This leaves 3% of the Earth’s water supply, of which 2% is unavailable to us. This 2% is trapped in ice at the north and south poles, in glaciers, or is located too deeply underground where it is not easily accessible.

What remains is a mere 1% of the Earth’s total water supply that is freshwater and easily available in one form or another for our use. It’s easy to see how over 6 billion people can have a great influence on this small percentage of the Earth’s water supply.

Canadian Water Use

It’s especially easy here in Canada to take freshwater for granted. We are surrounded by water in the form of oceans, lakes and rivers; water falls from the sky regularly in the form of rain and snow; we are in the Northern hemisphere and have a great quantity of frozen water in the mountains and arctic; and whenever we turn on our taps, what seems to be an endless supply of water streams out. We're told that Canada has some 9% of the world's total freshwater resources for only 30 million people — about half of one percent of the world's population. This may explain our high average daily domestic water use, as shown in the chart below.

Each Canadian uses about 335 litres per day, just indoors!
This number can double in the summer months.

It’s important to note that we are indeed blessed with more than our share of freshwater, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to waste it. It takes considerable amounts of community tax dollars to first treat the water so that we can drink it and, secondly, treat the water we’ve used so that it can be put back into the environment in a state that is as ‘clean’ as possible.

Recycled Water

It’s important to remember that water is constantly being recirculated. This means that water isn’t just used, it’s reused. Think about that next time you flush the toilet or get a glass of water to drink. Treating our water resources with care and respect — using them wisely and returning water to the environment in at least the same condition which we found it — will ensure that this cycle works for us well into the future.

Sources:
Environment Canada
Ministry of the Environment

Links to Water Conservation Information:
Environment Canada - Water: No Time to Waste - A consumer's guide to water conservation
Ministry of the Environment and Energy