World Water Day is a day designated in March to raise awareness about the importance of proper water management in this era of exploding population and wasteful natural resource practices.
On the website for World Water Day, some of the challenges in getting safe drinking water to everyone are identified. Among the leading contributors to the water crisis are population growth, migrant flows and the ever-expanding global economy, all powerful forces that are counter-conservation. As the population grows, especially in the U.S. and other developed nations, the demand for consumer goods and fresh, healthy food products increases with it, and that all requires water.
According to a research team led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, rapid population and economic growth are destroying biological diversity. A constantly growing demand for agricultural products requires evermore cultivated areas. The scientists wrote that the technological advances made in more efficient agricultural cultivation have been offset by rapid population growth. Even though technological advances are making agriculture more efficient, the growing number of people negates these successes. The study shows that “an effective nature conservation policy needs concepts against population growth and for sustainable consumption.”
