Water is all around us isn’t it? Rivers, lakes, the sea you swam in on holiday or live near to. There seems to be an endless supply. So why do people keep telling us we need to save as much as possible?

You’re certainly not on your own if you think this. According to SES Water, 1 in 4 people admit to taking water availability for granted, with no idea how much water they use daily. 67% feel they can’t use less water than they already do. However, a study by the Water Regulation Advisory Scheme (WRAS), reported by WWT, found that people in the UK underestimate how much water they actually use by 55%.  An average household uses 350 litres of water a day yet people estimate they only use 157 litres a day.

We all know that water is an essential part of life.  We need it daily to live and perform vital functions in the body. Plants need water to grow and in turn, we get to eat the plant direct or the organism which ate the plant.  It really is an extremely important substance.

The earth is made mostly of water, approximately 71%. This water is constantly being recycled in a closed loop, water cycle system, therefore being a finite source. Being moved from the atmosphere, to the earth and back again in a constant rotation. The amount of water on Earth will always remain the same, we don’t lose it and we don’t create more. This has happened for billions of years and apparently it is realistic that the water you washed with this morning has at one time come into contact with a tyrannosaurus rex!

Well, the fact is that less than 1% of the earths water is usable to us! The rest of the water is stored in the sea, frozen in icecaps and floating around in the atmosphere. Out of the low percentage of freshwater available for human use, a massive 70% goes toward growing food and raising animals. Therefore, there is only a limited amount of freshwater available for other purposes.