New Delhi: If you believe that Day Zero is some unreal thing. Chances are you are wrong. Currently, one of Africa’s most affluent metropolises, Cape Town, home to 4 million people is facing the challenge and according to experts very soon at least one major city in India—like Bengaluru is likely to face the same fate. To make more people aware about the need to conserve water and its importance, every year on March 22, World Water Day is celebrated. Here’s a lowdown of things you need to know about the day:
1. The Journey Of World Water Day
In the year 1992, March 22 was first officially added in the schedule 21 of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development as World Water Day in the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The celebrations to mark world water day started from the year 1993. The aim of the day is to increase awareness among people about the importance, need and conservation of water.
2. How The Day Is Celebrated
The United Nations including all the member nations celebrate March 22 by implementing the UN recommendations as well as promoting the global water conservation through the real activities like promotion of clean water conservation, governments’ plan of action for water conservation and publishing critical reports that highlights the statistics and data on water.
The UN-Water is responsible for the selection of World Water Day theme every year, distribution of global messages as well as leading the UN agencies for celebrating the World Day for Water.
3. Theme Of 2018
This year’s theme of World Water Day is ‘Nature for Water’ and exploring nature-based solutions (NBS) to the water challenges that we are currently facing. The campaign which is being run by UN is being called ‘The answer is in nature’ and the motto is to raise awareness on how we nations together can save water by following nature based solutions.
The central message which is being passed by the UN through their message is to plant more and more trees, replenish forests, reconnect rivers to floodplains, and restore wetlands, in a sustainable and cost-effective way to help rebalance the water cycle.
Also Read: How Yamuna Went From One Of India’s Holiest To One Of World’s Dirtiest
Facts, That Will Make You Save Water
Today, around 1.9 billion people live in potentially severely water-scarce areas. By 2050, this could increase to around 3 billion people. This translates to an increase of nearly one and half times in just 30 years. So, it could cover you and me, the next time.
Also Read: The Great Ganga Cleanup: A Timeline
