A History of Global Water Conservation

The issues involved in water conservation are timely ones that seemed to have sprung up recently with our recent awareness in the last decade or so of the ozone layer depletion, global warming, and acid rain. Keywords in this awareness are sustainability (the concept of making sure water is available for future generations with the simple equation of withdrawal of fresh water not to exceed the natural replacement rate) energy conservation (managing water so that water pumping, delivery and waste water treatment do not consume an unreasonable amount of energy) and habitat conservation (an effort to minimize human water use to preserve fresh water habitats for local wildlife and waterfowl, as well as reducing the need to build new dams and other water diversionary structures).
However current these ideas and terms, water conservation has actually been a global concern for centuries and has been a primary issue in many cultures around the world. Throughout history, water availability has been a vital factor in the rise and fall of human cultures. Some of the earliest civilizations, such as the Mesopotamian peoples of the Fertile Crescent, an area which got its name because of its shape and location between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Without the water, civilizations would not have taken root and flourished there. Another example of the vital role water has played in our human history would be the ancient Egyptian people, whose entire existence depended on the Nile River and its seasonal flooding and receding. This great ancient civilization was able to achieve its great inventions and architectural accomplishments, the Pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments, because of the secure and permanent lifestyle that the Nile River supported. The ancient Aztecs, who ingeniously built their entire city on man-made islands floating on Mexico's Lake Texcoco, also had the luxury of an almost unlimited water source which gave them the security to invent, build and create many things that the world had never seen before. Water is not only a means of sustaining human life, it is necessary for agriculture, the domesticating of animals, and even transportation. Whether living in ancient times or the 21st century, humans must learn to live within the limits of available natural resources. The supply of usable water is not unlimited. We must learn to reduce our excessive consumption.
Today there are many foundations that have been set up to help deal with the problem of our excessive consumption. One of the most prominent and long-standing is the Water Environment Federation (WEF.) This organization has been around since 1928, when it was originally called the Federation of Sewage Works Associations. It then became known as the Federation of Sewage and Industrial Wastes Associations in 1950 and the Water Pollution Control Federation in 1960. It became the Water Environment Federation in 1991 to reflect its expanding role of not only dealing with the pollution but sustaining and educating for the future. The Water Environment Federation is worldwide, with a global network that works towards goals of water conservation. One of the main goals is universal metering. This concept involves the individual metering of households across the world so that household consumption can be observed, compared, recorded and reduced. Universal metering of water in households varies greatly worldwide. In the United Kingdom, less than 30% of homes are metered. In Canada, only 57% of urban homes are metered. In the United States, where almost every private residence is metered, water use has gone down when individual households realized they were being held accountable and financially responsible for their water use. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that metering alone can reduce water consumption by 20 to 40 percent. Another social solution would be putting pressure on individual farmers by monitoring their fresh water use. Crop irrigation accounts for 70% of the world's fresh water use. Conservation advocates are working around the world to put pressure on farmers to grow more water-efficient crops and adopt less wasteful irrigation techniques.
Global technological solutions that are being advanced by the Water Environment Federation and other agencies worldwide include water-saving technology for both the home and the agricultural sector. In the home, some devices that are becoming available in many countries include low-flow shower heads, low-flush toilets, faucet aerators (which break up the flow into finer droplets for better "wetting effectiveness"), wastewater reuse or recycling systems allowing reuse of "graywater" for flushing toilets or watering the garden, and recycling of wastewater through purification at a water treatment plant, along with many other household appliances that use less water, such as washing machines and dishwashers. For crop irrigation, new methods are being explored to prevent evaporation and runoff waste. An evaporation pan can be used to determine how much water is required to irrigate the land. Alternatives to flood irrigation, which is wasteful because some areas receive more than enough water just so that other areas receive enough, are being tested worldwide. One alternative is overhead irrigation which uses sprinklers, but in extremely dry areas some water may evaporate before reaching the ground. Drip irrigation is the most efficient because it delivers droplets of water directly to the roots of plants with very little waste, but it is the most expensive to put into place. Today, conservation efforts are exploring ways to maximize the efficiency of the current irrigation system rather than replacing it entirely which is proving to be too expensive for most farmers.
Water conservation is continually evolving, from its earliest history of cultivation in the Fertile Crescent to modern efforts made by international organizations to work towards sustainability. After all, it is in our best interest to maintain a global perspective on this issue- -we're all it this together!