Water

"When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water." Benjamin Franklin quoted those prophetic words nearly two and a half centuries ago, when America’s wells - both literally and figuratively - overflowed with water.

Today those same wells are in danger of running dry, and along with the rest of the world we face a shortage of clean, fresh water.

The problem is not the supply of water; earth has virtually the same amount today as it did when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Ninety-seven percent of that supply is in the form of salt water. Only 3 percent is fresh, and two-thirds of that is ice.

The problem is simply people - our increasing numbers and our flagrant abuse of one of our most precious and limited, resources.

A computer-graphics rendition of the United States dramatizes the problem. According to it, California and Idaho show the areas of highest use, thanks largely to crop irrigation. In California, for example, 78 percent of the water used goes to agriculture and only 22 percent for urban needs.

Altogether the United States withdraws 339 billion gallons of ground and surface water a day. Although four trillion gallons of water falls on us daily in the form of precipitation, much of that disappears in evaporation and runoff, and our rivers and springs are being dangerously polluted and exhausted. Occasionally, as with the catastrophic flooding of the upper Mississippi Valley last summer, we seem cursed with an overabundance water, but such events are mercifully rare.

There is, of course, no substitute for water; it has already begun to replace oil as a major cause of confrontation in the Middle East. The confrontations can only grow and widen.

A team of top photographers, writers, and editors crisscrossed North America, exploring people’s attitudes habits, and perceptions of water. The team found historic mismanagement of water, blatant cases of waste and pollution, and widespread ignorance of water problems. Yet they also found a growing awareness of challenges water presents and an encouraging readiness to face them.

One thing is certain: We must mend our ways. The United States uses three times as much water a day - 2,100 liters per person - as the average European country, and astronomically more water than most developing nations. When we realize that it can take 1,500 liters of fresh water merely to produce one 250-gram steak, then - as Benjamin Franklin put it - we know the worth of water.

The question is how well we will use that knowledge.

(Adaptado de: William Graves, "Introduction" in National Geographic Special Edition: Water. Washington, D. C., Nov. 1993.)

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