Recently, a report gave a warning that we may experience water shortage during the coming months. This is the same warning given by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) three years ago. The impending lack of fresh water supply will lead to a water crisis, making the Philippines second to the lowest among Southeast Asian countries with fresh water availability.
The good thing about typhoons and rains is that they help raise the water levels in dams which supply water for the people. Rain is also good for our rice and crops as long as floods do not cause inundation and destroy the crops. We are luckier than most countries because we have a rainy season during which our water levels are replenished by nature.
Scientific reports say that there is the exact amount of water on earth today as when the earth was formed and that water is never totally consumed. It always recycles itself in one form or another. The problem is man’s abusive use of natural resources, especially water. The rapidly expanding population and an increase in human activities more than tripled the demand for water over the centuries. Aquifers are over pumped causing water tables underneath the ground to be depleted.
We hardly notice that rivers have run dry, rivers of early civilization like the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, the Indus River in Pakistan, Jordan River, the Nile in Egypt, the Rio Grande and Colorado River in the United States and many other rivers and lakes which have been crucial sources of fresh water.
In many rural communities across our country, people resort to groundwater pumping for their source of water supply. Many rivers either run dry or become polluted, like the Meycauayan and Pasig Rivers. Moreover, only 36 percent of our river systems can be classified as clean sources of water, with 50 out of 421 rivers in the country already biologically dead.
Few people realize the impact of a water crisis. We can see a landslide and feel an earthquake, but we can’t see drought. When we don’t get as much water as we expect or need over a significant period of time, we feel uncomfortable and life becomes abnormal. It happens so slowly that we only see its effects when it is too late. We discover the crisis only when our sources have dried up. Unlike the natural disasters, droughts do not just begin or end. They can persist over a long period of time, its damage creeping slowly until it can no longer be reversed. Drought may affect the production of fruits and crops, which will lead to food shortages and worsen hunger and poverty for the years to come.
We used to have ads reminding citizens to be more responsible in the use of water. Instead of the info-mercials and campaign ads of aggressive politicians shown on primetime television, network stations should show these useful reminders instead. We should remind the people about the importance of conserving water. Government should implement wide-ranging water conservation strategies. We should act now before it is too late.