Water - liquid gold

Being born and growing up in the Netherlands, I grew up with water all around me. We lived a 15min walk from the North Sea, and near the dunes where the reservoirs were, holding the drinking water for The Hague. Actually, my father worked at the regional water company as a quality controller for tapwater.

Our King Willem Alexander studied water management and the Delta Works are world famous. The Dutch know and fear the power of water but they love it when it's frozen so they can go iceskating!

Until very recently it was normal to have access to enough water. Now ground water levels are lowering because of the lack of rain due to climate change, and we are facing the possibility of having big problems in the near future throughout Europe. Spain, Italy and the South of France are just a few examples where lakes run dry and bushfires take place as early as April.

What can we, as individuals, do? Quite obviously we can cut back on our drinking water, take shorter showers, cover swimming pools so less water evaporates, etc. We can collect rain water for watering plants and to wash our car with. When we go shopping we can search for sustainable clothing; the production of jeans for instance uses enormous amounts of water as does the production of meat. When we go to a garden centre to buy plants, we can look for plants that don't need a lot of water, like succulents.

So there certainly are lots of things we can do. In future blogs I will highlight several specific things that are not as obvious as 'shower shorter'.

'Water' is the main subject for the next meeting of the Climate Café - please feel free to share your ideas with us. The meeting is at La Cale Brasserie in Puy l'Eveque, June 2nd, 14.30. See you there!!

In the meantime click here for some interesting reading material about worldwide water issues.