We’re celebrating World Water Day, a day dedicated to the global water crisis, by talking about groundwater.
It's a precious resource with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Groundwater may be out of sight, but it must not be out of mind.
We’re also working with our partners WaterAid to spread the message that 1 in 10 or 771 million people on this earth still live without access to clean water close to their homes.
With the right investment, the amount of groundwater found in Africa could provide many of its countries with enough water to cover five years of drought.
Groundwater is found under the surface of the earth; it is produced when rain seeps through the soil level and descends right down to a zone of dense rock, and the water is then contained in the pores of these rocks. These storage systems are called aquifers.
The water can then be abstracted through boreholes by pumps to be treated and used. It otherwise feeds lakes, rivers, springs and can seep into oceans.
Groundwater is important because the majority of liquid freshwater on Earth is groundwater, making it imperative for life. A lot of the water we use for sanitation, drinking and growing is groundwater. There are some countries that rely it on completely to live.
The sad fact is it can be overused in many areas, meaning more water is abstracted from aquifers than is replaced by rain and snow. This means that eventually, the entire resource will be depleted.
South East Water’s Environment Team continually work hard to protect this precious resource, with projects such as working with farmers to improve the quality of our water at the source. We help farmers to sow special plants, known as cover crops, to absorb any excess nitrogen in the soil after the main crop has been harvested, and prevent it reaching the groundwater. This project will help shape our future catchment management work and lead to long-term improvements to water quality.
We are also working closely withenvironmental organisations, borough and district councillors, landowners and local residents around our water sites to look at possible habitat improvement on some of the chalk streams we abstract water from, which are fed by chalk aquifers. This is part of a larger sustainable abstraction project we are committed to, to continue our long-term improvements of water quality at the source.
You can read more about the work The Environment Team do to protect our precious resources using the link below.
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