Judicious Use Of Water - Save Virtual Water

In this article, Dr Ramesh Chandra Parida and Dr Pranab Kumar Ghosh highlight that for judicious use of the fast depleting fresh water resources, it is necessary to save virtual water by changing our food habits and lifestyle. For that we can opt for less water-intensive vegetarian diets and refrain from or reduce the consumption of non-vegetarian food items.

- Dr Ramesh Chandra Parida and Dr Pranab Kumar Ghosh

We call water as ‘life’, not only because life evolved in the vast water bodies such as oceans and seas, but also because it constitutes the major component (about 60–80 per cent) of the body of almost every living being and plays active roles in its life processes. Without water, there can be no life on the Earth.

On the other hand, the Earth is called a ‘water planet’ as about 70 per cent of it is water. However, most of it is salty (97.3 per cent), available in oceans and seas. Only a small part of water (2.7 per cent) is fresh, of which 0.001 per cent is present in the atmosphere as water vapours, 2.04 per cent as snow in the glaciers of the polar regions and mountain tops, 0.005 per cent as soil moisture, 0.34 per cent underground, 0.009 per cent in lakes, and 0.0001 per cent in rivers. Therefore, the resource available for our essential use is very limited.