Importance of Water

• Importance of access to clean water

  • Sustains life on Earth
  • Wide range of economic activities (growing food, manufacturing, renewable power generation, leisure activities)
  • Helps to maintain atmospheric temperatures and clouds
  • Absorbs and releases heat as part of the water cycle
  • Compromise of over 60% of living organisms (fauna and humans)
• Water covers over 70% of the Earth's surface, and these oceans absorb, store, transport and release heat
• Oceans help to regulate surface temperatures
• Water absorbs 20% of insolation (incoming solar radiation) and releases water vapour that absorbs and releases long-wave radiation as part of the natural greenhouse effect