The Worth of Water | National Geographic

You know, there's a saying: even if you are next to a river of water, save each drop because you don't know whether there will be a drop tomorrow. The more people on Earth, the less available water we're going to have to drink. The most important thing is to understand the actual worth of water. The distances in the Guru are immense. We travel 70 kilometers to get to Titicama village. This village relied only on rainwater for eight long years. The impact on the communities in the Guru is severe, and the people are really suffering. There is no water, but we need to save lives, and the only way to do that is to find alternative sources of water to rainwater. We can only find that water in the underground aquifers; that's the only water available.

Will be under the ground about a hundred and eighty million years ago, volcanoes erupted in the area of Tetsukama, and I can then see on Google the lines where these volcanoes erupted, and then we drill into the fault zone that can be as tiny as three centimeters wide. We also use a traditional methodology, and that is to detect these differences in the electromagnetic field of the Earth. Methodologies that were used for ages and ages by our grandfathers to be able to pump water from the land. Blood stock samples, dimensional cycle metabolism on smooth work, mentors will demand some help.

I've got a really strong emotional connection with the river. It really does reconnect you with nature. The Thames has gone from this biologically dead zombie river to having all this wildlife in it. There's 119 different species of fish living in the river and about 80 species of birds. It also provides tap water for around 7 million people in London. It's the artery of London.

In 1858, the population of London was about 2 million people. A sewage system had never been built up to that point. The river was full of raw sewage; it was just free-flow into the river. It also meant that people were getting really ill from cholera and dying. Parliament agreed to invest in a sewage system. This Victorian-era sewage system relieved the pressure on the river, but then in the Second World War, it was bombed. By 1954, the river had deteriorated so much, a survey by the Natural History Museum had declared it as biologically dead.

Anywhere you go, you're going to find a body of water. In Florida, you have lagoons, you have streams, you have rivers. We have a lot of natural springs here in Florida that maintain 70 degrees, and that's perfect for manatees. So manatees have been around the state of Florida for many years. They're just special; they love to eat seagrass. They can eat anywhere from 10 to 15% of their body weight. You can't see a manatee without smiling; they're adorable.

In 2021, we lost over 1,100 manatees in one year. Most of those deaths were due to starvation, and what we're finding is we don't have the clean water to sustain that food source. Everything going into our waterways here in Florida back to that seagrass: growing pesticides, fertilizers, things that people use to have beautiful grass in their yards, but unfortunately, it does come with a price. There's about a thousand people moving here every day. We continue to push those houses right up against the waterways. All of that infrastructure is going to have an effect on them.

Here at Zootampo, we work with several different partners, and we're all a part of the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership. Really, the job is to ensure we're putting all the resources to really saving the species.

Today, the Thames is one of the cleanest rivers in the world that runs through a major city, which is incredible given the size of the population of London. So you've got things like sharks coming in and seahorses. You can find seahorses, and you've got grey seals and harbor seals coming right up the river.

Over the last 60 years, there's been investment from the water treatment companies. There's also been legislation by government. When land is reclaimed and re-wilded, things like reed beds enable the water that's come off the land, come off London, and filter through those plants and go in as clean water into the river. There are still many issues with the river; there needs to be a lot more work and investment into stopping that extra sewage that would overflow into rivers.

There's now a new huge sewer system being put in place across 25 miles of central London. Hopefully, this will have a really positive impact on the river. The population of London is projected to increase to 16 million. That will then put a huge amount of pressure on the water sources, and so we really do need to conserve the water that we have.

Here at Zootampo, we are one of three facilities that can actually take injured manatees. We will actually bring them to our critical care facility and give them all the care that they need. You know, an animal that is underweight, we're looking to put hundreds of pounds on that animal. We're able to give them that supportive care that they need, hopefully get them healthy, and then send them back out to the Florida wild.

When we do these releases, we want to make sure that we're doing it on a really cold day so that a lot of animals are going to be around, so that hopefully that young animal will follow those manatees and figure out where they need to go to stay warm, to find food, to be a part of that journey, and to be able to help them. To know that we're going to be able to get them to a place where we can send them back home is a feeling you can't explain.

If I look at the communities where we work, we have a lot to learn from these people. These human beings can survive for a week on 20 liters of drinking water. They save every single drop. Now I think we, as people living in cities, need to learn from that.

We, as consumers, can play a really important part in protecting the river. We can do that by conserving water. There are so many ways that we can conserve water just within our homes. If everybody does something, it really adds up when you've got a population the size of nine million in London. Just those little bits really make a difference. It's really important for everyone to help conserve water. Think about it in your everyday actions: when you brush your teeth, when you shower, when you clean your dishes, are you rinsing those dishes with water before you then put them in your dishwasher?

I think for everyone to conserve water is to be mindful. We always think of nature separately; we are a part of it. Three percent of all the water on Earth is fresh water. Most is locked up in ice caps or underground aquifers. Only 0.5% is available to the growing human population. It's vital we all find ways to save this precious resource. Simple actions can help, like turning the tap off when brushing our teeth, taking shorter showers, installing dual flush toilets, and cutting out pre-rinsing when using our dishwashers. Dishwashers and detergents like Finish work without the need to pre-rinse with precious water that could be preserved for nature.

If all of us make simple changes in our daily lives, we can conserve billions of liters of water. That's why Finish is promoting one simple yet effective action: skip the rinse. They're also helping protect fragile waterways like the Colorado River and the freshwater ecosystems of East Anglia, as well as working in South Africa on a range of projects to prevent Day Zero from ever happening. Together, we can make every drop count.