World Water Day: Raising Awareness on Water Sustainability

With global warming and population explosion threatening life as we know it, water shortage is one the biggest challenges looming over humanity. It already affects billions of people across the globe and the effects are devastating: illness, starvation and death.

That's why for 19 years now we have been celebrating World Water Day on March 22nd, which is a day to raise awareness of the water issue. Several organizations are working towards a sustainable use of water. Take the partnership sealed between the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) and the American Water Works Association (AWWA). The organizations announced today that they will partner in developing a new sustainability framework for evaluating and rating the community, environmental, and economic benefits of water infrastructure projects.

The system is called Envision Rating System and was developed in collaboration between ISI in Washington, D.C. and the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It evaluates, grades, and gives recognition to infrastructure projects that use transformational, collaborative approaches to assess the sustainability indicators over the course of the project's life cycle.

The partnership was designed to help the water sector in developing a rating system to accurately evaluate underground water infrastructure projects across the United States through cost assessment, environmental evaluations, outcome-based objectives, and achievement of higher levels of sustainability.

"We are a society dependent upon our infrastructure and there is no more important element of that infrastructure than water," said Bill Bertera, executive director of ISI. "The intimate link between that infrastructure and our need to make it sustainable is embodied in our partnership with AWWA."

"We are very excited to partner with ISI," said AWWA Executive Director David LaFrance. "Sustainability is critical to the water sector's future and to the customers we serve. AWWA members are among the leading experts in the world and we look forward to helping bringing their collective knowledge and that of experts from other parts of the water sector, to the collaborative, important and exciting work of ISI."

Elsewhere, outdoor brand Teva will launch the Teva WorldWater Day challenge asking participants to give up water in one simple area of their life for the day. This could mean giving up showers, not doing any laundry or brushing the teeth, or even cooking without water.

Since yesterday (March 19th) visitors to Teva's Facebook page and share, post, tweet or pin the provided water infographic. The brand will also share water-related facts and blog posts while encouraging participants to join in the conversation with stories from their experiences throughout the day. Through thoughtful water consumption, Teva hopes to inspire permanent change for the future of clean water.

Besides the challenge Teva has committed to protecting one linear foot of shoreline for every pair of shoes sold through the year. The company has partnered with Surfrider Foundation, Waterkeeper Alliance, Ocean Conservancy and Save the Colorado to help protect 4.3 million feet in 2011 and it plans to increase to 4.4 million feet this year.

Image credit: Teva