Water!

Robson Valley, Canada

Our Earth is watery planet and the presence of water here is one of the essential conditions for the existence and evolution of life as we know it. 

Powered by both the sun's energy and gravity's pull, the wonderful circulation of water through the biosphere gives sustenance to every form of life. From the huge reservoir of the oceans, water vapor rises into the atmosphere, condenses as cloud and eventually falls as rain or snow. A lot of water is stored in solid form at high elevations or in the polar regions. Some water infiltrates deep into the earth to be stored in aquifers. As water flows back to the sea, it circulates through the cells of all living things. It rises in the sap of plants and is offered in the juice of fruit. Water that was once in a cloud, once frozen in a glacier, once deep in the sea, is circulating in your blood right now.

Water is more abundant in some parts of the world than it is in others and in places where liquid water is scarce, so is life. Life began in a watery medium and developed in the ancient seas long before living organisms ventured onto the dry land. Our bodies are about 60% water (by weight) and without water, we become dehydrated and cannot live for long. Everyone should understand how essential water is to our lives. Our food crops need water, we need to wash with water and of course, we need to drink it.

For the last few months our life has revolved around the need for water. We are scrounging and saving water, we are hauling water, pumping water, distributing water to our trees and plants, filtering water to drink, and trying to keep own bodies hydrated as well.                     

In the shade of our back porch

Here in Northeast Thailand, afternoon temperatures have usually reached the mid-to-high 30s and sometimes above 40 degrees C with no rain to speak of. The temperature in the house (no aircon) is generally about the same as it is in the shade outside. Of course conditions outdoors exposed to direct sunlight are much hotter, putting stress on the body's ability to release excess heat.
The government has posted warnings against activity outside in the hot weather. Bangkok Post reports that 34 people have died of heat stroke in less than two months. Of course the key to avoiding dehydration/heat exhaustion is to drink plenty of water.

Noktapoot (Centropus sinensis)

When we give water to our small trees, birds and lizards come eagerly for a share. Tiny bees gather around a saucer of water to convoy the precious liquid back to their nest. 
When my friend the Coucal on the right approached me expectantly one morning, I thought she was hoping for tasty kitchen scraps as usual. She went instead to perch on the edge of a tub which had held water previously. I got the message and put out a clay dish filled with clean water. She immediately went to it and drank repeatedly.

Image NASA/CNN

The drought extends through the tropical regions of Asia and to Ethiopia and Brazil as well. India and Cambodia have been particularly hard-hit.

In our area where surface reservoirs have gone dry, and villages are unable to supply piped water to the houses, the government has had many wells drilled down into subsurface aquifers. 

We often pass this line of wells along the road where people can fill tanks for free. These are tanker trucks in the picture but people also come with pickups and farm tractors pulling wagons to fill big plastic tanks and haul the water home with them.

The monsoon will come. We are told that the rains will be slightly more than average this year so hopefully this period of drought is now coming to an end. Although the time of water scarcity has been hard, it has been a valuable learning experience. When something as precious as water becomes scarce, we begin to see how highly we must respect and treasure it and how wrong it is to waste and abuse it.

Pure cold water at the headwaters of the Fraser River in Canada.