Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink

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Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. A phrase from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” written by an English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Coleridge, 1798). The poem told a story of a ship which set sail and adrift to Antarctica by a storm. Luckily an albatross help guide the ship out of Antarctica but the mariner shot the albatross dead with his crossbow. The incident brought bad luck to the ship as the wind stop blowing causing their ship to halt in the middle of the ocean. At this stage where the mariner came out with the phrase which shows his frustration that although he is surrounded by water, he cannot drink the water to clench his thirst since they are salt water which is unsuitable for drinking. The poem latter narrate about the ship crew dies one by one leaving only the mariner as he latter regrets his mistake and start to appreciate marine life. The mariner then prays and the curse lifted allowing the mariner to find his way back to shore (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).
The earth is made up of 70% water and 97.5% of it is salt water which is not consumable. That leaves us with only 2.5% of fresh water and 70% of the fresh water comes in the form of icecaps in Antarctica and Iceland. Only less than 1% of the fresh water is accessible which were river, lakes, reservoirs and shallow underground water with the rest of the fresh water are soil moisture and deep underground water that is not accessible. Luckily, the little source of fresh water that we have is being replenished by rain water thus reducing the chance of water exhaustion (University of Michigan, 2006). Although this is true for most part of the world, we cannot assume that rain replenish fresh...

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...s is done by Singapore with their NEWater project. NEWater is recycled sewage water which is treated using advance technology like Microfiltration, Reverse Osmosis in a semi-permeable membrane and UV disinfection which makes the final product safe for drinking (PUB, 2013). Singapore also opened a Seawater Desalination plant in 2005 which hopes to explore the possibility of turning seawater into freshwater by biomimicry which is mimicking the biological processes of mangrove plants and euryhaline fish extract seawater using minimal energy since the current Reverse Osmosis technique of changing sea water to salt water is said to be energy consuming (Henley, 2013). We also can plan the water usage and use the water efficiently at home to contribute in sustaining the freshwater source of the globe so that the next generation will not have to suffer from water shortage.

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