Why Clean Drinking Water Is Important!

How often do you think about what’s in your drinking water? This week is World Water Week, and for this week’s Ingla Blog, we’re looking at the importance of clean water!

In London, we don’t often have to think about what’s in our drinking water! We have access to safe, clean water, and can drink without worrying about what we could be taking into our bodies! The UK is fortunate to be one of the safest countries in the world for water. But, this often means we take it for granted. Many places in the world are not so lucky.

For example, did you know that 2 billion people around the world regularly drink contaminated water, 785 million don’t have any kind of water service at all, and 144 million of these have to drink untreated water straight out of the ground?

This is all the worse considering how essential clean drinking water is. In this week’s Ingla blog, we’re going to examine some ways in which it’s crucial to make sure you get a decent dose of clean drinking water every day!

To Stay Alive

You already know that you get thirsty if you don’t drink enough water. But, without water, feeling a little dry around the mouth can be the least of your problems! You actually need to drink at least two litres of water a day to keep hydrated and all your body functions working : otherwise, you can become dehydrated very quickly.

This is very bad for you : the human body is 60% water after all, and while you can fast for weeks without any problems, you can only survive for a few days without water! So be careful!

To Stop Disease

Dirty drinking water can carry a lot of very nasty diseases – typhoid, cholera, dysentery and polio, to name a few! A lot of these diseases cause diarrhea, which is when you can’t stop going to the toilet, and this is guaranteed to make your body lose moisture very quickly!

For the reasons we saw in the last section, this is very bad news, and can even cause death! In fact, 829,000 people a year die of diarrhea from contaminated water.

To Keep Things Moving In Your Body

Clean water is important to keep things flowing in your body.

Your blood, which transports all the oxygen and nutrients your body needs, is 83% water. So without a good supply of water, you can’t transport all the important things your body needs.

You also need plenty of water to make urine, which is important for getting rid of waste toxins – the harmful things your body doesn’t need!

To Keep Your Cool

Water is very important for thermoregulation : this means keeping things in your body the same temperature! When you get too hot, what happens?

That’s right – you sweat! Water comes out of your skin and evaporates, taking the heat away with it. Without clean and healthy water, you’d be unable to cool yourself down on a hot summer’s day.

To Grow Safe Food!

Do you like fruit and vegetables? Of course, you know that water is an important part of growing plants – and clean water is especially important here!

If the water used to grow a fruit tree, or some crops, is contaminated, then the disease itself can spread to the food, and then to you! So, that’s a pretty great reason why clean water is important!

So, are you ready to see what you’ve learned? Do the exercises below to test your safe water knowledge. You can also learn some new words!

Comprehension Questions

Answer True or False or Not Given based on the information in the article

Over 200 million people drink untreated water.
Your body is more than 50% water.
You can go for a week without water.
You should drink at least 2 litres of water a day.
You can get polio from drinking dirty water.
Your blood is half water.

Answers

False
True
False
True
True
False

Vocabulary

Match the bold words in the article to the definitions below

Being wet (noun)
Plants that people grow for a reason (noun)
Having enough water (adjective)
To not be thankful for a good thing (verb phrase)
Very important (adjective)
To not eat (verb)
To stay alive (verb)
To throw away something you don’t want (verb phrase)
Not having enough water (adjective)
Dirty or carrying disease (adjective)
To turn to gas and rise up (a liquid, verb)