The Elixir of Life
Why we need water and how we can protect it
Water droplets on a smooth surface.
No living thing can exist without water. This applies to humans as much as it does to the simplest of single-celled organisms. There is plenty of it on Earth – more than two-thirds of its surface is covered by water – but it has become a scarce and threatened resource around the world. As it stands, 2.2 billion people have no access to clean drinking water. And even in Germany, climate change and increasing pollution levels are endangering the availability and quality of our livelihood.
Researchers from the University of Jena and their partners in the new interdisciplinary »Thuringian Water Innovation Cluster« (»ThWIC«) want to counteract this problem by developing new technologies and concepts to promote a more sustainable use of the precious resource and by presenting the issues to policy-makers, businesses and civil society.
Editorial »We are running out of water«