Happy place as long as there is water

Farming is possible where there is water. And so is life. Firstly, it is all about rain. Secondly, rivers fed by rain, supplements from reservoirs and dams, their reach augmented by canals and pipes, form a big part of food producing water supplies. Thirdly aquifers, also fed by rain, are those supplies found in nature, underground layers of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures, gravel, sand or silt, the water extracted from them via wells and boreholes.

From all of this people, animals and plants get their drinking water, the potential for food production, and untold water dependent lifestyles features and facets. The fragility of these sources is often appreciated by those not involved with farms only when the no water alarm bells go off. The South African farm, depending on rain water collected in the farm dam without river replenishment, is home to many people burdened with chronic drought anxiety as a normal part of life.

Comparatively few rivers on earth are spared the sad periods of running low or totally dry. These days increasingly, one eye is on the water supply, the other on the population numbers that must be serviced from it. Conserving water and keeping rivers clean are concerns rising in the human value system in many parts of the world, hastened by climate change.