Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev said: “We must treat water as if it were the most precious thing in the world, the most valuable natural resource. Be economical with water, don’t waste it. We still have time to do something about this problem before it is too late.”

As we celebrate World Water Day, this piece of advice must prick our collective conscience since our destiny depends on how we utilise this resource.

Unfortunately for Kenya, we are not in a very good place regarding water utilisation and conservation. It is worrying that with a population of about 50 million people, currently, some 15 per cent of Kenyans still rely on unimproved water sources including ponds, shallow wells and rivers, while 41 per cent of Kenyans lack access to basic sanitation solutions.

Coming more than fifty years since independence, the water challenges which are especially evident in rural areas and urban slums, need urgent solutions to ensure that people get connected to piped water infrastructure.

There are also many areas where piped water connections do not produce a reliable, constant flow of water calls for urgent solutions like boreholes and rainwater harvesting strategies in urban and peri-urban areas.

The need for clean water was evident during the pandemic, and the conversation about access to safe water as a critical element in the health of families must continue to enable Kenyans to be cushioned from old and emerging diseases.

The good news is that we celebrate World Water Day knowing that the challenge we face is how to effectively conserve and manage the water we have. The question is how will we go about this task.

While our need for water increases as the population rises, our water supply does not. Therefore, how we consume water has a direct knock-on effect on the amount of safe water that shall be available for future generations.

Water efficiency must become an important pillar in this conversation, whereby people must learn to utilise water more smartly and innovatively by learning how to turn off the tap after use, replacing leaking pipes faster as well as recycling and reusing water, among others.

Industries must also stop polluting the water. They must also learn reusing and recycling, maintenance, upgrading equipment and auditing water use. These small tips may cushion us from the challenges of water scarcity.