“Groundwater” is the motto of World Water Day 2022

On March 22, 2022, the Unit­ed Nations (UN) World Water Day will be held this year under the mot­to “Ground­wa­ter: Mak­ing the Invis­i­ble Vis­i­ble”. The aim of this day of action and com­mem­o­ra­tion is to draw atten­tion to the increas­ing pres­sures and human inter­ven­tions caused by cli­mate change, urban­iza­tion, indus­try and agri­cul­ture, to which ground­wa­ter is also exposed in many regions of the world today. Sec­cua, a long-stand­ing expert in decen­tral­ized drink­ing water treat­ment and a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of glob­al fil­ter spe­cial­ist MANN+HUMMEL, wants to draw atten­tion to prob­lems such as water short­ages and water pol­lu­tion, and draw atten­tion to the need to address the issue of drink­ing water qual­i­ty in our coun­try as well. The Upper Bavar­i­an com­pa­ny offers effi­cient and sus­tain­able fil­ter sys­tems for safe and hygien­i­cal­ly clean drink­ing water at home.

To mark World Water Day this year, the com­pa­ny is sup­port­ing the Munich-based orga­ni­za­tion “Kick for Life” in the DACH region (Ger­many, Aus­tria, Switzer­land), which is com­mit­ted not only to a school and a soc­cer field in Tan­za­nia, but also to a well for the water sup­ply of the Maa­sai in the vil­lage of Ngabobo. Dur­ing the cam­paign peri­od from March 07 to April 15, 2022, it will grant a total dis­count of 22% for each fil­ter sys­tem sold, with 5% going direct­ly to “Kick for Life” as a donation.

Almost two thirds of drink­ing water in Ger­many (65%) is obtained from ground­wa­ter. How­ev­er, the qual­i­ty of ground­wa­ter in Ger­many is dete­ri­o­rat­ing, and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion is found at ever greater depths. Pol­lu­tant inputs, main­ly from fertilizers/slurry (nitrates) and pes­ti­cides from indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture, but also indus­tri­al sub­stances and drug residues etc., have a direct impact on our drink­ing water qual­i­ty. Increas­ing soil seal­ing and heat waves and droughts caused by cli­mate change also have a neg­a­tive impact on our ground­wa­ter. Less rain­wa­ter is able to infil­trate, rapid sur­face runoff increas­es, and pre­cip­i­ta­tion feeds to ground­wa­ter are reduced.

“Any pol­lu­tion of water resources ulti­mate­ly results in less ground­wa­ter avail­able to us. Espe­cial­ly in light of increas­ing droughts, this is prob­lem­at­ic. Accord­ing­ly, the pri­or­i­ty that water pro­tec­tion should enjoy is high.”

- Mar­tin Weyand, BDEW Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Water/Wastewater

International situation

A report pub­lished in Octo­ber 2021 by the World Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Orga­ni­za­tion (WMO) shows that increas­ing extreme weath­er events are also hav­ing a glob­al impact in the water sec­tor. Heavy rains and floods lead to the para­dox­i­cal result that ground­wa­ter con­tin­ues to decline as water mass­es rapid­ly run off instead of per­co­lat­ing into the ground. In April 2021, researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San­ta Bar­bara pre­sent­ed a glob­al inven­to­ry of ground­wa­ter sup­plies. Data from about 39 mil­lion wells in 40 coun­tries were ana­lyzed. The result: mil­lions of wells world­wide could run dry even with a mod­er­ate decline in ground­wa­ter levels.

The bat­tle for ground­wa­ter has long since bro­ken out open­ly, and not only in devel­op­ing and emerg­ing coun­tries. In drought-strick­en Cal­i­for­nia, many wells are already going dry year after year because the ground­wa­ter lev­el has already dropped dras­ti­cal­ly, pos­ing a mas­sive threat not only to agriculture.

Donations for wells

As part of this year’s World Water Day, the com­pa­ny is there­fore sup­port­ing the orga­ni­za­tion “Kick for Life — Fuss­ball macht Schule”, which is com­mit­ted to help­ing young peo­ple in Tan­za­nia and, in addi­tion to a soc­cer field and a school with a board­ing school build­ing for around 80 chil­dren, is also build­ing a well to sup­ply water to the Maa­sai in the vil­lage of Ngabobo. The project also includes med­ical care and dai­ly lunch­es, school uni­forms and train­ing equip­ment, as well as Inter­net access. The Group is pro­vid­ing both tech­ni­cal assis­tance and finan­cial sup­port for the project. For each fil­ter sys­tem sold for the decen­tral­ized treat­ment of drink­ing water, Sec­cua will grant its cus­tomers a total dis­count of 22% dur­ing the pro­mo­tion­al peri­od from March 7 to April 15, 2022. Cus­tomers who make up their minds quick­ly will ben­e­fit from a 17% dis­count, while 5% will be donat­ed direct­ly to “Kick for Life” to sup­port the con­struc­tion of a well includ­ing a fil­tra­tion sys­tem. In this way, our cus­tomers also indi­rect­ly sup­port the project. Inter­est­ed par­ties can find out more and make a direct dona­tion at https://kickforlife.de/.