All life supporting systems must have water to support an ecosystem.
fresh water supply vary from five to nine to twenty per cent of the world's fresh water supply, .
depending on how one defines fresh water (whether meaning available, usable, or just existing). Growing populations, industries and irrigation will cause a third of the world's population to face a severe shortage of water in less than fifty years. This shortage has resulted in a lot of research and precautionary methods around the world, and in water rich countries such as Canada. The research concludes that Canada has an obligation to use water wisely to preserve water resources for future generations. .
According to Environment Canada, good water is "free from disease-causing organisms, harmful chemical substances, radioactive matter and has no bad odours or colour". The water cycle has allowed the amount of water on Earth to remain the same over the past four billion years. Recently concerns that the Earth's population may be ruining the water supply have been unveiled. Of all the water on Earth, 97.5 per cent is seawater and three-quarters of the remaining two and a half per cent is clean water locked in polar ice caps. This leaves 0.635% of usable clean water. Environment Canada clarifies that water usage must decrease: "Environmental scientists insist that the use of water must drop, perhaps by as much as 10 per cent globally over the next 25 years, to protect the water systems that sustain life for billions of people." "The average person needs only between 20 and 40 litres of water a day for drinking and sanitation, however, every Canadian uses about 326 litres of water a day," the scientists explain. The world's fresh water is gradually disappearing because of carelessness. Of the total world's freshwater supply, about one third is found underground, and when many rivers have been dammed, creating very dry land, the water cycle is disrupted causing the ground to become increasingly dry.