FLORIDA — It’s common knowledge that water is critical to our survival. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a person can survive without water for only about three days. And with water representing an average of 50% of our body mass, we literally wouldn’t exist without this precious resource.

But the need for water, and our desire for products in which it is a key ingredient, goes well beyond those two issues and numbers in the thousands. The saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” popularized by singer-songwriter Joni Mills, could certainly apply to water, and captures the spirit of the annual Imagine a Day Without Water campaign, scheduled this year for Thursday, October 16.

The campaign is an initiative of The Value of Water program, staffed by the US Water Alliance. “Each year, Imagine a Day Without Water invites us to see how crucial our need for water really is by visualizing life without it, just for one day,” according to the campaign’s website. “Very quickly, we learn how indispensable water is in our everyday lives, and how our health, environment, and economy depend on reliable access to clean water.”

The impact of a day without water could range from minor inconveniences to major crises. Here are just a few examples:

A Personal Problem

You wake up, head to the bathroom and reach for your toothbrush, but there’s no water to brush or rinse. You head to the kitchen, ready to prep your cup of joe, but there’s no water to brew. You jump in the shower, eager to be refreshed, but there’s not a drop to be found. And that’s just the start of your day! No coolant for your car’s engine, no spray to wash the bugs off the windshield, no coffee at work or toilets that flush.

A Production Predicament
Farming and agriculture are major users of ground and surface water in the US, with irrigation accounting for almost half of freshwater withdrawals between 2010 and 2020. Companies worldwide identify water issues as a critical business concern. Water is essential for a range of industrial processes and support functions, facility operations, and as an ingredient for many products. Going just one day without it would put billions of dollars’ worth of economic activity at risk.

A Loss of Power
Serving as the energy source for hydropower electricity, water is extremely critical to the global power system. It also serves as a vital coolant for other power plants that generate electricity from sources like coal, gas, oil, steam and nuclear fuel. Power outages caused by storms and other natural disasters would pale in comparison to the loss of power associated with a lack of water for these purposes.

A Public Health and Safety Crisis
A day without water would create a public health and safety crisis due to the impacts that would limit the ability of first responders and medical personnel to do their jobs. Structure fires which could have been quickly brought under control by the fire department would burn out of control. Medical personnel, who require water for everything from sterilization to hydration to general sanitation, would put their patients and themselves at risk.

After we Imagine a Day Without Water, let’s be grateful we have it and work to be good stewards of this lifesaving and lifegiving resource. For more information, visit thevalueofwater.org/imagineaday.

The Florida Governmental Utility Authority (FGUA) owns and operates almost 100 water and wastewater utility systems in 14 Florida counties, providing service to more than 120,000 customer connections. Counties served by FGUA include Citrus, Hillsborough, Lake, Marion, Orange, Pasco, Polk, Seminole, Hardee, Lee, Alachua, Flagler, Putnam and Volusia.