In most cases, you need just a tiny amount of a catalyst to make a difference. They are truly a fundamental part of life. Many proteins in your body are actually catalysts called enzymes, which do everything from creating signals that move your limbs to helping digest your food. Catalysts are integral in making plastics and many other manufactured items.Įven the human body runs on catalysts. Catalysis is the backbone of many industrial processes, which use chemical reactions to turn raw materials into useful products. What is catalysis?Ĭatalysts speed up a chemical reaction by lowering the amount of energy you need to get one going. They turn milk into yogurt and petroleum into plastic milk jugs, CDs and bicycle helmets. They clean your contact lenses every night. Catalysts break down paper pulp to produce the smooth paper in your magazine. All the parts of your sandwich-bread, cheddar cheese, roast turkey. The commitment of governments to build, support and maintain institutional capacity related to groundwater is crucial.Almost everything in your daily life depends on catalysts: cars, Post-It notes, laundry detergent, beer. In many countries, the general lack of groundwater professionals among the staff of institutions and local and national government, as well as insufficient mandates, financing and support of groundwater departments or agencies, hamper effective groundwater management. Reinforce human, material and financial resources It is imperative that governments assume their role as resource custodians in view of the common-good aspects of groundwater to ensure that access to – and profit from – groundwater are distributed equitably and that the resource remains available for future generations.ģ. Preventing groundwater contamination requires suitable land use and appropriate environmental regulations, especially across aquifer recharge areas.
Enforcement efforts and the prosecution of polluters, however, are often challenging due to groundwater’s invisible nature. As a matter of corporate social responsibility, private companies are highly encouraged to share these data and information with public sector professionals.Īs groundwater pollution is practically irreversible, it must be avoided. Particularly, the oil, gas and mining industries already possess a great deal of data, information and knowledge on the composition of the deeper domains underground, including aquifers. To improve this, the acquisition of data and information, which is usually under the responsibility of national (and local) groundwater agencies, could be complemented by the private sector. The report raises the issue of the lack of groundwater data and emphasizes that groundwater monitoring is often a ‘neglected area’. For example, including groundwater storage and abstraction as part of urban water supply planning would add security and flexibility in cases of seasonal variation. In terms of climate change adaptation, the capacity of aquifer systems to store seasonal or episodic surface water surpluses can be exploited to improve year-round freshwater availability, as aquifers incur substantially lower evaporative losses than surface reservoirs. The development of groundwater could act as a catalyst for economic growth by increasing the extent of irrigated areas and therefore improving agricultural yields and crop diversity. Only 3% of farmland is equipped for irrigation, and only 5% of that area uses groundwater, compared to 59% and 57% respectively in North America and South Asia.Īs the report points out, this low use is not due to a lack of renewable groundwater (which is often abundant), but rather by a lack of investments in infrastructure, institutions, trained professionals and knowledge of the resource. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunities offered by the vast aquifers remain largely underexploited. However, consideration for future generations and for the economic, financial and environmental aspects of storage depletion should not be overlooked. Groundwater is often the most cost-effectiveway of providing a secure supply of water to rural villages.Ĭertain regions, such as Saharan Africa and the Middle East for example, hold substantial quantities of non-renewable groundwater supplies that can be extracted in order to maintain water security. The quality of groundwater is generally good, which means it can be used safely and affordably, without requiring advanced levels of treatment. Office of International Standards and Legal Affairs.
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