I’m sure you’ve asked this traveling, “Can I drink the tap water?” It is easy to get confused about where it’s safe to drink and where it’s not, especially if you’re planning a multi-destination trip. Some countries like India and Mexico are well known for unsafe tap water but where else is it a health risk? If you want a quick reference for where on Earth the water is safe we’ve got you covered with this helpful Graph.

It was created by Just the Flight and you can find the original interactive version on their website. All of the information about water safety is based on data from the CDC. The graph also shows pricing for bottled water and beer for each country as well! So if you can’t drink the water you know what you’re looking at for costs to stay hydrated. All of the details for tap water safety and costs for beer and bottled water are in individual graphics below. Read more

Fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world. Places like Southern California, Saudi Arabia, and many countries on the African continent can use all the fresh water they can get. Something like 70 percent of the Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the polar ice caps, and the ice caps calve icebergs naturally all the time. It therefore makes sense to think about towing huge icebergs to the places in the world that need fresh water the most.

It would be great if you could easily transport an iceberg. A good-sized iceberg might measure 3,000 x 1,500 x 600 feet. An iceberg that size contains somewhere around 20 billion gallons of fresh water. If 1 million people each use 10 gallons of water a day, then 20 billion gallons of water would take care of the water needs of 1 million people for more than five years. For 10 million people, it would last 200 days. It really is a lot of water.

The first question is, “Can you do it?” With today’s technology, it certainly is possible from a brute force standpoint. You can hunt for big, stable icebergs using satellites, attach tugboats to them, and drag them anywhere. However, there are two problems that you have to solve to make it work. Read more

In a market saturated with specialty coffees, soft drinks, sports drinks and energy boosters, plain water often loses its luster. As crucial as water is, it seems the majority of the population is in a dehydrated rut. 

The need for water can hardly be overstated. As humans, we are composed of approximately 70 percent of the stuff and nearly every aspect of our body’s function calls for the fluid. Water makes up much of the medium that helps our cells communicate with each other. While it’s a fact we can only survive a few days at best without water, is eight glasses a day really necessary? The answer depends on many factors, including:   Read more

The sun plays such an important role in sustaining life on Earth, but did you know that its power can also be harnessed to help clean water?

Water is essential to human life, and it’s no mystery that the sun plays an important role in the water cycle on our planet, as water moves from clouds to rain to rivers, lakes and oceans, and back again. Scientists have discovered several ways to use the sun’s energy and the processes of evaporation and condensation to help sanitize water and make it safe to drink.

One of the simpler methods involves the use of solar stills. One of the first solar stills was developed in the 19th century when mine owners in Chile faced the problem of providing drinking water for their workers; by using a sun-operated distilling plant with a large area of glassed-over wooden frames, they could evaporate the contaminated water, recondense it and produce up to 6,000 gallons (22,712 liters) of fresh water in a single day.  Read more

As we’ve said before, water is critically important to our future. It was even the subject of our fifth episode. How we can conserve water and make more efficient use of it isn’t a discussion we can put off for later — according to the UN, 783 million people don’t have sufficient access to clean water. And this isn’t just a problem for developing countries.

Drought over California.

California is facing a serious drought — perhaps the worst one the state has seen in five centuries. It’s been three straight dry years for California and scientists like paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram say the trend could continue into the future. Pair that bad news with the fact that many places depend upon old urban water infrastructure in poor repair and you could have a major crisis looming in the near future. Read more