These systems of pipes have even bigger side-effects. Thanks to them in the past years, we have drastically increased the production of food, but also they made it possible for us to turn wetlands into farmable land.

But this is not the biggest problem. In the past years, the usage of fertilizers has skyrocketed. This makes the soil poisoned. This poison mixes with the water irrigating the crops and then reaches the near rivers, then people’s homes. This pollution slowly makes its way to the oceans.

And even they are not safe from it. There are a lot of possibilities to solve this problem. Like we can use fertilizers only where they are needed. Or we can create buffers out of the vegetation to filter the water before entering a river.  But nothing of this is being done.

This doesn’t sound that bad, but wetlands are precious for us and all other animals. They are incredibly effective at clearing water and preventing floods.

In the past 100 years, we have lost somewhere around half and ¾ of all wetlands on Earth. We are losing almost 100 000 square kilometers of wetlands each year.

The question is whether we can strike a balance between sustaining nature and sustaining ourselves.

H

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The water

problem

umans use enormous quantities of water every day. But the truth is that most of this water never reaches them. Over 70% of the water one person needs every day goes for irrigating the food he or she eats.

But ironically, farmers do use all of this water and, at the same time, spend a fortune on draining their fields.

Most plants need oxygen, which they absorb through their leaves and also their roots. In the soil, usually, there are tiny air pockets from which the plants take oxygen. But when the soil is too wet for too long, the plants can drown.

This is the reason why modern farmers install big channels and kilometers of pipes under their fields to pump out the excess water. However, this by itself, leads to a lot of problems.

During heavy rain, the water falling on the fields can drain very fast. This means it will reach the nearby rivers very fast and may contribute to flooding the area. These floods can damage infrastructure and people’s homes.