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Water is necessary for all forms of life and has been forever. Water is necessary in the diets of all living things, shaping landscapes, and weather. Water is important to our environment and ecosystem in many different ways. It allows plants to grow, organisms to flourish, and habitats in which they live in to change. All living things need water to live, thus making water important for animals to live in specific place. Next, plants need water, which feeds the plants. Then animals eat those animals and the food chain continues. Next, water has the power to carve canyons, move sand bars, flatten forests, collapse cliffs, etc. Overall, our Earth would not look the way it does if it weren’t for water. This provides evidence for why the issues like those of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon are so important. 50 years ago the river was healthy and flowing all the way to the ocean, now it cannot do so due to issues like over extraction of water from the river. The Colorado River Basin. http://mountainwestnews.org/images/MWN-Basin-Map.jpg
There are many unwanted side effects of the water levels dropping in the Colorado River. For one, the low water levels cause more competition for fish for places to feed and live causing fish to die. This reduces food for predators, which drives them away and before you know it, there are no more animals. Next, because of low water, more rapids appear along the river, not only does this change the landscape of the canyon and banks of the river much quicker than usual, it makes white water rafting more dangerous, impacting rafting companies the guests they receive. This being said, there are many things we can do to help. Conserve water; take shorter showers, water the lawn and car less often or naturally with the rain, try to do less loads of laundry and dishes. And if you see a drippy or running faucet, turn it off. By doing things like this we can impact the Colorado river as well, but in a positive way. The Image above shows a “bathtub ring” of mineral deposits on the cliffs of lake Mead, showing how much water has disappeared from the Colorado River. http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2012/finalwebsite/images/col6.jpg
