water essay definition

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Essay on Water in English (500+ Words)

Water is a fundamental and essential component of life. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and transparent liquid, and it covers over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. It is a vital resource that is necessary for the survival of all living organisms, including humans, animals, and plants. Water is not only a basic necessity for life but is also essential for agriculture, transportation, industry, and recreation.

Water has several unique properties that make it an important substance. For example, water is a universal solvent, meaning it can dissolve many different types of substances, including salt, sugar, and minerals. This property allows water to carry essential nutrients and minerals to living organisms. Water is also an excellent coolant and has a high heat capacity, making it an ideal substance for regulating body temperature.

Water exists in three different states: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (water vapor). It is the only substance that can exist in all three states naturally. This unique property of water is significant as it allows for the natural cycling of water, which is crucial for the survival of all living organisms.

One of the most significant uses of water is for drinking and human consumption. Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right, and unfortunately, many people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. Waterborne diseases are a significant cause of illness and death in many developing countries, and access to clean drinking water is essential for reducing the spread of these diseases. It is crucial that we work to ensure that everyone has access to safe and clean drinking water.

Agriculture is another significant use of water. Water is necessary for the growth of crops, and without it, agricultural production would be impossible. Irrigation is the process of artificially providing water to crops, and it is essential for maintaining agricultural production in areas with low rainfall. However, improper irrigation practices can lead to soil erosion, waterlogging, and salinization, which can be detrimental to the environment.

The industrial sector is another significant user of water. Water is used in a variety of industrial processes, including manufacturing, power generation, and mining. In many cases, water is used as a coolant or a solvent in these processes. However, industrial activities can also lead to water pollution, which can have severe environmental consequences.

Water transportation is another important use of water. Rivers, lakes, and oceans are used for transporting goods and people all around the world. Water transportation is particularly important for trade, as it allows for the movement of goods between countries and continents.

Recreation is another important use of water. Many people enjoy swimming, fishing, boating, and other water-related activities. Water recreation is not only enjoyable but can also be beneficial for mental and physical health. However, it is important to be aware of the potential dangers of water recreation, such as drowning, and take appropriate safety measures.

Despite the many benefits of water, it is also a significant source of environmental problems. Water pollution is one of the most significant environmental issues facing the world today. Human activities such as industrialization, urbanization, and agriculture have all contributed to the pollution of water sources. Water pollution can have severe environmental consequences, such as the destruction of aquatic ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and the spread of waterborne diseases.

Climate change is also affecting the availability and quality of water resources. Rising global temperatures are leading to changes in precipitation patterns, which are affecting the availability of water in many regions. Climate change is also leading to sea level rise, which is causing saltwater intrusion into freshwater sources in coastal areas.

Importance of Water

• Essential for life: Water is essential for all forms of life on Earth. Without water, humans, animals, and plants cannot survive.
• Drinking water: Access to clean and safe drinking water is crucial for human health. Lack of access to clean drinking water can lead to various waterborne diseases.
• Agriculture: Water is essential for agriculture, which provides food for the world’s population. Agriculture accounts for the largest amount of water use globally.
• Industry: Water is used in various industrial processes, such as manufacturing, mining, and energy production.
• Climate regulation: Water plays a crucial role in regulating the Earth’s climate. Water bodies absorb and store heat, which helps to regulate temperature.
• Transportation: Water transportation is an important mode of transportation for goods and people.
• Recreation: Water bodies provide opportunities for recreational activities like swimming, fishing, and boating, which contribute to the tourism industry.

In conclusion, water is an essential component of life. It is a vital resource that is necessary for the survival of all living organisms, and it is also important for agriculture, transportation, industry, and recreation.

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Essay on Water Is Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on Water Is Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Water Is Life

Importance of water.

Water is a vital resource for all living beings. It is essential for our survival. Without water, life on earth would not exist.

Role in Our Body

Water makes up about 70% of our body. It helps in digestion, circulation, and maintaining body temperature.

Water in Nature

Water forms rivers, oceans, and rains that nourish the earth. It is crucial for the growth of plants and animals.

Conservation

Water is a limited resource. We must conserve it to ensure a healthy future for our planet.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Water Is Life
• Paragraph on Water Is Life
• Speech on Water Is Life

250 Words Essay on Water Is Life

Introduction.

Water, a simple molecule composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, is the lifeblood of our planet. It is the most abundant and essential resource, without which life as we know it would not exist.

The Essence of Life

Water is the fundamental building block of life. It is involved in every bodily function, from digestion and circulation to temperature regulation and waste removal. The human body is approximately 60% water, reflecting its importance in maintaining life and health.

Water and the Environment

Water’s role extends beyond the individual organism. It is integral to maintaining Earth’s delicate ecosystems. Water cycles through our environment, from the atmosphere to the earth and back again, supporting plant and animal life, shaping landscapes, and influencing climate patterns.

The Social and Economic Impact of Water

Water also plays a significant role in social and economic structures. It is vital for agriculture, industry, and energy production. Access to clean water is a determinant of societal health and prosperity. Yet, water scarcity, pollution, and mismanagement pose major challenges, with profound implications for human rights, social equity, and global stability.

In conclusion, water is life. It is the essence of biological function, the driver of ecological systems, and the underpinning of social and economic structures. As we face a future of increasing water scarcity and pollution, understanding and respecting the critical role of water is more important than ever. We must strive to conserve and protect this invaluable resource, for it is not just water, but life itself.

500 Words Essay on Water Is Life

The essence of life: water.

Water, the most vital natural resource, is the lifeblood of every living organism on Earth. From microscopic organisms to the largest mammals, all life forms depend on water for survival. This universal solvent, often referred to as the “elixir of life,” performs essential roles in biological processes, climatic regulation, and economic development.

Water: The Biological Imperative

Water is crucial to the existence and sustenance of life on Earth. It comprises about 60-70% of a human body, acting as a medium for biochemical reactions, a transporter of nutrients and waste, and a temperature regulator. It is the primary component of cells, tissues, and organs, and without it, life as we know it would cease to exist.

In the plant kingdom, water is instrumental for photosynthesis, the process by which plants produce food. It also facilitates the transportation of nutrients from the roots to other parts of the plant. Hence, the absence of water would disrupt the food chain, leading to catastrophic effects on all life forms.

Water and Climate

Water plays a significant role in regulating Earth’s climate. The hydrological cycle, involving evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and runoff, is a key driver of weather patterns. Oceans, which hold about 97% of Earth’s water, absorb heat from the sun and distribute it around the globe through ocean currents, thereby moderating global temperatures.

Furthermore, water in the form of ice at the poles and high altitudes reflects sunlight back into space, helping to stabilize Earth’s temperature. The melting of this ice due to global warming is a cause for concern as it could lead to a rise in sea levels and drastic changes in climate.

Economic Importance of Water

Water is indispensable for economic development. It is essential for agriculture, which is the primary source of livelihood for a large portion of the global population. Industries such as power generation, manufacturing, and tourism also rely heavily on water. Moreover, waterways serve as important routes for trade and transportation, contributing significantly to the global economy.

Water Scarcity and Conservation

Despite its abundance, water scarcity is a pressing issue in many parts of the world due to factors like overpopulation, overexploitation, pollution, and climate change. This underscores the need for efficient water management and conservation.

Water conservation can be achieved through strategies like rainwater harvesting, recycling and reusing wastewater, and adopting water-efficient technologies. It is also crucial to create awareness about the importance of water and the need for its conservation.

In conclusion, water is not just a life-sustaining resource but the very essence of life. It is a critical component of biological processes, a key climate regulator, and an economic catalyst. However, the growing water scarcity necessitates urgent action to conserve and manage this invaluable resource. As we recognize water’s integral role in our lives, it becomes our collective responsibility to ensure its availability for future generations. After all, water is life.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Water Conservation — Importance of Water Conservation

Importance of Water Conservation

• Categories: Water Conservation

About this sample

Words: 880 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 880 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, the significance of saving water, methods of saving water, case studies/examples, challenges in water conservation and protection efforts, a. water conservation practices at homes.

• Installing water-saving fixtures and appliances, such as low-flow showerheads, faucets, and toilets.
• Fixing leaks and reducing water wastage by taking shorter showers, turning off the tap while brushing, and fixing dripping taps.
• Implementing efficient water usage habits such as using a broom instead of a hose to clean outdoor areas and washing laundry and dishes only with full loads.

B. Agriculture Water Management

• Implementing efficient irrigation techniques such as drip irrigation and precision irrigation, which reduce water wastage by up to 30%.
• Crop selection and rotation to optimize water usage by selecting crops that require less water and reducing water-intensive crops, such as rice and cotton.
• Using precision farming methods such as soil moisture sensors, weather forecasts, and crop modeling to optimize water usage.

C. Industrial Water Conservation

• Recycling and reusing water in manufacturing processes by using closed-loop systems.
• Implementing water-efficient technologies such as water-efficient boilers, cooling towers, and dry lubrication processes.
• Promoting water stewardship among industries by adopting best practices and engaging in water conservation efforts.

D. Government Policies and Programs

• Providing incentives for water-saving practices such as tax credits, rebates, and grants for installing water-efficient appliances and fixtures.
• Implementing water regulations and enforceable laws such as water pricing, water rights, and zoning regulations to ensure efficient water use.
• Educating and creating awareness among citizens through campaigns such as the WaterSense program, which educates consumers on water-efficient products.
• United Nations. (2021, March 22). Water and Sanitation. https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/water-and-sanitation/
• WaterSense. (n.d.). Water-Efficient Products. https://www.epa.gov/watersense/water-efficient-products
• Valsecchi, G. B., & Faggian, R. (2019). The Alliance for Water Stewardship certification program in the Netherlands: measuring the performance of a water sustainability standard for industries. Water, 11(12), 2608. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11122608
• Maheshwari, B. L. (2019). Rainwater harvesting impacts on crop yield: a review with a case study of Tamil Nadu, India. Water, 11(5), 1018. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051018

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Water Is Life Essay

Essay on Water Is Life - We must comprehend the value of water in our life and the need to preserve it. There are numerous easy ways to prevent water waste, including taking shorter showers, watering plants with RO waste, cleaning cars with a wet cloth rather than a hose, etc. Here are 100, 200 and 500 word essay on “Water Is Life”

All life forms on earth require water in some capacity in order to function. It is safe to claim that the existence of water makes Earth the only planet capable of supporting life. One of our most important resources on earth is water. Water is essential to life, and we cannot exist without it. Not just humans, all forms of life on Earth consumes water in some form or other, as water is essential for organisms to survive. Here are some sample essays on “Water Is Life”

100 Words Essay On Water Is Life

Life is water. Water is a necessity for all life on Earth. Animals need water to quench their thirst, plants need water to draw nutrients from the soil and keep nourished, and people need water for a variety of activities like drinking, cooking, cleaning, and washing, to mention a few.

Numerous species live in water as well. Agriculture uses a significant portion of the water on Earth. It is primarily used to irrigate farms to maintain soil fertility and provide sufficient water for the crops. It is also used for raising animals. There is a lot of water in our world. As a result, all the needs mentioned earlier have been met for centuries.

200 Words Essay On Water Is Life

On Earth, there is an abundance of water. Both above and below the surface of the Earth, it exists. Rivers, ponds, seas, and oceans are just a few of the water bodies found on the surface of the Earth. Due to the sun's intense heat, the surface water evaporates. It moves through the atmosphere in the form of clouds that eventually break and fall as rain on the surface of the Earth. As a result, the water cycle, a constant natural process, replenishes the water that evaporates. This keeps the ecosystem in good shape and makes it worthwhile to live on our planet.

Usage Of Water

Agriculture, business, manufacturing, and families all require water. The quantity of water used in each sector will vary depending on the region of the world you reside. Water use significantly greatly between nations as well. Since it is frequently employed throughout some stages of the production process, water is also used in industry and manufacturing. Water is used to transport, process, chill, and dilute items.

Water can be used in large quantities during resource extraction or mining to remove minerals or other materials from the earth. Water is used in power plants to cool down hot machinery. It offers a venue for leisure activities like swimming, rowing, and water skiing. Water is also used to put out fires in case of emergencies.

500 Words Essay On Water Is Life

Water is necessary for our survival as well as for a healthy and happy life. It's time for everyone to wake up and understand how important water conservation is. In other words, the human species couldn't survive in a world without water. All plants and animals fall under this same category. In fact, without water, the entire planet will suffer. To gather rainwater, we must also employ the rainwater harvesting technique. In this way, we can conserve water.

Uses Of Water By Humans, Plants And Animals

Water has many purposes for humans.

Water consumption is essential for the survival of all living things. So, drinking water is one of its primary functions. Cooking also involves the usage of water.

Without using water, it is impossible to clean a home, workplace, car, piece of machinery, or anything else for that matter. Every cleaning task calls for water. Additionally, water is needed for washing dishes, laundry, and other items.

Agriculture uses a significant portion of the water on Earth. It is primarily used to irrigate farms in order to maintain soil fertility and provide sufficient water for the crops. It is also used for raising animals. Water is used in industries for several reasons. Water is used for various product manufacturing processes. It is utilised in the processing, manufacturing, and transporting many different items. The pulp and paper industry and the engineering sector are examples of businesses requiring a lot of water.

The Biological Need For Water

By serving as a solvent, water is an essential component of the majority of biological activities. Food is absorbed into our bodies as solutions using water as the solvent. Additionally, a lot of waste materials are eliminated as solutions through sweat and urine. Our body temperature is regulated by water. We consume a lot of water when it's hot outside. This keeps our body temperature constant. Additionally, sweat contains water that evaporates from our body's surface.

My Experience

I was on a beach vacation with my family, and we spent most of our days swimming in the ocean and playing in the waves. One day, we decided to rent a boat and snorkelling in a nearby coral reef. The water was crystal clear, and the colours of the fish and coral were so vibrant and beautiful. After snorkelling, we stopped at a small beachside restaurant for lunch, where we enjoyed fresh seafood and cold drinks while watching the waves roll in. It was a memorable day, and I will always cherish the time I spent in the water on that trip. This trip reminded me that one of my best memories was only possible because water exists. It showed me the life that water holds below land, like coral reefs and also how beautiful animals exist, like turtles.

So, to summarise, water is necessary for plants, humans and animals. Water makes Earth the only planet capable of supporting life. One of the most important resources we have on the earth is this all-purpose solvent. Water is essential to life, and we cannot exist without it. After all, it covers about 70% of the planet.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
• Entertainment
• Manufacturing
• Information Technology

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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• Biology Article

Water is a precious natural resource. All living things need water for their survival. We cannot imagine life without water. Let it be animals or plants they require water to complete their daily metabolic activities. Plants require water to synthesize their food from the process of photosynthesis.

On average, an individual uses 600 to 700 litres in a day. We all can live without food for days together but cannot even imagine surviving without water, even plants become dry and shed their leaves without water.

Let us learn some more importance to water.

What is Water?

Water is one of the natural resources, which are found in an adequate amount. It is an essential source for the existence of life on the planet earth. It is widely used for various purposes such as drinking, washing, bathing, cleaning, cooking, irrigation, and other industrial and domestic uses.

Sources of Water

There are various sources of water. About 97% of the water on the Earth’s surface is covered with water. The three main sources of water are:

• Groundwater – This includes water bodies like Wells and Springs.
• Surface water – This includes different water bodies like Reservoirs, Rivers, Streams, Ponds, Lakes and Tanks.

Importance of Water

We all need water for different daily activities including:

• Domestic Purposes include bathing, cleaning, cooking, drinking, and washing.
• Agricultural applications include irrigation, farming, gardening, and frost control.
• Other Industrial Applications.

Apart from this, we drink water to:

• Stay hydrated
• Lubricate Joints
• Regulate the body’s temperature
• Transport nutrients and other waste in the body.
• Balance the loss of water from the digestive tract and body tissues.

Water Cycle

Water never stops moving. The water cycle mainly describes the process of the continuous movement of water from the surface of the earth and it is usually carried out in four different stages. The entire cycle is controlled by the sun and is also known as the hydrological cycle

Evaporation : In this stage, the heat from the sun heats up the water from oceans and other water bodies and evaporates the water in the form of vapours which rises up and form clouds.

Condensation : The water vapour’s in the clouds cools down.

Precipitation : The cooled water vapours in the clouds form droplets and released in the form of Precipitation back to the earth surface in the form of rain or snow.

Collection : The rainwater runs off to the ground and gets collected into the river, ponds, well, and back to the sea.

As mentioned above, about 97% of the water on the Earth’s surface is covered with water. Only 2 to 3% is available and safe for drinking. Rest of the water is saltwater and other two-thirds of the Earth’s freshwater is frozen in glaciers and these water resources are mostly inaccessible for human use.

This is the reason, we all need to reduce wasting this natural resource and conserve water for future requirements.

Also, read about How Can We Conserve Water?

Stay tuned with BYJU’S to learn more in detail about Water, Conservation of Water and other related topics @  BYJU’S Biology .

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Select the correct answer and click on the “Finish” button Check your score and answers at the end of the quiz

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Is sea water also counted as a source of water??

Yes, Suface water – Sea water

Wow, what an amazing fact, I have an exam tomorrow I can have a good learning time now.

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Essay On Water

Water is a tasteless and odorless substance which constitutes about 71 percent of the earth’s surface. All living organisms depend on water for their survival. It consists of two molecules of hydrogen atom and one molecule of oxygen. The boiling point for water is 100 degrees and melting point is 0 degrees. Water can change into different forms of matter such as ice when cooled and vapour when heated. It is also called the universal solvent. Water is used for drinking, washing and agricultural purposes. Most of the water goes into drinking and irrigation practices. There are many water resources such as ocean, river, lake, pond, etc on the earth. 

The physical properties of water are that it is odourless, tasteless and transparent liquid. There is no particular shape of the water as it can take the form of any vessel or container. The plants and animals need water to survive. Plants use water for photosynthesis whereas animals drink water from the reservoir such as rivers or lakes. Apart from drinking, humans use water for industrial and agricultural purposes. Human life exists where there is water. It is not possible for living organisms to live without water. In this essay on water, we will discuss its significance and conservation practices. 

Significance Of Water 

We find abundant water resources on the earth. However, some amount of water is useful for drinking and the rest is unfit for use. It is possible for living organisms to live without food but not water. They need water to function properly. Due to disposal of wastes in the reservoirs, the water is getting polluted. It results in water borne diseases and other chronic health issues. Most importantly, water is used for daily household work such as cleaning utensils, washing clothes, bathing, cooking, watering plants, etc. Apart from this, there is huge demand for water for irrigation and other agricultural purposes. Some of the uses of water are mentioned below:

• Agricultural purposes: Water is the most important resource in agriculture. It is used for the growth of crops. Due to good water supply, there will be an increase in the yield. This will undoubtedly improve the productivity of food grains. Farmers are dependent on water for irrigation and agricultural practices. This is the main source of livelihood for the farmers. Besides this, water is used for gardening and fisheries. 
• Industrial purposes: Many industries are being established to produce goods. This production of goods requires large amounts of water. It is used for manufacture and production. It is also used for cleaning, processing and cooling of goods in the industries.  Due to this, there is an increase in the employment of people as well as economic growth. 
• Household purposes: Water is used for household activities such as washing and cleaning. All people are dependent on water for their survival. People use water to plant trees, wash utensils, drink water, bathing, cooking, washing clothes, etc. 
• Plants: Water is useful for growth of the plants. It helps in photosynthesis. Therefore, it is an important source for the plants. 
• Animals: Apart from humans, animals are also dependent on water for their survival. They drink from nearby water resources such as rivers or lakes. 
• Thermal purposes : Water is used for generating electricity. This provides employment to the people as well as electricity for all the houses. 
• Mining purposes: Water is used for the extraction of minerals. These are used in the industries for economic growth. 
• Recreation purposes: Water is used for recreational purposes such as swimming,  surfing, boating, water parks, etc. 
• Commercial purposes: Water is used for various other commercial purposes such as car washing, construction of buildings, fire extinguishers, etc. 

Also read: Along with water, food is one of the basic necessities, so read food essay and water pollution essay .

Conservation Of Water 

We all know that water is used in day to day life. How much water is used on a daily basis? We consume and use water for many activities. Though the earth is covered with water, all are not useful for drinking purposes. The rest of the water is from the ocean which is salty. Therefore, it is important to conserve the fresh water resources that are available for drinking water. Due to anthropogenic activities, the water is getting polluted drastically. The water resources are getting contaminated with industrial  and other commercial wastes. In recent times, we are experiencing a shortage of water.

Due to urbanization, there is growing demand for water in production and manufacturing units. In this regard, water has to be used sustainably keeping the future generation in mind. If the water is not used wisely, then there might be a shortage of clean water in the future. As a result of this, there can be reduction of agricultural yields, health issues and other developmental problems. Therefore, it is important to conserve water and use it wisely. Some of the ways to conserve water are mentioned below:

• Turn off the tap if not in use.
• Fix the leakage of the tubes in order to save the water. 
• Monitor the use of water on a daily basis. 
• Use a single bucket of water for bathing. 
• Reuse the water for gardening.
• Turn off the tap while brushing teeth. 
• Create awareness on saving water among people. 
• Check for the leakage of water in the house and garden area. 
• Promote water harvesting in communities.
• Conduct capacity building programs to save water. 
• Do not waste water while drinking. 
• Use the required amount of water for household purposes. 
• Use an energy efficient machine to wash clothes and dishes in order to save water. 
• Take shower for less time. 
• Avoid wastage of  running water. 
• Participate in water conservation programs. 

Water is the most important substance made up of hydrogen and oxygen. It is basically a transparent, odorless and tasteless fluid. Water constitutes about 71 percent of the earth’s surface. It is used for drinking, irrigation, agriculture and other industrial purposes. 

We hope this essay on water was useful to you. Check essays for kids to explore more topics. 

Frequently Asked Questions On Essay On Water

What is an essay on water.

It is a short write up on water which is a tasteless and transparent liquid. It is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen molecule.

What are the uses of water?

Water is used for agriculture, industrial, thermal, irrigation, household, mining and other commercial purposes.

What are the ways to conserve water?

Water can be conserved by using them sustainably, fixing the leakage of taps, monitoring the supply of water, etc.

Short Essay on Water [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In this lesson today, I will discuss how exactly you can write short essays on the important topic ‘Water.’ There will be three sets of essays in this following session, each within different word limits. 

Short Essay on Water in 100 Words

Every living being on the earth needs some basic things for its survival. It includes food, water, shelter, and money as well for humans. Water is by far the principal need of living beings. About two-third part of the earth is covered with water.

Water is available in several forms on earth. Some amount is frozen in glaciers, while the larger amount of water is salty. Fresh water on earth is very little. We need water for every purpose. Drinking, cooking, bathing, washing are the basic needs, while water is also used by bigger industries to run their machines. Water is an important source of electricity. So, being the most valuable resource water must never be wasted.

Short Essay on Water in 200 Words

Water is the most significant resource among everything that humans and animals can receive. Water helps a living being to live for longer days, even when food is scarce. It is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature. Water has enormous benefits and is the life of the earth. Its medicinal properties cure several ailments in our bodies. Without it, we cannot imagine living a second on earth. The world will be a huge desert if the water on earth is destroyed.

Our earth is unique in its creation. About two-third part of it is covered with water, while the rest of it is land. If we take a deeper study, then a major part of the water is either frozen as glaciers or is present in the oceans as saltwater. The reserve of fresh water on earth is a limited amount. It can exhaust at any moment. Hence we must spend water wisely. We need water for drinking, bathing, washing clothes and utensils, cooking, cultivating, etc.

Big industries require lots of water to run their machines. Today due to the scarcity of coal, hydroelectricity is the new way of generating electrical power. This process requires huge amounts of water. In several ways, water is our saviour. It is the beauty of nature as a wonderful waterfall or a stream, and also the help to a thirsty person.

Short Essay on Water in 400 Words

Water is the basic strength behind all life forces on earth. It is the necessity of every life and is the biggest shelter for us to survive. If there is no water suddenly on earth, then it will only be a lifeless planet filled with dust and stone.

The green earth will become a long stretch of a desert without this component. Water forms about two-thirds of the earth, while only one-third is given for the land. Yet how much greater the amount of water on earth be, the availability of fresh water on earth is the minimum.

A large amount of water is left unused. It is either frozen as glaciers or is present as salty ocean water. This water cannot be applied for regular usage. So we must understand the wise utilization of water. It is a scanty but most important resource. So only its proper utilization can make it sufficient.

Water is the source of all activities in our lives. From the olden days, human beings have always tried to live near water bodies. Because those places are fertile for cultivation. A vast desert-like Egypt also survives because of the river Nile. The Ganges in India is not only a water body but one of the most sacred rivers in the world. The most important use of water is in agriculture.

Every plant needs it to grow. If crops do not receive adequate water, then they will be stunted. We use water for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing. A living body needs lots of water intake. Insufficient water intake can result in lots of ailments. Water is beneficial for this medical property. Besides these, all industries need water for producing electricity and running the turbines. Water is the potential of civilization. A civilization operates because of the availability of water

But at present, we are observing the pollution of water bodies. It is dangerous for all living beings to survive if all water sources are contaminated. Polluted water is a threat to the earth. Households, industries, insufficient cleanliness, lack of awareness, all are enough to increase pollution in several degrees. With increased consumption of water, it is being equally polluted. Thus many aquatic plants and animals, humans, other land animals are regularly dying after intaking the dirty water.

This is harming our ecosystem. So we must preserve freshwater. It is important and is available in little amount. Clean water can exhaust at any moment. It is our duty even to preserve the rainwater and use it. Every drop of water means life. A correct utility of it is the best way.

So, that was all about writing short essays on Water. In this session above, I have adopted a simplistic approach to writing all these essays for a better understanding of all kinds of students. You can let me know your queries by commenting down below. If you want to read more such lessons on various important topics regarding English composition, keep browsing our website. Thank you. 

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What Is the Water Cycle?

Water can be found all over Earth in the ocean, on land and in the atmosphere. The water cycle is the path that all water follows as it moves around our planet.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Data source: NASA's Earth Observatory

On Earth, you can find water in all three states of matter: solid , liquid and gas . Liquid water is found in Earth’s oceans, rivers, lakes, streams—and even in the soil and underground. Solid ice is found in glaciers , snow, and at the North and South Poles . Water vapor—a gas—is found in Earth’s atmosphere.

How does water travel from a glacier to the ocean to a cloud? That’s where the water cycle comes in.

The Water Cycle

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Sun’s heat causes glaciers and snow to melt into liquid water. This water goes into oceans, lakes and streams. Water from melting snow and ice also goes into the soil. There, it supplies water for plants and the groundwater that we drink.

Snow falling on a glacier during winter months usually replaces any water that melts away in the summer. However, due to Earth’s overall warming , most glaciers today are losing more ice than they regain, causing them to shrink over time.

How does water get into the atmosphere? There are two main ways this happens:

• Heat from the Sun causes water to evaporate from oceans, lakes and streams. Evaporation occurs when liquid water on Earth’s surface turns into water vapor in our atmosphere.
• Water from plants and trees also enters the atmosphere. This is called transpiration .

Warm water vapor rises up through Earth’s atmosphere. As the water vapor rises higher and higher, the cool air of the atmosphere causes the water vapor to turn back into liquid water, creating clouds. This process is called condensation .

When a cloud becomes full of liquid water, it falls from the sky as rain or snow—also known as precipitation . Rain and snow then fill lakes and streams, and the process starts all over again.

Clouds, like these over the savannah in Nairobi, Kenya, form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses back into liquid water. Credit: Department of State

Why Do We Care About the Water Cycle?

We care about the water cycle because water is necessary for all living things. NASA satellites orbiting Earth right now are helping us to understand what is happening with water on our planet.

Water in the Soil

Humans need water to drink, and to water the plants that grow our food. NASA has a satellite called SMAP —short for Soil Moisture Active Passive —that measures how much water is in the top 2 inches (5 cm) of Earth’s soil . This can help us understand the relationship between water in the soil and severe weather conditions, such as droughts.

Water in the Atmosphere

NASA’s CloudSat mission studies water in our atmosphere in the form of clouds. CloudSat gathers information about clouds and how they play a role in Earth’s climate. Also, the international satellite called the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) observes when, where and how much it rains and snows on Earth.

Water in the Oceans

As Earth’s climate becomes warmer, land ice at the North and South Poles starts melting. The water then flows into the ocean, causing sea level to rise. NASA’s Jason-3 mission—short for Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network-3 —orbits Earth collecting information about sea level and ocean temperature. This helps track how the ocean responds to Earth’s changing climate.

NASA is also tracking how Earth’s water moves all around our planet. This is the work of the GRACE-FO —or Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow On —mission. It tracks the movement of water from one month to the next, and can even measure changes in deep groundwater hundreds of feet below Earth’s surface.

NASA’s Aqua satellite also collects a large amount of information about Earth’s water cycle, including water in the oceans, clouds, sea ice, land ice and snow cover.

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• Water Pollution Essay

Water Pollution and How it Harms the Environment

Global pollution is a problem. Pollution can spread to remote areas where no one lives, despite the fact that urban areas are typically more polluted than the countryside. Air pollution, water pollution, and land pollution are the three main categories of pollution. Some contaminated water has a terrible smell, a muddy appearance, and floating trash. Some contaminated water appears clean, but it contains dangerous substances that you can't see or smell.

Together, developed and developing nations must fight to conserve the environment for present and future generations. Today, we dig deep into the subject of Water Pollution. This article can be an introduction to water pollution for kids as we will read many things such as the causes of water pollution further in the article.

What is Water Pollution?

Water contamination occurs when pollutants pollute water sources and make the water unfit for use in drinking, cooking, cleaning, swimming, and other activities. Chemicals, garbage, bacteria, and parasites are examples of pollutants. Water is eventually damaged by all types of pollution. Lakes and oceans become contaminated by air pollution. Land contamination may contaminate an underground stream, a river, and ultimately the ocean. As a result, trash thrown on an empty lot can eventually contaminate a water source.

(Image will be uploaded soon)

Water Pollution

The water cycle, called  the hydrological cycle, involves the following steps:

Evaporation- Because of the sun's heat, the water bodies such as oceans, lakes, seas etc., get heated up, and water evaporates in the air, forming water vapours.

Transpiration- Like evaporation, the plants and trees also lose water from them which goes to the atmosphere. This process is called transpiration.

Condensation- As the water evaporates, it starts to become cool because of the cold atmosphere in the air and because of this cooling down of water leads to the formation of clouds.

Precipitation- Because of the high movements of the wings, the clouds start to collide and then fall back to the earth’s surface in the form of rain. Sometimes they also fall back in the form of snow, hail, sleet etc., depending upon the temperature.

Runoff or Infiltration- After precipitation, the water either flows to the water bodies called runoff or is absorbed into the soil, called infiltration.

Causes of Water Pollution

There are many reasons for water pollution. Some of the reasons are directly affected by water pollution and some indirectly. Many factories and industries are dumping contaminated water, chemicals, and heavy metals into major waterways as a result of direct water pollution. 

One more reason for water pollution is the use of modern techniques in farms. Farmers apply nutrients such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium in the form of chemical fertilizers, manure, and sludge. It causes farms to discharge large quantities of agrochemicals, organic matter, and saline drainage into water bodies. It indirectly affects water pollution.

Pollutants can be of various types such as organic, inorganic, radioactive etc. Water pollutants are discharged either from one point from pipes, channels etc., which are called point sources or from various other sources. They can be agricultural areas, industries etc., called dispersed sources. 

Some of the major forms of water pollutants are as follows:

Sewage- Domestic sewage from homes contains various forms of pathogens that threaten the human body. Sewage treatment reduces the risk of pathogens, but this risk is not eliminated. 

Domestic sewage majorly contains nitrates and phosphates, and excess of these substances allows the algae to grow on the surface of water bodies. Due to this, the clean water bodies become nutrient-rich water body and then slowly, the oxygen level of water bodies reduces. This is called eutrophication or cultural eutrophication (if this step rapidly takes place by the activities of humans). This leads to the early death of water bodies.

Toxins- The industrial or factory wastes that are not disposed of properly and contain chemicals such as mercury and lead are disposed of in the water bodies making the bodies toxic, radioactive, explosive and cancerous.

Sediments- Sediments are the result of soil erosion that is formed in the water bodies. These sediments imbalances the water bodies ecologically. They also interfere in the reproductive cycle of various aquatic animals living in the water.

Thermal pollution- Water bodies get polluted because of heat, and excess heat reduces the oxygen level of the water bodies. Some of the species of fish cannot live in such water bodies with very low oxygen levels. The disposal of cold waters from the power plants leads to increased thermal pollution in the water bodies.

Petroleum oil pollution- The runoff of oil into the water bodies, either accidentally as happened in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, or intentionally, leads to an increase in water pollution.

As water is an important element of human health, polluted water directly affects the human body. Water pollution causes various diseases like typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, cancer, etc. Water pollution damages the plants and aquatic animals present in the river by reducing the oxygen content from the water. Polluted water washes the essential nutrients which plants need out of the soil and also leaves large amounts of aluminium in the soil, which can be harmful to plants. 

Wastewater and sewage are a by-product of daily life and thus produced by each household through various activities like using soap, toilets, and detergents. Such sewage contains chemicals and bacteria which are harmful to human life and environmental health. Water pollution also leads to an imbalance in our ecosystem. Lastly, it also affects the food chain as the toxins in the water bodies are consumed by aquatic animals like fish, crabs etc., and then humans consume those animals forming turmoil. 

Sometimes our tradition also becomes a cause for water pollution. Some people throw the statues of deities, flowers, pots, and ashes in rivers.

There are various standards to define water quality standards. Water meant for swimming may not be clean enough for drinking, or water meant for bathing may not be good for cooking. Therefore, there are different water standards for defined:

Stream standards- Standards that define streams, lakes, oceans or seas based on their maximum use.

Effluent standards- Define the specific standards for the level of contaminants or effluents allowed during the final discharge of those into the water bodies.

Drinking water standards- Define the level of contamination allowed in water that will be supplied for drinking or cooking in the domestic areas.

Different countries regulate their water quality standards through different acts and amendments.

While many of the solutions for water pollution need to be applied on a broader macro-level for that individual, companies, and communities can have a significant and responsible impact on the water quality. Companies, factories have to dispose of leftover chemicals and containers properly as per the product instructions. Farmers also have to reduce the use of nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers, pesticides, and contamination of groundwater. 

The Swachh Bharat Mission of the government had led to reduced groundwater contamination. Under the Namami Ganga program, the government has initiated several major projects to clean Ganga. Along with all these steps, conservation of water is the very basic and important step towards water conservation and should be followed globally, treatment of sewage before their disposal in the water bodies and using environment-friendly products that do not form toxins when dissolved in water. These are some small steps that have to be taken into consideration by every human being.

As we all know, “Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” We have to save water. We must keep the water clean. If everyone will follow their responsibility against water to protect it from getting polluted then it will be easy to get clean and healthy drinking water. Clean water is a must for us and our kids' present, future, and healthy environment. 

We cannot just live with contaminated waters filled with toxins and no oxygen. We cannot see our wildlife being destroyed and therefore, immediate steps have to be taken by groups of people to first clean the already contaminated water bodies and then keep a check on all the surrounding water bodies. Small steps by every individual can make a huge difference in controlling water pollution.

Water Pollution Prevention

Conserve Water 

Our first priority should be to conserve water. Water wasting could be a big problem for the entire world, but we are just now becoming aware of it.

Sewage Treatment 

Cleaning up waste materials before disposing of them in waterways reduces pollution on a large scale. By lowering its dangerous elements, this wastewater will be used in other sectors or in agriculture.

Usage of Eco-Friendly Materials

We will reduce the amount of pollution produced by choosing soluble products that do not alter to become pollutants.

Water contamination is the discharge of pollutants into the water body, where they dissolve, are suspended, are deposited on the bottom, and collect to the point where they hinder the aquatic ecosystem's ability to function. Water contamination is brought on by toxic compounds that easily dissolve and combine with it and come from factories, municipalities, and farms.

Healthy ecosystems depend on a complex network of organisms, including animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi, all of which interact with one another either directly or indirectly. In this article, we read about water pollution, its causes and prevention. With this, we have come to the end of our article, in case of any other doubts, feel free to ask in the comments.

FAQs on Water Pollution Essay

1. What are the effects of water pollution?

Water pollution has a great impact on human health. Water pollution kills. It's been recorded that in 2015 nearly 1.8 million people died because of water pollution. People with low income are exposed to contaminated water coming out from the industries. Presence of disease causing pathogens in drinking water are the major cause of illness which includes cholera, giardia, and typhoid. Water pollution not only affects human health but also our environment by causing algal bloom in a lake or marine environment. Water pollution also causes eutrophication which suffocates plants and animals and thus causes dead zones. Chemicals and heavy metals from industrial and municipal wastewater contaminate waterways and harm aquatic life.

2. What are the causes of Water pollution?

Water being a universal solvent is vulnerable to pollution as it dissolves more substances than any other liquid on earth. Therefore, water is easily polluted. Toxic substances from farms, towns, and factories readily dissolve into water and mix with it, resulting in water pollution. Agricultural pollution is one of the major causes of contamination in rivers and streams. The use of excessive fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste from farms and livestock operations lets the rain wash the nutrients and pathogens—such as bacteria and viruses—into our waterways. The other major cause of water pollution is used water,  termed as wastewater which comes from our sinks, showers, toilets and from commercial, industrial, and agricultural activities. It's been reported that the world's 80% wastewater flows back into the environment without being treated or reused. Oil spills and radioactive waste also cause water pollution to a great extent.

3. How to prevent water pollution?

It is important to keep our water bodies clean so we can take the following preventive measures to prevent from water pollution:

Chemicals like bleach, paint, paint thinner, ammonia, and many chemicals are becoming a serious problem. Dumping toxic chemicals down the drain or flushing them down the toilet can cause water pollution. Thus, proper disposal is important. Also, household chemicals need to be recycled.

Avoid buying products that contain persistent and dangerous chemicals. Buying non-toxic cleaners and biodegradable cleaners and pesticides cut down on water pollution.

Prevent from pouring fats or greasy substances down the drain as it might clog the drain resulting in the dumping of waste into yards or basement which can contaminate the local water bodies.

4. What is the role of medical institutions in polluting the water?

Pharmaceutical pollution affects aquatic life and thus there is a need to take preventive measures. Consumers are responsible for winding up pharmaceutical and personal care products in lakes, rivers, and streams. There's a lot of unused and expired medication that can potentially get into the water if not disposed of properly.

5. What are the major kinds of pollution?

The three main types of pollution are air pollution, water pollution or soil pollution. Some artificial pollution is also there, such as noise pollution. Factors leading to such pollution include:

Air Pollution: Industrial emissions, fires, traffic and transportation, burning of chemical waste, etc.

Water Pollution: No proper sewage disposal, pesticides in farms leaking into water bodies, industrial waste dumped into water bodies, etc.

Soil Pollution:  Oil spills, acid rains, irresponsible disposal of trash, chemical waste, etc.

Noise Pollution: Honking of horns, construction activities, loud parties, etc.

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Lyles College of Engineering

World Water Day essay competition winner speaks on water changes

By Sarah Fries, Lyles College of Engineering media and communications assistant

Civil engineering student Carlos Herrera-Madrigal was recently awarded by Fresno State’s Department of Civil and Geomatics Engineering for the essay he submitted for the World Water Day essay contest. 

World Water Day is an annual United Nations Observance that celebrates water and inspires action to tackle the global water crisis through communication and advocacy. 

In collaboration with the Civil Engineering department, the California Water Institute hosted a community event that brought together attendees through hands-on activities, hearing from a panel of water experts, networking with engineering industry professionals, and more.

To get students more involved with World Water Day, the Civil Engineering department created an essay contest. Students were prompted to write a 500-word essay on whether the Central Valley can survive without more water. The awards were announced at the event and everyone who entered was recognized for their essay.

Herrera-Madrigal wrote his essay on the complexity of changing water habits for people of the Central Valley. 

He said that change won’t be as simple as making a law and telling people to follow it. It will include so much more; asking how the farmers' crops are doing and what they’re growing, rather than telling them they only have a certain amount of water they can use as an example. 

“It’s going to be a very big group effort,” said Herrera-Madrigal. 

While Herrera-Madrigal will be working with water, his main goal is to work with water distribution systems. He plans on working with Provost and Pritchard, a consulting group here in the Valley, on a municipalities team this coming summer.  

“I like a lot of what Provost and Pritchard does because they’ll go out to very rural communities like Poplar, Tipton, Terabella…” said Herrera-Madrigal. 

He said that because those small communities do not have a main water line, and the city does not have a city engineer, Provost and Pritchard will get hired to make those water infrastructures for those communities.

Herrera-Madrigal wants to emphasize on teaching people how their water infrastructures work so they can gain knowledge about how to better utilize the water they receive. 

“I also enjoy the outreach side of it,” said Herrera-Madrigal. 

Herrera-Madrigal is a senior and will graduate from Fresno State in the fall of 2024. 

• Last Updated Apr 17, 2024

'Definition of a toxic work environment.' Every worker quits Stark Soil & Water District

MASSILLON ‒ The Stark Soil & Water Conservation District is a muddy mess.

Every employee of the government office has quit. To stay afloat, the district's volunteer board of supervisors had to temporarily outsource most of the agency's workload and divvy up other duties to the board members themselves.

Former employees blame the mass exodus on Executive Director John Weedon. The five-member board, they added, ignored signals that the office was ready to implode.

"The definition of a toxic work environment; that was Stark Soil & Water," said Taylor Noble, a drainage specialist who left on March 27 for a job in the Pacfic Northwest.

"Weird, backstabbing kind of stuff," said former Outreach Technician Adrienne Bock, who left in October.

"We'd all went to the board and nothing was done," said Rome Marinelli, a drainage specialist who quit last year.

By the time its staff of seven employees had eroded to three by mid-March, it was too late. The floodgates opened. The remaining trio was gone by month's end.

Among that group was Weedon, who skipped a board meeting and resigned on March 18. His departure came days after the board gave him written warnings for having alcohol in his office and for creating public documents about employees.

The latter was a series of writings dubbed "Game Plan," which read like a scheme on how to win over certain employees while making others quit by isolating them, making one feel bored, and holding another to task "so that he snaps."

Assistant Stark County Prosecutor Jerry Yost was called in by the board the day Weedon quit because it requested assistance on how to move forward and continue functioning.

"Mr. Weedon seemed to have difficulty gaining the respect and cooperation of his staff and the difficult work environment appears to have continued until the whole system failed," Yost wrote in an email response for this story.

Weedon, reached by the Repository, said, "There are two sides to every story."

He said he'd accepted board reprimands last month for the alcohol and his "Game Plan" documents and that both sides had moved on. However, after careful thought in the following days, Weedon said he realized he and the board were moving in different directions, which is why he resigned.

"And I never fired anyone," he said.

He said he was willing to remain as director until a replacement was hired, an offer the board rejected.

"My intention was not to leave the district high and dry," Weedon said.

Stark Soil & Water: Why did everyone quit?

Public records and interviews, along with office communications and files obtained by The Canton Repository, reveal details of an ongoing divide between staff and Weedon.

It first came to a head in the spring of 2023, said Bock. She said she saw Weedon touch the butt of another female employee, then overheard him tell a sexually charged joke to another female in the office.

"It was uncomfortable," Bock said.

She said she couldn't complain to Weedon so she reached out to Board Chairman Ann Wolfe. Bock said no one interviewed her further about the complaints.

Wolfe declined comment for this story.

"All those false allegations were investigated by the board," Weedon said.

Noble said the board's inaction only fortified the staff's resentment of Weedon and the board.

On one side was Weedon and Sarah Clutter, formerly Sarah Matheny, who left last year only to return in December as a special projects coordinator. The other side, to varying degrees, was everyone else in the office, which included those hired during the past year.

"(Weedon) knew we had went to the board ... and he retaliated," said Marinelli. "It's really too bad because I loved my job. But I felt like I had to leave."

Clutter, who now works for the Canton city engineer, did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

Weedon's "Game Plan" documents seem to illustrate how much office relationships had deteriorated. They appear to have been written a year ago to Clutter because she's the only one not referred to by name.

"We both should look for other jobs," it states. "I don’t want to work for or supervise people that think so little of me or treat you the way they did.

"We have a good shot to survive but it is uncertain given the unprofessional board and backstabbing staff. Our goal is to reduce the chances of being fired so we have the time to land elsewhere."

The plan lays out the following "core principles:"

"Trust no one. Only business-like language on work email, teams, work phone text. Rely on our personal phones for the other stuff. Reduce the time we are together in front of staff. Everything we say can and will be used against us. Pretend the board is in the room. Document, document, document."

It goes on to decribe how to handle the board, and the need to find a legitimate candidate to run in a fall election.

Then, this, "Break up the pack by changing expectations," it states. "Go from informal to formal organization; go by the book. Have them turn on each other. Keep them so busy they don’t have time or energy to support each other."

And ultimately, "Make them jealous of each other (unsure how do this; still thinking)," it states. "This requires me to be ruthless; this requires you to stop being (maternal)."

On the other hand, office documents indicate Weedon had reprimanded an employee for using a shared cellphone system feature to track locations of Weedon, Clutter and others, mostly during non-working hours.

"Why are you tracking staff and recording staff locations when neither Sarah nor myself have every asked you to do this?" he wrote. "This is disappointing ... inappropriate ... unsettling ... "

Lots of help to keep operation going

Presented with a clean slate, Yost said, the board is focused on moving the district forward.

"Currently the board’s plan is to hire a director and that way the director will  have some input on the selection of the staff," Yost said. "This did not happen when (Weedon) took over for the former director and the transition was not an easy one."

Each of Ohio's 88 counties has a soil and water district. Although they fall under oversight of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, each tax-funded district's operations are run by independent elected boards of supervisors.

In Stark's case, that's Wolfe, the chairman, Vice Chair Natalie Hammer, fiscal agent Rodney Campbell, Secretary Andy Wentling and member Rick Horner.

Its duties include handling drainage complaints, performing storm water inspections and reviewing development plans on projects of more than one acre.

Yost said the board has received and reviewed some applications for its executive director post.

For now, he said, the board has hired former Cuyahoga County Soil & Water Director Janine Rybka at $30 per hour to temporarily oversee the office.

The board has informal agreements with Summit and Cuyahoga counties to handle some work; pledges for help from the Department of Agriculture; and assurances that board members will share duties to investigate drainage complaints.

This month, the board also agreed to a contract with EnviroScience, a firm in Stow.

The private firm will be paid as much as $288,000 through the end of the year to handle stormwater pollution prevention plan reviews and approvals, construction site inspections and complaints and violation support.

Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or [email protected] X: @tbotosREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: 'Definition of a toxic work environment.' Every worker quits Stark Soil & Water District

What is the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse?

It almost time! Millions of Americans across the country Monday are preparing to witness the once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse as it passes over portions of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

It's a sight to behold and people have now long been eagerly awaiting what will be their only chance until 2044 to witness totality, whereby the moon will completely block the sun's disc, ushering in uncharacteristic darkness.

That being said, many are curious on what makes the solar eclipse special and how is it different from a lunar eclipse.

The total solar eclipse is today: Get the latest forecast and everything you need to know

What is an eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when any celestial object like a moon or a planet passes between two other bodies, obscuring the view of objects like the sun, according to NASA .

What is a solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes in between the Earth and the sun, blocking its light from reaching our planet, leading to a period of darkness lasting several minutes. The resulting "totality," whereby observers can see the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, presents a spectacular sight for viewers and confuses animals – causing nocturnal creatures to stir and bird and insects to fall silent.

Partial eclipses, when some part of the sun remains visible, are the most common, making total eclipses a rare sight.

What is a lunar eclipse?

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon and the sun are on exact opposite sides of Earth. When this happens, Earth blocks the sunlight that normally reaches the moon. Instead of that sunlight hitting the moon’s surface, Earth's shadow falls on it.

Lunar eclipses are often also referred to the "blood moon" because when the Earth's shadow covers the moon, it often produces a red color. The coloration happens because a bit of reddish sunlight still reaches the moon's surface, even though it's in Earth's shadow.

Difference between lunar eclipse and solar eclipse

The major difference between the two eclipses is in the positioning of the sun, the moon and the Earth and the longevity of the phenomenon, according to NASA.

A lunar eclipse can last for a few hours, while a solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes. Solar eclipses also rarely occur, while lunar eclipses are comparatively more frequent. While at least two partial lunar eclipses happen every year, total lunar eclipses are still rare, says NASA.

Another major difference between the two is that for lunar eclipses, no special glasses or gizmos are needed to view the spectacle and one can directly stare at the moon. However, for solar eclipses, it is pertinent to wear proper viewing glasses and take the necessary safety precautions because the powerful rays of the sun can burn and damage your retinas.

Contributing: Eric Lagatta, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Water Conservation Essay

500+ words essay on water conservation.

Water makes up 70% of the earth as well as the human body. There are millions of marine species present in today’s world that reside in water. Similarly, humankind also depends on water. All the major industries require water in some form or the other. However, this precious resource is depleting day by day. The majority of the reasons behind it are man-made only. Thus, the need for water conservation is more than ever now. Through this water conservation essay, you will realize how important it is to conserve water and how scarce it has become.

Water Scarcity- A Dangerous Issue

Out of all the water available, only three per cent is freshwater. Therefore, it is essential to use this water wisely and carefully. However, we have been doing the opposite of this till now.

Every day, we keep exploiting water for a variety of purposes. In addition to that, we also keep polluting it day in and day out. The effluents from industries and sewage discharges are dispersed into our water bodies directly.

Moreover, there are little or no facilities left for storing rainwater. Thus, floods have become a common phenomenon. Similarly, there is careless use of fertile soil from riverbeds. It results in flooding as well.

Therefore, you see how humans play a big role in water scarcity. Living in concrete jungles have anyway diminished the green cover. On top of that, we keep on cutting down forests that are a great source of conserving water.

Nowadays, a lot of countries even lack access to clean water. Therefore, water scarcity is a real thing. We must deal with it right away to change the world for our future generations. Water conservation essay will teach you how.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Water Conservation Essay – Conserving Water

Life without water is not possible. We need it for many things including cleaning, cooking, using the washroom, and more. Moreover, we need clean water to lead a healthy life.

We can take many steps to conserve water on a national level as well as an individual level. Firstly, our governments must implement efficient strategies to conserve water. The scientific community must work on advanced agricultural reforms to save water.

Similarly, proper planning of cities and promotion of water conservation through advertisements must be done. On an individual level, we can start by opting for buckets instead of showers or tubs.

Also, we must not use too much electricity. We must start planting more trees and plants. Rainwater harvesting must be made compulsory so we can benefit from the rain as well.

Further, we can also save water by turning off the tap when we brush our teeth or wash our utensils. Use a washing machine when it is fully loaded. Do not waste the water when you wash vegetables or fruit, instead, use it to water plants.

All in all, we must identify water scarcity as a real issue as it is very dangerous. Further, after identifying it, we must make sure to take steps to conserve it. There are many things that we can do on a national level as well as an individual level. So, we must come together now and conserve water.

FAQ of Water Conservation Essay

Question 1: Why has water become scarce?

Answer 1: Water has become scarce due to a lot of reasons most of which are human-made. We exploit water on a daily basis. Industries keep discharging their waste directly into water bodies. Further, sewage keeps polluting the water as well.

Question 2: How can we conserve water?

Answer 2: The government must plan cities properly so our water bodies stay clean. Similarly, water conservation must be promoted through advertisements. On an individual level, we can start by fixing all our leaky taps. Further, we must avoid showers and use buckets instead to save more water.

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Here’s What to Know About the Hunger Crisis in Gaza

“The food production system has been completely obliterated, and the lack of entry of emergency aid within a short time has created a free fall,” a United Nations official said.

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By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

• April 11, 2024

Six months into the Israel-Hamas war, the people of Gaza are facing a hunger crisis that the United Nations says borders on famine.

The crisis in Gaza is entirely human-made, a result of Israel’s war on Hamas and a near-complete siege of the territory, aid experts say. Conflicts were also at the root of the other two disasters in the last two decades that were classified by a global authority as famines, in Sudan and Somalia, though in those countries drought was also a significant underlying factor.

Here’s a look at how Gaza reached this point.

The food shortages in Gaza have been created by Israel’s blockade and military operations.

For years before the latest war, Gaza was subject to an Israeli blockade , backed by Egypt. Under the blockade, humanitarian aid, including food and commercial imports, was tightly restricted. Even so, levels of malnutrition among Gaza’s roughly 2.2 million people were low and comparable to those of countries in the region.

After Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel that incited the war, Israel imposed a siege and instituted much stricter controls on what could go into Gaza, stopping anything it believed could potentially benefit Hamas from entering. At the same time, Israel blocked commercial imports of food that had filled Gaza’s shops and markets.

It also bombed Gaza’s port , restricted fishing and bombed many of the territory’s farms. Airstrikes and fighting have shattered Gaza’s infrastructure and forced almost all of its population to flee their homes. That displacement, plus the destruction of businesses and a surge in prices, has made it hard for families to feed themselves.

“The food production system has been completely obliterated, and the lack of entry of emergency aid within a short time has created a free fall,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office.

Famine has a precise definition for the United Nations and aid groups.

This week, Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that a famine was underway in northern Gaza , the part of the territory most cut off from aid. Her agency later said that assessment was based on data collected in March, not on new information, but that “conditions remain dire.”

That data was released by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification , an initiative of U.N. bodies and major relief agencies that is also known as the I.P.C.,. The I.P.C. has not yet classified the situation in Gaza as a famine but said last month that one was imminent in the north. The body defines a famine as at least 20 percent of households facing an extreme lack of food, at least 30 percent of children suffering from acute malnutrition , and at least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people dying each day from starvation or disease linked to malnutrition.

Since 2004, when the system was set up, there have been two famines , according to that definition. In 2011, the United Nations declared famine in parts of Somalia, which had endured decades of conflict. Years of drought wrecked the agricultural sector and the economy, forcing many people to leave their homes in search of food. At the same time, an Islamist insurgent group blocked starving people from fleeing and forced out Western aid organizations. In all, around 250,000 people died.

Six years later, a famine was declared in parts of South Sudan. The country had suffered years of drought, but the U.N. said that the famine was human-made. Millions of people had fled because of a civil war, destroying the country’s economy, and rebel forces and government soldiers blocked aid and hijacked food trucks. Tens of thousands died.

Gaza is small and mostly urban, so food should be close at hand.

Gaza is just 25 miles long and largely urban, and there is no shortage of food on the other side of its borders, with Israel and Egypt.

Still, aid agencies have found doing their jobs difficult. Six months of war have included the killings of scores of aid workers, including seven from World Central Kitchen, the relief group founded by the chef José Andrés. Those employees were killed by an Israeli drone strike on April 1 after delivering tons of food to a warehouse.

There is a sharp disagreement in Gaza between the U.N. and the Israeli government about how much aid is entering Gaza each day, but aid organizations say they need better access, particularly to northern Gaza. The Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied permission for aid convoys to move within Gaza, they say.

Arif Husain, the chief economist at the World Food Program, said that what made the situation in Gaza so shocking was the scale and severity of the crisis and how quickly it had developed.

Israel claims it has placed no limits on aid. Critics disagree.

Critics of the way Israel is conducting the war say that the hunger crisis derives largely from Israeli restrictions on where trucks can enter and from an onerous inspection process. Some have accused Israel of slowing aid down to punish Gazans for the Oct. 7 attack.

Israeli officials say they have placed no limits on the amount of aid that can flow into Gaza. They blame the U.N., particularly UNRWA, the main agency that helps Palestinians, for failing to distribute aid effectively.

COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza, says that it has “surged” deliveries in recent days and is opening an additional entry point in northern Gaza. More broadly, the Israeli government holds Hamas responsible for all civilian suffering in Gaza. ( UNRWA said last month that Israel had denied the group access to northern Gaza, though Israel has rebutted that claim.)

Governments around the world have urged Israel to address the crisis quickly. President Biden last week warned that the United States could withhold support for Israel if it did not ensure adequate aid deliveries and protect civilians. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden said that the steps Israel had taken since then were “not enough.”

Adam Sella contributed reporting.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a correspondent covering international news. He previously worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief for Reuters and did postings in Nairobi, Abidjan, Atlanta, Jakarta and Accra. More about Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Gazans released from Israeli detention described graphic scenes of physical abuse  in testimonies gathered by U.N. workers, according to a new report.

Britain, the United States, France and other allies of Israel have voiced their anger over the death toll in Gaza, but when Iran launched a missile barrage at Israel, they set it aside . At least for the moment.

The Israel pavilion at the Venice Biennale is closed this year, since its creative team decided not to exhibit work  until there was a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza, but it was nonetheless the site of a large demonstration .

Mobilizing the American Left: As the death toll in Gaza climbed, the pro-Palestinian movement grew into a powerful, if disjointed, political force in the United States . Democrats are feeling the pressure.

Riding Rage Over Israel: Jackson Hinkle’s incendiary commentary  has generated over two million new followers on X since October — a surge that some researchers say is aided by inauthentic accounts by the online celebrity.

Psychedelics and Trauma: Thousands of festival-goers were using mind-altering substances when Hamas-led fighters attacked on Oct 7. Now, scientists are studying the effects of such drugs at a moment of trauma .

Turmoil at J Street: The war in Gaza has raised serious concerns within the Jewish political advocacy group about its ability to hold a middle position  without being pulled apart by forces on the right and the left.

Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas

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Updated at 2:44 p.m. ET on April 6, 2024.

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MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, from the window of an approaching Miami cab, brings on a feeling of vertigo, nausea, amazement, and distress. I shut my eyes in defense, as my brain tells my optic nerve to try again.

The ship makes no sense, vertically or horizontally. It makes no sense on sea, or on land, or in outer space. It looks like a hodgepodge of domes and minarets, tubes and canopies, like Istanbul had it been designed by idiots. Vibrant, oversignifying colors are stacked upon other such colors, decks perched over still more decks; the only comfort is a row of lifeboats ringing its perimeter. There is no imposed order, no cogent thought, and, for those who do not harbor a totalitarian sense of gigantomania, no visual mercy. This is the biggest cruise ship ever built, and I have been tasked with witnessing its inaugural voyage.

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“Author embarks on their first cruise-ship voyage” has been a staple of American essay writing for almost three decades, beginning with David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which was first published in 1996 under the title “Shipping Out.” Since then, many admirable writers have widened and diversified the genre. Usually the essayist commissioned to take to the sea is in their first or second flush of youth and is ready to sharpen their wit against the hull of the offending vessel. I am 51, old and tired, having seen much of the world as a former travel journalist, and mostly what I do in both life and prose is shrug while muttering to my imaginary dachshund, “This too shall pass.” But the Icon of the Seas will not countenance a shrug. The Icon of the Seas is the Linda Loman of cruise ships, exclaiming that attention must be paid. And here I am in late January with my one piece of luggage and useless gray winter jacket and passport, zipping through the Port of Miami en route to the gangway that will separate me from the bulk of North America for more than seven days, ready to pay it in full.

The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop. Crew members from every part of the global South, as well as a few Balkans, are shepherding us along while pressing flutes of champagne into our hands. By a humming Starbucks, I drink as many of these as I can and prepare to find my cabin. I show my blue Suite Sky SeaPass Card (more on this later, much more) to a smiling woman from the Philippines, and she tells me to go “aft.” Which is where, now? As someone who has rarely sailed on a vessel grander than the Staten Island Ferry, I am confused. It turns out that the aft is the stern of the ship, or, for those of us who don’t know what a stern or an aft are, its ass. The nose of the ship, responsible for separating the waves before it, is also called a bow, and is marked for passengers as the FWD , or forward. The part of the contemporary sailing vessel where the malls are clustered is called the midship. I trust that you have enjoyed this nautical lesson.

I ascend via elevator to my suite on Deck 11. This is where I encounter my first terrible surprise. My suite windows and balcony do not face the ocean. Instead, they look out onto another shopping mall. This mall is the one that’s called Central Park, perhaps in homage to the Olmsted-designed bit of greenery in the middle of my hometown. Although on land I would be delighted to own a suite with Central Park views, here I am deeply depressed. To sail on a ship and not wake up to a vast blue carpet of ocean? Unthinkable.

Allow me a brief preamble here. The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. In fact, so enthralled by the prospect of this voyage were hard-core mariners that the ship’s entire inventory of guest rooms (the Icon can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers, but its inaugural journey was reduced to 5,000 or so for a less crowded experience) was almost immediately sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! I sit down hard on my soft bed. Nineteen thousand dollars for this .

The viewless suite does have its pluses. In addition to all the Malin+Goetz products in my dual bathrooms, I am granted use of a dedicated Suite Deck lounge; access to Coastal Kitchen, a superior restaurant for Suites passengers; complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream (“the fastest Internet at Sea”) “for one device per person for the whole cruise duration”; a pair of bathrobes (one of which comes prestained with what looks like a large expectoration by the greenest lizard on Earth); and use of the Grove Suite Sun, an area on Decks 18 and 19 with food and deck chairs reserved exclusively for Suite passengers. I also get reserved seating for a performance of The Wizard of Oz , an ice-skating tribute to the periodic table, and similar provocations. The very color of my Suite Sky SeaPass Card, an oceanic blue as opposed to the cloying royal purple of the standard non-Suite passenger, will soon provoke envy and admiration. But as high as my status may be, there are those on board who have much higher status still, and I will soon learn to bow before them.

In preparation for sailing, I have “priced in,” as they say on Wall Street, the possibility that I may come from a somewhat different monde than many of the other cruisers. Without falling into stereotypes or preconceptions, I prepare myself for a friendly outspokenness on the part of my fellow seafarers that may not comply with modern DEI standards. I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. “Oh, and who is your ‘daddy’?” some might ask upon seeing it. “And how long have you been his ‘little meatball’?” And so on.

I put on my meatball T-shirt and head for one of the dining rooms to get a late lunch. In the elevator, I stick out my chest for all to read the funny legend upon it, but soon I realize that despite its burnished tricolor letters, no one takes note. More to the point, no one takes note of me. Despite my attempts at bridge building, the very sight of me (small, ethnic, without a cap bearing the name of a football team) elicits no reaction from other passengers. Most often, they will small-talk over me as if I don’t exist. This brings to mind the travails of David Foster Wallace , who felt so ostracized by his fellow passengers that he retreated to his cabin for much of his voyage. And Wallace was raised primarily in the Midwest and was a much larger, more American-looking meatball than I am. If he couldn’t talk to these people, how will I? What if I leave this ship without making any friends at all, despite my T-shirt? I am a social creature, and the prospect of seven days alone and apart is saddening. Wallace’s stateroom, at least, had a view of the ocean, a kind of cheap eternity.

Worse awaits me in the dining room. This is a large, multichandeliered room where I attended my safety training (I was shown how to put on a flotation vest; it is a very simple procedure). But the maître d’ politely refuses me entry in an English that seems to verge on another language. “I’m sorry, this is only for pendejos ,” he seems to be saying. I push back politely and he repeats himself. Pendejos ? Piranhas? There’s some kind of P-word to which I am not attuned. Meanwhile elderly passengers stream right past, powered by their limbs, walkers, and electric wheelchairs. “It is only pendejo dining today, sir.” “But I have a suite!” I say, already starting to catch on to the ship’s class system. He examines my card again. “But you are not a pendejo ,” he confirms. I am wearing a DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL T-shirt, I want to say to him. I am the essence of pendejo .

Eventually, I give up and head to the plebeian buffet on Deck 15, which has an aquatic-styled name I have now forgotten. Before gaining entry to this endless cornucopia of reheated food, one passes a washing station of many sinks and soap dispensers, and perhaps the most intriguing character on the entire ship. He is Mr. Washy Washy—or, according to his name tag, Nielbert of the Philippines—and he is dressed as a taco (on other occasions, I’ll see him dressed as a burger). Mr. Washy Washy performs an eponymous song in spirited, indeed flamboyant English: “Washy, washy, wash your hands, WASHY WASHY!” The dangers of norovirus and COVID on a cruise ship this size (a giant fellow ship was stricken with the former right after my voyage) makes Mr. Washy Washy an essential member of the crew. The problem lies with the food at the end of Washy’s rainbow. The buffet is groaning with what sounds like sophisticated dishes—marinated octopus, boiled egg with anchovy, chorizo, lobster claws—but every animal tastes tragically the same, as if there was only one creature available at the market, a “cruisipus” bred specifically for Royal Caribbean dining. The “vegetables” are no better. I pick up a tomato slice and look right through it. It tastes like cellophane. I sit alone, apart from the couples and parents with gaggles of children, as “We Are Family” echoes across the buffet space.

I may have failed to mention that all this time, the Icon of the Seas has not left port. As the fiery mango of the subtropical setting sun makes Miami’s condo skyline even more apocalyptic, the ship shoves off beneath a perfunctory display of fireworks. After the sun sets, in the far, dark distance, another circus-lit cruise ship ruptures the waves before us. We glance at it with pity, because it is by definition a smaller ship than our own. I am on Deck 15, outside the buffet and overlooking a bunch of pools (the Icon has seven of them), drinking a frilly drink that I got from one of the bars (the Icon has 15 of them), still too shy to speak to anyone, despite Sister Sledge’s assertion that all on the ship are somehow related.

Kim Brooks: On failing the family vacation

The ship’s passage away from Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides no frisson, no sense of developing “sea legs,” as the ship is too large to register the presence of waves unless a mighty wind adds significant chop. It is time for me to register the presence of the 5,000 passengers around me, even if they refuse to register mine. My fellow travelers have prepared for this trip with personally decorated T-shirts celebrating the importance of this voyage. The simplest ones say ICON INAUGURAL ’24 on the back and the family name on the front. Others attest to an over-the-top love of cruise ships: WARNING! MAY START TALKING ABOUT CRUISING . Still others are artisanally designed and celebrate lifetimes spent married while cruising (on ships, of course). A couple possibly in their 90s are wearing shirts whose backs feature a drawing of a cruise liner, two flamingos with ostensibly male and female characteristics, and the legend “ HUSBAND AND WIFE Cruising Partners FOR LIFE WE MAY NOT HAVE IT All Together BUT TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL .” (The words not in all caps have been written in cursive.) A real journalist or a more intrepid conversationalist would have gone up to the couple and asked them to explain the longevity of their marriage vis-à-vis their love of cruising. But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt.

I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: “Ayn Rand.” Jesus Christ.

I breakfast alone at the Coastal Kitchen. The coffee tastes fine and the eggs came out of a bird. The ship rolls slightly this morning; I can feel it in my thighs and my schlong, the parts of me that are most receptive to danger.

I had a dangerous conversation last night. After the sun set and we were at least 50 miles from shore (most modern cruise ships sail at about 23 miles an hour), I lay in bed softly hiccupping, my arms stretched out exactly like Jesus on the cross, the sound of the distant waves missing from my mall-facing suite, replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and children shouting in Spanish through the vents of my two bathrooms. I decided this passivity was unacceptable. As an immigrant, I feel duty-bound to complete the tasks I am paid for, which means reaching out and trying to understand my fellow cruisers. So I put on a normal James Perse T-shirt and headed for one of the bars on the Royal Promenade—the Schooner Bar, it was called, if memory serves correctly.

I sat at the bar for a martini and two Negronis. An old man with thick, hairy forearms drank next to me, very silent and Hemingwaylike, while a dreadlocked piano player tinkled out a series of excellent Elton John covers. To my right, a young white couple—he in floral shorts, she in a light, summery miniskirt with a fearsome diamond ring, neither of them in football regalia—chatted with an elderly couple. Do it , I commanded myself. Open your mouth. Speak! Speak without being spoken to. Initiate. A sentence fragment caught my ear from the young woman, “Cherry Hill.” This is a suburb of Philadelphia in New Jersey, and I had once been there for a reading at a synagogue. “Excuse me,” I said gently to her. “Did you just mention Cherry Hill? It’s a lovely place.”

As it turned out, the couple now lived in Fort Lauderdale (the number of Floridians on the cruise surprised me, given that Southern Florida is itself a kind of cruise ship, albeit one slowly sinking), but soon they were talking with me exclusively—the man potbellied, with a chin like a hard-boiled egg; the woman as svelte as if she were one of the many Ukrainian members of the crew—the elderly couple next to them forgotten. This felt as groundbreaking as the first time I dared to address an American in his native tongue, as a child on a bus in Queens (“On my foot you are standing, Mister”).

“I don’t want to talk politics,” the man said. “But they’re going to eighty-six Biden and put Michelle in.”

I considered the contradictions of his opening conversational gambit, but decided to play along. “People like Michelle,” I said, testing the waters. The husband sneered, but the wife charitably put forward that the former first lady was “more personable” than Joe Biden. “They’re gonna eighty-six Biden,” the husband repeated. “He can’t put a sentence together.”

After I mentioned that I was a writer—though I presented myself as a writer of teleplays instead of novels and articles such as this one—the husband told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand. “Ayn Rand, she came here with nothing,” the husband said. “I work with a lot of Cubans, so …” I wondered if I should mention what I usually do to ingratiate myself with Republicans or libertarians: the fact that my finances improved after pass-through corporations were taxed differently under Donald Trump. Instead, I ordered another drink and the couple did the same, and I told him that Rand and I were born in the same city, St. Petersburg/Leningrad, and that my family also came here with nothing. Now the bonding and drinking began in earnest, and several more rounds appeared. Until it all fell apart.

Read: Gary Shteyngart on watching Russian television for five days straight

My new friend, whom I will refer to as Ayn, called out to a buddy of his across the bar, and suddenly a young couple, both covered in tattoos, appeared next to us. “He fucking punked me,” Ayn’s frat-boy-like friend called out as he put his arm around Ayn, while his sizable partner sizzled up to Mrs. Rand. Both of them had a look I have never seen on land—their eyes projecting absence and enmity in equal measure. In the ’90s, I drank with Russian soldiers fresh from Chechnya and wandered the streets of wartime Zagreb, but I have never seen such undisguised hostility toward both me and perhaps the universe at large. I was briefly introduced to this psychopathic pair, but neither of them wanted to have anything to do with me, and the tattooed woman would not even reveal her Christian name to me (she pretended to have the same first name as Mrs. Rand). To impress his tattooed friends, Ayn made fun of the fact that as a television writer, I’d worked on the series Succession (which, it would turn out, practically nobody on the ship had watched), instead of the far more palatable, in his eyes, zombie drama of last year. And then my new friends drifted away from me into an angry private conversation—“He punked me!”—as I ordered another drink for myself, scared of the dead-eyed arrivals whose gaze never registered in the dim wattage of the Schooner Bar, whose terrifying voices and hollow laughs grated like unoiled gears against the crooning of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

But today is a new day for me and my hangover. After breakfast, I explore the ship’s so-called neighborhoods . There’s the AquaDome, where one can find a food hall and an acrobatic sound-and-light aquatic show. Central Park has a premium steak house, a sushi joint, and a used Rolex that can be bought for $8,000 on land here proudly offered at $17,000. There’s the aforementioned Royal Promenade, where I had drunk with the Rands, and where a pair of dueling pianos duel well into the night. There’s Surfside, a kids’ neighborhood full of sugary garbage, which looks out onto the frothy trail that the behemoth leaves behind itself. Thrill Island refers to the collection of tubes that clutter the ass of the ship and offer passengers six waterslides and a surfing simulation. There’s the Hideaway, an adult zone that plays music from a vomit-slathered, Brit-filled Alicante nightclub circa 1996 and proves a big favorite with groups of young Latin American customers. And, most hurtfully, there’s the Suite Neighborhood.

I say hurtfully because as a Suite passenger I should be here, though my particular suite is far from the others. Whereas I am stuck amid the riffraff of Deck 11, this section is on the highborn Decks 16 and 17, and in passing, I peek into the spacious, tall-ceilinged staterooms from the hallway, dazzled by the glint of the waves and sun. For $75,000, one multifloor suite even comes with its own slide between floors, so that a family may enjoy this particular terror in private. There is a quiet splendor to the Suite Neighborhood. I see fewer stickers and signs and drawings than in my own neighborhood—for example, MIKE AND DIANA PROUDLY SERVED U.S. MARINE CORPS RETIRED . No one here needs to announce their branch of service or rank; they are simply Suites, and this is where they belong. Once again, despite my hard work and perseverance, I have been disallowed from the true American elite. Once again, I am “Not our class, dear.” I am reminded of watching The Love Boat on my grandmother’s Zenith, which either was given to her or we found in the trash (I get our many malfunctioning Zeniths confused) and whose tube got so hot, I would put little chunks of government cheese on a thin tissue atop it to give our welfare treat a pleasant, Reagan-era gooeyness. I could not understand English well enough then to catch the nuances of that seafaring program, but I knew that there were differences in the status of the passengers, and that sometimes those differences made them sad. Still, this ship, this plenty—every few steps, there are complimentary nachos or milkshakes or gyros on offer—was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. If only I had remained a child.

I walk around the outdoor decks looking for company. There is a middle-aged African American couple who always seem to be asleep in each other’s arms, probably exhausted from the late capitalism they regularly encounter on land. There is far more diversity on this ship than I expected. Many couples are a testament to Loving v. Virginia , and there is a large group of folks whose T-shirts read MELANIN AT SEA / IT’S THE MELANIN FOR ME . I smile when I see them, but then some young kids from the group makes Mr. Washy Washy do a cruel, caricatured “Burger Dance” (today he is in his burger getup), and I think, Well, so much for intersectionality .

At the infinity pool on Deck 17, I spot some elderly women who could be ethnic and from my part of the world, and so I jump in. I am proved correct! Many of them seem to be originally from Queens (“Corona was still great when it was all Italian”), though they are now spread across the tristate area. We bond over the way “Ron-kon-koma” sounds when announced in Penn Station.

“Everyone is here for a different reason,” one of them tells me. She and her ex-husband last sailed together four years ago to prove to themselves that their marriage was truly over. Her 15-year-old son lost his virginity to “an Irish young lady” while their ship was moored in Ravenna, Italy. The gaggle of old-timers competes to tell me their favorite cruising stories and tips. “A guy proposed in Central Park a couple of years ago”—many Royal Caribbean ships apparently have this ridiculous communal area—“and she ran away screaming!” “If you’re diamond-class, you get four drinks for free.” “A different kind of passenger sails out of Bayonne.” (This, perhaps, is racially coded.) “Sometimes, if you tip the bartender $5, your next drink will be free.”

“Everyone’s here for a different reason,” the woman whose marriage ended on a cruise tells me again. “Some people are here for bad reasons—the drinkers and the gamblers. Some people are here for medical reasons.” I have seen more than a few oxygen tanks and at least one woman clearly undergoing very serious chemo. Some T-shirts celebrate good news about a cancer diagnosis. This might be someone’s last cruise or week on Earth. For these women, who have spent months, if not years, at sea, cruising is a ritual as well as a life cycle: first love, last love, marriage, divorce, death.

Read: The last place on Earth any tourist should go

I have talked with these women for so long, tonight I promise myself that after a sad solitary dinner I will not try to seek out company at the bars in the mall or the adult-themed Hideaway. I have enough material to fulfill my duties to this publication. As I approach my orphaned suite, I run into the aggro young people who stole Mr. and Mrs. Rand away from me the night before. The tattooed apparitions pass me without a glance. She is singing something violent about “Stuttering Stanley” (a character in a popular horror movie, as I discover with my complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream Internet at Sea) and he’s loudly shouting about “all the money I’ve lost,” presumably at the casino in the bowels of the ship.

So these bent psychos out of a Cormac McCarthy novel are angrily inhabiting my deck. As I mewl myself to sleep, I envision a limited series for HBO or some other streamer, a kind of low-rent White Lotus , where several aggressive couples conspire to throw a shy intellectual interloper overboard. I type the scenario into my phone. As I fall asleep, I think of what the woman who recently divorced her husband and whose son became a man through the good offices of the Irish Republic told me while I was hoisting myself out of the infinity pool. “I’m here because I’m an explorer. I’m here because I’m trying something new.” What if I allowed myself to believe in her fantasy?

“YOU REALLY STARTED AT THE TOP,” they tell me. I’m at the Coastal Kitchen for my eggs and corned-beef hash, and the maître d’ has slotted me in between two couples. Fueled by coffee or perhaps intrigued by my relative youth, they strike up a conversation with me. As always, people are shocked that this is my first cruise. They contrast the Icon favorably with all the preceding liners in the Royal Caribbean fleet, usually commenting on the efficiency of the elevators that hurl us from deck to deck (as in many large corporate buildings, the elevators ask you to choose a floor and then direct you to one of many lifts). The couple to my right, from Palo Alto—he refers to his “porn mustache” and calls his wife “my cougar” because she is two years older—tell me they are “Pandemic Pinnacles.”

This is the day that my eyes will be opened. Pinnacles , it is explained to me over translucent cantaloupe, have sailed with Royal Caribbean for 700 ungodly nights. Pandemic Pinnacles took advantage of the two-for-one accrual rate of Pinnacle points during the pandemic, when sailing on a cruise ship was even more ill-advised, to catapult themselves into Pinnacle status.

Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name. This is the coveted badge of the Pinnacle. “You should hear all the whining in Guest Services,” her husband tells me. Apparently, the Pinnacles who are not also Suites like us are all trying to use their status to get into Coastal Kitchen, our elite restaurant. Even a Pinnacle needs to be a Suite to access this level of corned-beef hash.

“We’re just baby Pinnacles,” Mrs. Palo Alto tells me, describing a kind of internal class struggle among the Pinnacle elite for ever higher status.

And now I understand what the maître d’ was saying to me on the first day of my cruise. He wasn’t saying “ pendejo .” He was saying “Pinnacle.” The dining room was for Pinnacles only, all those older people rolling in like the tide on their motorized scooters.

And now I understand something else: This whole thing is a cult. And like most cults, it can’t help but mirror the endless American fight for status. Like Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, where different-colored sashes were given out to connote rank among Raniere’s branded acolytes, this is an endless competition among Pinnacles, Suites, Diamond-Plusers, and facing-the-mall, no-balcony purple SeaPass Card peasants, not to mention the many distinctions within each category. The more you cruise, the higher your status. No wonder a section of the Royal Promenade is devoted to getting passengers to book their next cruise during the one they should be enjoying now. No wonder desperate Royal Caribbean offers (“FINAL HOURS”) crowded my email account weeks before I set sail. No wonder the ship’s jewelry store, the Royal Bling, is selling a $100,000 golden chalice that will entitle its owner to drink free on Royal Caribbean cruises for life. (One passenger was already gaming out whether her 28-year-old son was young enough to “just about earn out” on the chalice or if that ship had sailed.) No wonder this ship was sold out months before departure , and we had to pay $19,000 for a horrid suite away from the Suite Neighborhood. No wonder the most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean lore is someone named Super Mario, who has cruised so often, he now has his own working desk on many ships. This whole experience is part cult, part nautical pyramid scheme.

From the June 2014 issue: Ship of wonks

“The toilets are amazing,” the Palo Altos are telling me. “One flush and you’re done.” “They don’t understand how energy-efficient these ships are,” the husband of the other couple is telling me. “They got the LNG”—liquefied natural gas, which is supposed to make the Icon a boon to the environment (a concept widely disputed and sometimes ridiculed by environmentalists).

But I’m thinking along a different line of attack as I spear my last pallid slice of melon. For my streaming limited series, a Pinnacle would have to get killed by either an outright peasant or a Suite without an ocean view. I tell my breakfast companions my idea.

“Oh, for sure a Pinnacle would have to be killed,” Mr. Palo Alto, the Pandemic Pinnacle, says, touching his porn mustache thoughtfully as his wife nods.

“THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S your time, buddy!” Hubert, my fun-loving Panamanian cabin attendant, shouts as I step out of my suite in a robe. “Take it easy, buddy!”

I have come up with a new dressing strategy. Instead of trying to impress with my choice of T-shirts, I have decided to start wearing a robe, as one does at a resort property on land, with a proper spa and hammam. The response among my fellow cruisers has been ecstatic. “Look at you in the robe!” Mr. Rand cries out as we pass each other by the Thrill Island aqua park. “You’re living the cruise life! You know, you really drank me under the table that night.” I laugh as we part ways, but my soul cries out, Please spend more time with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rand; I so need the company .

In my white robe, I am a stately presence, a refugee from a better limited series, a one-man crossover episode. (Only Suites are granted these robes to begin with.) Today, I will try many of the activities these ships have on offer to provide their clientele with a sense of never-ceasing motion. Because I am already at Thrill Island, I decide to climb the staircase to what looks like a mast on an old-fashioned ship (terrified, because I am afraid of heights) to try a ride called “Storm Chasers,” which is part of the “Category 6” water park, named in honor of one of the storms that may someday do away with the Port of Miami entirely. Storm Chasers consists of falling from the “mast” down a long, twisting neon tube filled with water, like being the camera inside your own colonoscopy, as you hold on to the handles of a mat, hoping not to die. The tube then flops you down headfirst into a trough of water, a Royal Caribbean baptism. It both knocks my breath out and makes me sad.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, I attend a show at the AquaDome. To the sound of “Live and Let Die,” a man in a harness gyrates to and fro in the sultry air. I saw something very similar in the back rooms of the famed Berghain club in early-aughts Berlin. Soon another harnessed man is gyrating next to the first. Ja , I think to myself, I know how this ends. Now will come the fisting , natürlich . But the show soon devolves into the usual Marvel-film-grade nonsense, with too much light and sound signifying nichts . If any fisting is happening, it is probably in the Suite Neighborhood, inside a cabin marked with an upside-down pineapple, which I understand means a couple are ready to swing, and I will see none of it.

I go to the ice show, which is a kind of homage—if that’s possible—to the periodic table, done with the style and pomp and masterful precision that would please the likes of Kim Jong Un, if only he could afford Royal Caribbean talent. At one point, the dancers skate to the theme song of Succession . “See that!” I want to say to my fellow Suites—at “cultural” events, we have a special section reserved for us away from the commoners—“ Succession ! It’s even better than the zombie show! Open your minds!”

Finally, I visit a comedy revue in an enormous and too brightly lit version of an “intimate,” per Royal Caribbean literature, “Manhattan comedy club.” Many of the jokes are about the cruising life. “I’ve lived on ships for 20 years,” one of the middle-aged comedians says. “I can only see so many Filipino homosexuals dressed as a taco.” He pauses while the audience laughs. “I am so fired tonight,” he says. He segues into a Trump impression and then Biden falling asleep at the microphone, which gets the most laughs. “Anyone here from Fort Leonard Wood?” another comedian asks. Half the crowd seems to cheer. As I fall asleep that night, I realize another connection I have failed to make, and one that may explain some of the diversity on this vessel—many of its passengers have served in the military.

As a coddled passenger with a suite, I feel like I am starting to understand what it means to have a rank and be constantly reminded of it. There are many espresso makers , I think as I look across the expanse of my officer-grade quarters before closing my eyes, but this one is mine .

A shocking sight greets me beyond the pools of Deck 17 as I saunter over to the Coastal Kitchen for my morning intake of slightly sour Americanos. A tiny city beneath a series of perfectly pressed green mountains. Land! We have docked for a brief respite in Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis. I wolf down my egg scramble to be one of the first passengers off the ship. Once past the gangway, I barely refrain from kissing the ground. I rush into the sights and sounds of this scruffy island city, sampling incredible conch curry and buckets of non-Starbucks coffee. How wonderful it is to be where God intended humans to be: on land. After all, I am neither a fish nor a mall rat. This is my natural environment. Basseterre may not be Havana, but there are signs of human ingenuity and desire everywhere you look. The Black Table Grill Has been Relocated to Soho Village, Market Street, Directly Behind of, Gary’s Fruits and Flower Shop. Signed. THE PORK MAN reads a sign stuck to a wall. Now, that is how you write a sign. A real sign, not the come-ons for overpriced Rolexes that blink across the screens of the Royal Promenade.

“Hey, tie your shoestring!” a pair of laughing ladies shout to me across the street.

“Thank you!” I shout back. Shoestring! “Thank you very much.”

A man in Independence Square Park comes by and asks if I want to play with his monkey. I haven’t heard that pickup line since the Penn Station of the 1980s. But then he pulls a real monkey out of a bag. The monkey is wearing a diaper and looks insane. Wonderful , I think, just wonderful! There is so much life here. I email my editor asking if I can remain on St. Kitts and allow the Icon to sail off into the horizon without me. I have even priced a flight home at less than $300, and I have enough material from the first four days on the cruise to write the entire story. “It would be funny …” my editor replies. “Now get on the boat.”

As I slink back to the ship after my brief jailbreak, the locals stand under umbrellas to gaze at and photograph the boat that towers over their small capital city. The limousines of the prime minister and his lackeys are parked beside the gangway. St. Kitts, I’ve been told, is one of the few islands that would allow a ship of this size to dock.

“We hear about all the waterslides,” a sweet young server in one of the cafés told me. “We wish we could go on the ship, but we have to work.”

“I want to stay on your island,” I replied. “I love it here.”

But she didn’t understand how I could possibly mean that.

“WASHY, WASHY, so you don’t get stinky, stinky!” kids are singing outside the AquaDome, while their adult minders look on in disapproval, perhaps worried that Mr. Washy Washy is grooming them into a life of gayness. I heard a southern couple skip the buffet entirely out of fear of Mr. Washy Washy.

Meanwhile, I have found a new watering hole for myself, the Swim & Tonic, the biggest swim-up bar on any cruise ship in the world. Drinking next to full-size, nearly naked Americans takes away one’s own self-consciousness. The men have curvaceous mom bodies. The women are equally un-shy about their sprawling physiques.

Today I’ve befriended a bald man with many children who tells me that all of the little trinkets that Royal Caribbean has left us in our staterooms and suites are worth a fortune on eBay. “Eighty dollars for the water bottle, 60 for the lanyard,” the man says. “This is a cult.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. There is, however, a clientele for whom this cruise makes perfect sense. For a large middle-class family (he works in “supply chains”), seven days in a lower-tier cabin—which starts at $1,800 a person—allow the parents to drop off their children in Surfside, where I imagine many young Filipina crew members will take care of them, while the parents are free to get drunk at a swim-up bar and maybe even get intimate in their cabin. Cruise ships have become, for a certain kind of hardworking family, a form of subsidized child care.

There is another man I would like to befriend at the Swim & Tonic, a tall, bald fellow who is perpetually inebriated and who wears a necklace studded with little rubber duckies in sunglasses, which, I am told, is a sort of secret handshake for cruise aficionados. Tomorrow, I will spend more time with him, but first the ship docks at St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie, the capital, is more charming in name than in presence, but I still all but jump off the ship to score a juicy oxtail and plantains at the well-known Petite Pump Room, overlooking the harbor. From one of the highest points in the small city, the Icon of the Seas appears bigger than the surrounding hills.

I usually tan very evenly, but something about the discombobulation of life at sea makes me forget the regular application of sunscreen. As I walk down the streets of Charlotte Amalie in my fluorescent Icon of the Seas cap, an old Rastafarian stares me down. “Redneck,” he hisses.

“No,” I want to tell him, as I bring a hand up to my red neck, “that’s not who I am at all. On my island, Mannahatta, as Whitman would have it, I am an interesting person living within an engaging artistic milieu. I do not wish to use the Caribbean as a dumping ground for the cruise-ship industry. I love the work of Derek Walcott. You don’t understand. I am not a redneck. And if I am, they did this to me.” They meaning Royal Caribbean? Its passengers? The Rands?

“They did this to me!”

Back on the Icon, some older matrons are muttering about a run-in with passengers from the Celebrity cruise ship docked next to us, the Celebrity Apex. Although Celebrity Cruises is also owned by Royal Caribbean, I am made to understand that there is a deep fratricidal beef between passengers of the two lines. “We met a woman from the Apex,” one matron says, “and she says it was a small ship and there was nothing to do. Her face was as tight as a 19-year-old’s, she had so much surgery.” With those words, and beneath a cloudy sky, humidity shrouding our weathered faces and red necks, we set sail once again, hopefully in the direction of home.

THERE ARE BARELY 48 HOURS LEFT to the cruise, and the Icon of the Seas’ passengers are salty. They know how to work the elevators. They know the Washy Washy song by heart. They understand that the chicken gyro at “Feta Mediterranean,” in the AquaDome Market, is the least problematic form of chicken on the ship.

The passengers have shed their INAUGURAL CRUISE T-shirts and are now starting to evince political opinions. There are caps pledging to make America great again and T-shirts that celebrate words sometimes attributed to Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” With their preponderance of FAMILY FLAG FAITH FRIENDS FIREARMS T-shirts, the tables by the crepe station sometimes resemble the Capitol Rotunda on January 6. The Real Anthony Fauci , by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears to be a popular form of literature, especially among young men with very complicated versions of the American flag on their T-shirts. Other opinions blend the personal and the political. “Someone needs to kill Washy guy, right?” a well-dressed man in the elevator tells me, his gray eyes radiating nothing. “Just beat him to death. Am I right?” I overhear the male member of a young couple whisper, “There goes that freak” as I saunter by in my white spa robe, and I decide to retire it for the rest of the cruise.

I visit the Royal Bling to see up close the $100,000 golden chalice that entitles you to free drinks on Royal Caribbean forever. The pleasant Serbian saleslady explains that the chalice is actually gold-plated and covered in white zirconia instead of diamonds, as it would otherwise cost $1 million. “If you already have everything,” she explains, “this is one more thing you can get.”

I believe that anyone who works for Royal Caribbean should be entitled to immediate American citizenship. They already speak English better than most of the passengers and, per the Serbian lady’s sales pitch above, better understand what America is as well. Crew members like my Panamanian cabin attendant seem to work 24 hours a day. A waiter from New Delhi tells me that his contract is six months and three weeks long. After a cruise ends, he says, “in a few hours, we start again for the next cruise.” At the end of the half a year at sea, he is allowed a two-to-three-month stay at home with his family. As of 2019, the median income for crew members was somewhere in the vicinity of $20,000, according to a major business publication. Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice.

And because most of the Icon’s hyper-sanitized spaces are just a frittata away from being a Delta lounge, one forgets that there are actual sailors on this ship, charged with the herculean task of docking it in port. “Having driven 100,000-ton aircraft carriers throughout my career,” retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, writes to me, “I’m not sure I would even know where to begin with trying to control a sea monster like this one nearly three times the size.” (I first met Stavridis while touring Army bases in Germany more than a decade ago.)

Today, I decide to head to the hot tub near Swim & Tonic, where some of the ship’s drunkest reprobates seem to gather (the other tubs are filled with families and couples). The talk here, like everywhere else on the ship, concerns football, a sport about which I know nothing. It is apparent that four teams have recently competed in some kind of finals for the year, and that two of them will now face off in the championship. Often when people on the Icon speak, I will try to repeat the last thing they said with a laugh or a nod of disbelief. “Yes, 20-yard line! Ha!” “Oh my God, of course, scrimmage.”

Soon we are joined in the hot tub by the late-middle-age drunk guy with the duck necklace. He is wearing a bucket hat with the legend HAWKEYES , which, I soon gather, is yet another football team. “All right, who turned me in?” Duck Necklace says as he plops into the tub beside us. “I get a call in the morning,” he says. “It’s security. Can you come down to the dining room by 10 a.m.? You need to stay away from the members of this religious family.” Apparently, the gregarious Duck Necklace had photobombed the wrong people. There are several families who present as evangelical Christians or practicing Muslims on the ship. One man, evidently, was not happy that Duck Necklace had made contact with his relatives. “It’s because of religious stuff; he was offended. I put my arm around 20 people a day.”

Everyone laughs. “They asked me three times if I needed medication,” he says of the security people who apparently interrogated him in full view of others having breakfast.

Another hot-tub denizen suggests that he should have asked for fentanyl. After a few more drinks, Duck Necklace begins to muse about what it would be like to fall off the ship. “I’m 62 and I’m ready to go,” he says. “I just don’t want a shark to eat me. I’m a huge God guy. I’m a Bible guy. There’s some Mayan theory squaring science stuff with religion. There is so much more to life on Earth.” We all nod into our Red Stripes.

“I never get off the ship when we dock,” he says. He tells us he lost $6,000 in the casino the other day. Later, I look him up, and it appears that on land, he’s a financial adviser in a crisp gray suit, probably a pillar of his North Chicago community.

THE OCEAN IS TEEMING with fascinating life, but on the surface it has little to teach us. The waves come and go. The horizon remains ever far away.

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given. Maybe that’s why there’s so much signage on the doors around me attesting to marriages spent on the sea. Maybe that’s why the Royal Caribbean newsletter slipped under my door tells me that “this isn’t a vacation day spent—it’s bragging rights earned.” Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely.

Today is a big day for Icon passengers. Today the ship docks at Royal Caribbean’s own Bahamian island, the Perfect Day at CocoCay. (This appears to be the actual name of the island.) A comedian at the nightclub opined on what his perfect day at CocoCay would look like—receiving oral sex while learning that his ex-wife had been killed in a car crash (big laughter). But the reality of the island is far less humorous than that.

One of the ethnic tristate ladies in the infinity pool told me that she loved CocoCay because it had exactly the same things that could be found on the ship itself. This proves to be correct. It is like the Icon, but with sand. The same tired burgers, the same colorful tubes conveying children and water from Point A to B. The same swim-up bar at its Hideaway ($140 for admittance, no children allowed; Royal Caribbean must be printing money off its clientele). “There was almost a fight at The Wizard of Oz ,” I overhear an elderly woman tell her companion on a chaise lounge. Apparently one of the passengers began recording Royal Caribbean’s intellectual property and “three guys came after him.”

I walk down a pathway to the center of the island, where a sign reads DO NOT ENTER: YOU HAVE REACHED THE BOUNDARY OF ADVENTURE . I hear an animal scampering in the bushes. A Royal Caribbean worker in an enormous golf cart soon chases me down and takes me back to the Hideaway, where I run into Mrs. Rand in a bikini. She becomes livid telling me about an altercation she had the other day with a woman over a towel and a deck chair. We Suites have special towel privileges; we do not have to hand over our SeaPass Card to score a towel. But the Rands are not Suites. “People are so entitled here,” Mrs. Rand says. “It’s like the airport with all its classes.” “You see,” I want to say, “this is where your husband’s love of Ayn Rand runs into the cruelties and arbitrary indignities of unbridled capitalism.” Instead we make plans to meet for a final drink in the Schooner Bar tonight (the Rands will stand me up).

Back on the ship, I try to do laps, but the pool (the largest on any cruise ship, naturally) is fully trashed with the detritus of American life: candy wrappers, a slowly dissolving tortilla chip, napkins. I take an extra-long shower in my suite, then walk around the perimeter of the ship on a kind of exercise track, past all the alluring lifeboats in their yellow-and-white livery. Maybe there is a dystopian angle to the HBO series that I will surely end up pitching, one with shades of WALL-E or Snowpiercer . In a collapsed world, a Royal Caribbean–like cruise liner sails from port to port, collecting new shipmates and supplies in exchange for the precious energy it has on board. (The actual Icon features a new technology that converts passengers’ poop into enough energy to power the waterslides . In the series, this shitty technology would be greatly expanded.) A very young woman (18? 19?), smart and lonely, who has only known life on the ship, walks along the same track as I do now, contemplating jumping off into the surf left by its wake. I picture reusing Duck Necklace’s words in the opening shot of the pilot. The girl is walking around the track, her eyes on the horizon; maybe she’s highborn—a Suite—and we hear the voice-over: “I’m 19 and I’m ready to go. I just don’t want a shark to eat me.”

Before the cruise is finished, I talk to Mr. Washy Washy, or Nielbert of the Philippines. He is a sweet, gentle man, and I thank him for the earworm of a song he has given me and for keeping us safe from the dreaded norovirus. “This is very important to me, getting people to wash their hands,” he tells me in his burger getup. He has dreams, as an artist and a performer, but they are limited in scope. One day he wants to dress up as a piece of bacon for the morning shift.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise, but when I wake up on the eighth day, all I see are the gray ghosts that populate Miami’s condo skyline. Throughout my voyage, my writer friends wrote in to commiserate with me. Sloane Crosley, who once covered a three-day spa mini-cruise for Vogue , tells me she felt “so very alone … I found it very untethering.” Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes in an Instagram comment: “When Gary is done I think it’s time this genre was taken out back and shot.” And he is right. To badly paraphrase Adorno: After this, no more cruise stories. It is unfair to put a thinking person on a cruise ship. Writers typically have difficult childhoods, and it is cruel to remind them of the inherent loneliness that drove them to writing in the first place. It is also unseemly to write about the kind of people who go on cruises. Our country does not provide the education and upbringing that allow its citizens an interior life. For the creative class to point fingers at the large, breasty gentlemen adrift in tortilla-chip-laden pools of water is to gather a sour harvest of low-hanging fruit.

A day or two before I got off the ship, I decided to make use of my balcony, which I had avoided because I thought the view would only depress me further. What I found shocked me. My suite did not look out on Central Park after all. This entire time, I had been living in the ship’s Disneyland, Surfside, the neighborhood full of screaming toddlers consuming milkshakes and candy. And as I leaned out over my balcony, I beheld a slight vista of the sea and surf that I thought I had been missing. It had been there all along. The sea was frothy and infinite and blue-green beneath the span of a seagull’s wing. And though it had been trod hard by the world’s largest cruise ship, it remained.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “A Meatball at Sea.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.