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Yes. There are anthropocentric, biocentric, and ecocentric reasons why wasting water is bad.Anthropocentrically, fresh water is a vital resource for the survival of our population. Seeing as less than 1% of the world’s water is freshwater and available for us to consume (not trapped in glaciers), there limitations that factor into our carrying capacity as a population on Earth including the availability and distribution of freshwater. Different countries are endowed with different stocks of freshwater, and depending on their replenishment rate and usage rate, each has varying degrees of water scarcity that needs to be addressed. Below is a map by World Resources Institute that outlines the water stress by country, with 36 countries displaying an “Extremely High Stress (>80%)”, which means that “more than 80 percent of the water available to agricultural, domestic, and industrial users is withdrawn annually—leaving businesses, farms, and communities vulnerable to scarcity.” (World’s 36 Most Water-Stressed Countries).Therefore, wasting water in a country where it may appear water just magically comes out of the tap (i.e. Canada, the US, most developed countries), is wasting a precious, vital resource that millions (663 million, according to Water Facts: Facts About the Global Water Shortage) don’t even have clean, safe access to.Furthermore, in places where clean water is scarce, overusing or wasting household water limits the availability of it for other communities to use for drinking, cleaning, cooking, or growing - and thus contributes to disease, illness, or agricultural scarcity/starvation.You could tack on the economic incentive to save water as it means lower household water utility bills, one of the largest incentives for water-wise individuals or households to conserve water.Biocentrically, other species rely on freshwater besides humans as a vital component to their survival! Overuse of freshwater in household settings means there is less fresh water for agricultural use (which affects humans on an food scarcity level), but many livestock species rely on freshwater. Also, as we divert more freshwater from aquatic environments to supplement agriculturally, many plant and animal species are threatened or can become endangered. Despite our attempts to separate man from nature, we are indeed part of one ecosystem (the biosphere), and reliant on plants and animals; therefore sharing and properly managing our most precious resource is crucial.Ecocentrically, wasting water while our demand for water increases (as population and standards of living increase globally), means that we need to supplement for this lack of freshwater by pulling it out of aquifers or groundwater supplies in which their regeneration rate is lower than the extraction rate. This unsustainable practice decreases long term water security and availability.Furthermore, and almost most importantly, water takes a lot of energy, time, and money to filter and clean so that it’s drinkable. Wasting water or overusing household water means you’re wasting the energy-intensive process of filtration. The many steps of this process - extraction, transportation, filtration, etc. - require non-renewable fossil fuels and as these resources become depleted, their dangerous by-products such as carbon dioxide build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to your carbon footprint and the Earth’s rising temperatures.

E. F. SchumacherErnst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies.Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany in 1911. His father was a professor of political economy. The younger Schumacher studied in Bonn and Berlin, then from 1930 in England as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, and later at Columbia University in New York City, earning a diploma in economics. He then worked in business, farming, and journalism. His sister, Elizabeth, was the wife of the physicist Werner Heisenberg.Schumacher served as Chief Economic Advisor to the British National Coal Board from 1950 to 1970 and founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now known as Practical Action) in 1966.In 1995, his 1973 book “Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered” was ranked by The Times Literary Supplement as one of the 100 most influential books published since World War II. In 1977 he published “A Guide for the Perplexed” as a critique of materialistic scientism and as an exploration of the nature and organization of knowledge.

Farming is the biggest enterprise in the world that feeds all of us. Farming is the most risky business with lots of uncertainties, uncontrollable factors (weather, price), difficulties and hardships. Farmers are the only group that cannot fix a price for their own products, but agri-produce price is controlled by the government to keep it low and affordable to poor consumers.Handouts are given to all groups of people and businesses.Big businesses take loans at low interest rates and most of the loans are not repaid on time and end up as NPAs causing huge losses to the exchequer; big businesses also manipulate the governments to get favorable policies in support of their businesses in terms of subsidized or free land, new infrastructure, tax breaks, etc.All government servants get regular pay rises or upward revisions and cost-of-living adjusted dearness allowances (DA), and subsidized housing, travel, paid leave, etc. In addition, they also demand and get huge amounts in bribes to do their regular and some times irregular work.Most poor people get freebies from governments run by manipulative politicians — subsidized or free food, gas, electricity, water and so on.Then, why do we single out farmers alone who get a few benefits in order to stay alive and make ends meet with farming, supplemented by non-farm income? They are the ones who produce our food that keep us alive. If you continue to neglect them, they will quit farming and all of us will starve without adequate food to eat.It doesn’t mean that farm loan waiver is the right thing to do. Most farm loan waivers are used as a political gimmick to gain votes, but do not help all the farmers. Similarly, supply of uncontrolled free electricity to farmers has led to uncontrolled pumping of groundwater which is depleting groundwater reserves throughout the country to dangerous levels.How else can farmers be supported? The government can try the following:Make sure that farmers get the MSP announced by the government for all commodities. Currently the e-NAMs don’t benefit the less educated smallholder farmers. Middlemen form a cartel and collude with the government procurement agencies to cheat on farmers all the time.Make price-deficit payments to farmers (in cases where the market price is lower than the MSP) during periods of excess production.Plan and enforce crop planning for each region as per anticipated demand so as to avoid excess production, market glut and falling prices.Provide well-designed crop insurance to guard against unforeseen looses due to extreme weather events or market risks. Make crop insurance compulsory for all farmers at government subsidized premium.Free farmers from their debt only one time by forming a farmers’ debt rehabilitation commission which will work out the debts of all farmers and make funds available to clear the loans only once.Move as many people out of farming as possible by:Providing free education and special scholarships for higher education for farmers’ children. This way we can move the deserving rural youngsters out of farming.Developing rural infrastructure and rural enterprises to create non-farm jobs in rural areas and providing the required training to willing farmers to move them out of unsustainable marginal farming.