World Water Day. Are we polluting beyond our means?

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In this activity you will learn about how much water we consume, how we generate pollutants in our homes, how these can reach the environment and the food chain and what natural attenuation processes are. You will be able to join us on a tour of our experiments, and you will be able to talk and ask questions to the researchers from IMDEA Water's Soil and Water Quality in the Environment group. Come with us and learn how to apply what we explain at home in order to make a rational and responsible use of water! In each of our tables and experiments you will learn about: Would you say you use too much water? Do you know how much you pollute? Are all pollutants the same? Here you will learn about it! We have practical examples and objects that we use in our daily lives to see how much water we use at home and which of our actions pollute it and how. The little ones will be able to play at guessing how much water they need and how they "dirty" it at home (and how to use and dirty it as little as possible!). We tell you what sorption, biodegradation and phytoabsorption are, who does them and how they help us! Here you can learn, thanks to our models, diagrams and real experiments, what happens to water pollutants when they reach nature and, in particular, our gardens and crops. Do you know what Nature-Based Solutions are? What about Green Filters, or run-off? Come and find out! We will show you demonstrative experiments to learn about these terms, their importance, their usefulness and their relation to natural attenuation processes. We will see how plants help us to avoid soil erosion and how the plant-soil team is very important for the environment. We will also tell you about the different research we are working on and how we do our experiments. This way you will see how broad this field is, that nature is our ally and that we must take care of it and protect it. Activity carried out with the collaboration of the following projects and grants: Nat4Health “Antibióticos, hormonas, contaminantes orgánicos persistentes y móviles y patógenos, la compleja mezcla del escenario agrícola y ganadero ¿Riesgo para la salud o atenuación natural?” (2021-2025). Proyecto PID2020-118521RB-I00 financiado por MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033. PAPILLONS "Plastic in Agricultural Production: Impacts, Lifecycles and LONg-term Sustainability". This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101000210