20 Things You Can Do to Support Rivers and Rights

1. Learn what watershed you're in, what its major creeks and rivers are, and threats that could or are degrade water quality. Get involved with local watershed or river groups (or form one!) to monitor watershed (or river) health.

2. Reduce your energy use. Whether your energy supply comes from hydro, coal, oil, natural gas or a mix, electricity production has huge impacts for us all (not the least of which is climate change). Producing electricity also uses lots of water, usually for cooling (in the US, for example, it is one of the largest uses of water). Replace outdated appliances with new energy-savings models; set your thermostat to save energy; dry your clothes in the sun; replace light bulbs with compact fluorescents (they use one-quarter the electricity of standard bulbs); install a solar water heater at your home; use fewer electric devices; unplug electronic equipment such as TVs and microwave ovens when not in use (because they continue to use power when not in use).

3. Participate in the March 14 International Day of Action for Rivers.

4. Reduce inside water use. Install low-flow toilets and showerheads. The US uses 6.8 billion gallons of water to flush toilets every day (equivalent to 5-1/2 gallons for every person in the world now without a safe water supply). Take shorter showers. Repair dripping faucets promptly. A water faucet leaking one drip per second wastes 200 gallons a year. Research has shown that an average of 8% of all home water use is wasted through leaks.

5. Reduce outside water use. Install a drip irrigation system, a rainwater harvesting system or grey-water re-use system to water your garden. Use porous paving materials around your house, to help recharge groundwater.

6. Learn about dams in your area. Are there any whose costs outweigh their current benefits? They might be candidates for decommissioning. Interest local environmental groups and the media in the issue.

7. Raise your voice: write letters to the editor and government officials, join International Rivers's Take Action list, speak out at community meetings about the impacts of wasteful water and energy use and the importance of healthy ecosystems.

8. Support efforts to increase renewable energy in your neighborhood, community, state, country. Urge your political representatives to take up the issue.

9. Help organize a watershed clean-up (and appreciation) day.

10. Support efforts to improve energy efficiency at the local, regional and national levels.

11. Form a citizen's task force to monitor polluting industries in your watershed.

12. Each day almost 10,000 children under the age of 5 in the world's least-developed countries die as a result of illnesses contracted from impure water. Donate to groups building water supply for the world's poorest citizens.

13. Eat lower on the food chain – eating meat requires much greater quantities of water than a plant-based diet (for example, it takes about 6 gallons of water to grow a single serving of lettuce. More than 2,600 gallons is required to produce a single serving of steak).

14. Find out if your city has policies protecting watershed health, promoting water conservation, caps on groundwater pumping, and monitoring in place for non-point-source pollutants such as agricultural and contaminated urban runoff.

15. Start a letter-writing campaign to authorities that regulate large dams in your area, urging them to operate dams so that flows downstream of dams mimic natural flows.

16. Join (or organize) a local stream restoration effort. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimate that 70% of the riparian habitat nationwide has been lost or altered.

17. Drive and fly less, and reduce your contribution to global climate change. Climate change will have an inordinately high impact on those least likely to afford it, and those who have done little to contribute to it – the world's poorest.

18. Through letters or other actions, protest the World Bank’s lobbying on behalf of the big dam industry. Encourage the World Bank to support efficiency and small-scale and decentralized technologies.

19. Join the many local and international efforts to stop corporations taking over water supply systems.

20. Join International Rivers! Make a tax-deductible donation to International Rivers and join the international movement to protect rivers and defend human rights. Online donations help us save postage costs.