Water is incredibly important. All living things need water to survive, so it is the foundation of our very existence. Without water, there would be no life on Earth.

Earth is the only known planet with stable bodies of liquid water on its surface, and therefore the only planet where water plays a major role in shaping our landscapes - whether through the drip of water on rock over millennia, the eroding flow of a river, or the repeated crashing of ocean waves against chalk cliffs.

Most (97%) of the water on our blue planet is salt water in the ocean. Only 3% of all water on Earth is fresh water, and only a tiny fraction (0.1%) of that fresh water is available and accessible to people and wildlife as surface water in rivers, streams, ponds and lakes. The rest is held in glaciers and ice, natural underground reservoirs and the atmosphere.

Water in Sussex

Sussex has a limited supply of fresh water and lots of demands on this vital resource. We live in a ‘water stressed’ region, and changing rainfall patterns due to climate change mean we are increasingly experiencing both seasonal droughts and floods.

Most (70% +) of the water we use in Sussex is pumped from natural underground reservoirs called aquifers. These can take decades to refill, so even when we are experiencing floods on the land surface, quite often our underground water supplies are still in drought.

Nearly 1.5 million people live in Sussex, and we all use a lot of water. The average person uses 160 litres of water a day, which is almost two full bathtubs. This equates to about 240 million litres of water used every single day across the total population of Sussex.

There is also hidden water in almost everything we use or buy, from food to furniture, clothes, toys and books. For example, it takes 2,700 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt, which is nearly 50 baths full. When you add in all this hidden water, the average water footprint rises from 1,120 litres to 20,000 litres of water per person, per week.

This high demand is reducing the amount of water available in the landscape, with knock-on impacts for wetland ecosystems and a wide range of wildlife.

To calculate your own water footprint and learn more about how much water it takes to make everyday products, visit waterfootprint.org

Wetland habitats in Sussex

Sussex is home to a diverse range of wetland habitats, each with their own unique character and landscape. From the sandy wet heaths of West Sussex to the saltmarsh havens of our coastal lowlands, find about more about our special wetland habitats here.