Q 01/05

Which South African city counted down to 'Day Zero' in 2018, when its taps were due to be shut off?

A) Cape Town

B) Johannesburg

C) Durban

D) Pretoria

Answer · why

A) Cape Town

Cape Town never reached Day Zero: residents cut their daily water use by more than half, and strong rains from June 2018 refilled the dams.

Q 02/05

Which meat has the largest water footprint, averaging about 15,400 litres for every kilogram produced?

A) Chicken

B) Pork

C) Lamb

D) Beef

Answer · why

D) Beef

Beef takes more than three times as much water as the same weight of chicken. Across livestock farming, about 98 percent of the water goes into growin...

Q 03/05

Which disease did physician John Snow trace to a contaminated water pump on London's Broad Street in 1854?

A) Typhoid

B) Cholera

C) Dysentery

D) Plague

Answer · why

B) Cholera

Cholera was widely blamed on bad air, but Snow traced the deaths to the pump, and parish officials took off its handle the day after he made his case ...

Q 04/05

In Chile's Atacama Desert, large vertical mesh nets are strung up to harvest water from which natural source?

A) Dew

B) Sea spray

C) Snowmelt

D) Fog

Answer · why

D) Fog

Fog droplets cling to the mesh and run down into a trough below. Namib Desert beetles pull off the same trick, drinking the water that condenses on th...

Q 05/05

World Water Day falls exactly one month before Earth Day, on which date each year?

A) 20 March

B) 22 March

C) 22 May

D) 5 June

Answer · why

B) 22 March

22 March was fixed by a United Nations vote in December 1992, and the first World Water Day was observed the following year.