Water is the central element essential to life as we know it. The human body is from 50 to 65 per cent water, while over 70 per cent of planet earth's surface is aquatic. In fact, the oceans constitute more than 97 per cent of the world's water, making earth when seen from space our solar system's ‘Blue Planet’. Another 2 per cent of the planetary water is frozen into the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. What this means is that our freshwater lakes, rivers and underground water sources producing the water we drink and use for our bodily sustenance and health, as well as to irrigate the food crops on which we depend, is not more than 1 per cent of the world's total water supply.

Without water, we die. It is a central vehicle for both human life and the life of the planet. Its sustainable management is paramount for human and terrestrial existence. This very importance is recognized today with the growth of ecological awareness, but has also been traditionally reflected in the spiritual significance of water in ancient religion. In pre-Christian earthen religion, for example, water is intimately associated with both wisdom and intoxication. While he survives as the god of the seas, the Roman Neptune's Indo-European hypostasis that gave rise also to the Vedic Apám Napát and Irish Nechtan suggests the notion of ‘fire in water’: both the lightning behind the fructifying rains and the potent spirit within an alcoholic beverage (York 1995b: 267ff. 528).