What is Water?

Water is the most valuable resource and the most passionately contested. Drought has become an increasingly extreme problem in many parts of the world, and it is predicted that 60% of the major cities in Europe will run short of water in the next decade. In industrialized countries per capita water usage continues to rise intractably, despite strenuous efforts by environmentalists and resource managers to encourage conservation. Conflicts over water and environmental degradation from the overuse of resources are intensifying.

Water is not merely a physical resource: in every cultural context it is densely encoded with social, spiritual, political and environmental meanings, and these have a powerful effect upon patterns of water use and upon the relationships between water users and suppliers. --Veronica Strang
The Meaning of Water (the book)


In general Water symbolizes the subconscious mind. It is the world of the soul and dreams. Evocative of all the emotions and qualities which cannot be measured by physical means.
It is also used as a purifying element because passing through it is evocative of passing through the subconscious, thereby loosing the ego, which is an essential part of spiritual transition in all religious and spiritual teachings. --Penguin Dictionary of Symbolism


Spiritual References:
Water is addressed in Scripture nearly one thou­sand times. Aside from being an essential of life one cannot go without water very long it is an ancient symbol of refreshing, irrigation, and growth. In Bible times and regions, water could be scarce and so Scripture took opportunity to enforce the necessity of man living only by the word of God and used water as its sym­bolism. It is indisputable that water equates to life being essential for drinking, cooking, even cleaning (John 3:5; Ephesians 5:26). Symbolically water is the word of the Lord, a stream or issue of spirituality, a body or collection of knowledge, teaching, spiri­tual or religious doctrine. In the latter context, that of teaching or spiritual doctrine (Revelation 12:15), water is spewed out of the mouth of the dragon in order to flood the women he hated so with his uncleanness, that is with heretical doctrine that the woman, symbolizing the New Creation church, preaches instead of the Lord's gospel. It is recognized by being rigidly intellectual or mystical in nature. Water is equated to the life-giving power of redemption, and human spirits that take in Christ to become His wells of salvation. See Isaiah 12:3. --The Prophets Dictionary


In prophecy: Multitudes of people
In metaphor: Life (not a duration of time but Life as opposed to death)
It also has a great deal to do with the spiritual purity or filthiness of a person's life. People who speak good words are compared to wellsprings of fresh water, people with words that hurt people (curses) are compared to springs of bitter water (water that makes people sick and cannot sustain life).
People who try to rule over others but offer no benefit to people are likened to storm clouds that drop no rain.
The deepness of a body of water at times symbolizes a depth of wisdom, so that the wiser you are the deeper of a well you are, or the wiser you are, the deeper of a well you are able to search to the bottom of. Deep waters = the unknown.
There are no Seas on the new earth God is going to create, I think this is literal and symbolic; Symbolic in the sense of no more pain inducing deep mysteries such as the questions that often plague us in this life. --Yahoo