Water has several important properties due to its hydrogen bonding:
1) It is a universal solvent due to its polarity which allows it to dissolve many ionic compounds.
2) It has a high specific heat capacity which allows it to absorb large amounts of heat without large temperature changes, enabling organisms to maintain constant internal temperatures.
3) It has a high latent heat of vaporization, meaning it requires a lot of energy to change from liquid to gas, which is used in evaporative cooling in animals and plants.