Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink
Scary, spooky or plain haunting, these lines from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” drew up visions of a whole ship full of sailors dying of thirst, while floating in the middle of an ocean. So much water but not one drop fit for drinking! While Coleridge never knew of the water crisis brewing in the world today, his vision seems to be quite prophetic. The reason however is not the death of an albatross but rather the dearth of fresh water.
Take two bits (not the scientific term!) of Hydrogen and shove in one bit of oxygen and you have H2O; the most essential thing on earth after air – water. It comes in all sorts of containers – oceans, lakes, pools, and rain. And every living thing on earth drinks its share of water and that makes its customer base beyond countable numbers. Add to that a gazillion industrial units that guzzle water; hundreds of gallons of industrial waste polluting water sources and climate changes leading to warm temperatures and draught and what we have, ladies and gentlemen, is a water crisis.
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Polluted water actually ranks pretty high in the cause of death chart – approximately for 14,000 people everyday. Take China and India for instance, two rapidly developing and growing countries in Asia. An Indian financial magazine, The Economist, ran a report in 2008 which indicated that around a 1,000 Indian children die of diarrhea every day from polluted water. That’s approximately 365,000 children in a year. In China, 500 million people drink and use polluted water because there is no other alternative. The African countries are not only suffering from lack of food, but drinkable water as well, while Middle Eastern countries as gearing up to fight for water instead of oil. Move aside the meteor and the aliens; the next Hollywood disaster flick is going to be all about water!
But then, with a 24-hour supply of water in the taps, people in developed countries like US and Europe don’t even realize that there is a water crisis brewing in the world around them. Already, according to a national study in the United States, more then 40% of the water sources in the country assessed were categorized as polluted. Considering the rate of population increase and water usage, experts estimate that the some states may need to look for a solution soon. Prevention is certainly better than a cure in this case.
First we really need to look at the cause of the water crisis, which is the increasing demand of a decreasing water supply. And the reason for the decrease in drinking water supply is mainly water pollution. Water can get polluted in different ways. In industrially developing countries like India and China, drinking water sources often get polluted because of the ditches or drainage pipes which carry untreated sewage or industrial waste from factories, construction sites, etc. from the city to the rivers or lakes. So next time you chose to dump some toxic waste down your drain, you might want to consider that it can come right back to your tap! Exercising your civic rights to ensure sewage recycling and treatment standards are met by your government can go a long way into making sure you can drink straight from the tap
But not all methods of pollution are so visible or blatant. Take for instance, a farm that uses chemical fertilizers for certain crops. Over time, the continuous seepage of chemicals into the ground water will turn the nearest water sources toxic and unfit for drinking. But since most chemicals once diluted in water are colorless and odorless, we will probably not suspect a thing when we drink it. Standard water filters can’t filter chemicals and toxic contaminants. In Kolkata, a city in India, where most households are dependent on bore wells, over drafting of ground water has led to an increase in the quantity of arsenic in the drinking water. Unlike the Agatha Christie mystery, there were no sensational deaths or old ladies investigating the slowly emerging deformities and diseases in the affected population.
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But these are just the how’s of water contamination not what’s. This list is longer and has long words like contaminants, chemicals, pathogens etc. Like everything in our world, it’s a fine line between well balanced and excess. So if any agent, either contaminant, chemical or even naturally found elements like calcium or iron are somehow introduced unnaturally into any water, it tilts the balance and the water becomes unfit for drinking. We constantly pour pollutants into our sewage in the form of detergents, cleaners, insect killers. In Chennai, another Indian metro, the garbage disposal unit built a landfill near the city’s main drinking water source and now the chemical seepage from the toxic waste has made its water supply undrinkable. In China industrial waste from construction and mining sites have polluted some of the major water sources.
Even global warming is causing water pollution and water shortage. Apart from drying up the glaciers that supply most of the fresh water sources in the world, higher temperatures can actually kill off plants or bacteria that live in the water or make them grow at an unnatural rate. Either way, it interferes with the natural ecosystem and can cause the water to turn cloudy with the increase in some organism, kill off fishes, etc. making the water toxic for most animals and humans. The effect of sewage or industrial chemicals infusing into drinking water is responsible for not only pollution, but also encourages insect borne diseases like malaria, dengue etc. Sewage also carries poisons in the form of floor cleaners and insecticides which can kill. But whatever be the cause, the end result is of course polluted undrinkable water.
Water is something that we living things cannot live without. Almost nothing other than cacti that grow in the desert probably can survive without water for too long. So, most humans and animals will turn to polluted water in desperation and then suffer the consequences of disease and death. For many countries, polluted water is the only water available. These include Sudan (12.3 million), Venezuela (5.0 million), Zimbabwe (2.7 million), Tunisia (2.1 million), and Cuba (1.2 million). So, unless we can build up the constitution of a cactus, we are all run the risk of running out of drinking water in the next decade. Experts are already throwing simple ideas like lifestyle change to conserve water, recycling, using natural products etc. all aimed at keeping the environment clean.
By Maria Belgado
Additional resources:
Global Water Shortage Looms In New Century
Water crisis
Water: is there hope?
Water shortage the biggest environmental concern on the planet, says survey
Millions Face Water Shortage, Pollution Problems, Officials Say
Thirsty crops cause water shortages and pollution
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Tags: climate change, drinking water, toxic wastes, water pollution, water shortage
Informative article. I read once that children’s deaths due to diarrhea can largely be prevented by adding a small amount of bleach to their drinking water. The knowledge and infrastructure is just lacking in many poor and remote places. Of course this is basic and does not address chemical pollution, water conservation or long term health risks.