Introduction
Safe drinking-water is essential for healthy life, and United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking-water as a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life [1]. Moreover, the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene for health and development has been reflected in the outcomes of a series of international policy forums [1]. These have also included health and water-oriented conferences, but most importantly in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the General Assembly of the UN in 2000. The UN General Assembly declared the period from 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” [1]. Access to safe drinking-water is important as a health and development issue at national, regional and local levels. Bangladesh, a developing country from South Asian (SA) region also takes several steps for ensuring sanitation and safe drinking water facilities among the people. As a result, Bangladesh has made great progress in this sector. The government also claimed that it has achieved the MDG indicator of ensuring safe drinking water for 85% people of the country. According to different demographic and health surveys, the percentage of using improved sources of drinking water is about 98% (reported in the latest two surveys Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) 2012-13 and Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2014) [2,3]. But, this achievement statistics are overlooking the shortcomings.
USnews.com finds that India is an area where a large majority of the population do not have access to clean water. Indians have to spend 62 more cents than the British for their water, which is estimated to be 20 percent of their average income. These are the circumstances that they have to live with in, where the only alternative is to use contaminated water. Those who choose to do so often face a risk of dying from an illness, more often from diarrhea. Exposure to dirty water accounts for the death of 140,000 kids in India.
Clean water and sanitation is the goal 6 of Sustainable Develop Goal, which is not only aimed to provide the clean water and sanitation for everyone, it is also for have high quality and sustainability of water resources. This goal targets to achieve the equitable and affordable of safe water for all by 2030, and also to complete the sanitation, provide better condition and end the open defecation, particularly pay attention to the needs of women and girls for better health. The goal 6 also includes to reduces the chemical polluted of the water, increasing recycling and safe using of water, ‘protect and restore the ecosystems, and increase using safely managed sanitation services’. Mostly, people thought they can take access to clean, safety
Water, like food, is a necessity for human life that is used for many purposes such as agricultural, industrial, and domestic systems. While water is a common element around the world not all of it is clean and able to be consumed or used by humans. With only a percentage of the world’s water being clean and the use of water increasing, the availability of water around the world has become a common issue in the developing and even the developed world. This may be a smaller problem in areas close to clean water sources compared to areas far from a clean water source but, the availability of water is not strictly based on location, it also depends on the specific political and social needs and issues of the area as well. These all become issues that must be accounted for when deciphering whether water is a basic human right or a commodity and what action must be taken to aid the developing water systems in community’s that lack them.
Around the world people are suffering from the problem of having a safe and clean water, there are more than 633 million people lack access to safe water. Remote countries in Africa are mostly the victim of having unsanitary water sources.
There is a water crisis which faces many parts of the world and it is a threat to survival of human beings since humans are primarily dependent on water. Shortage in drinking water is beginning to show its effects in first world countries, but is a current major problem facing lesser developed countries which have not taken drastic steps to harvest water and purify it to make it safe for human consumption. In developed countries the population growth has strained available water resources and stretched the ability of governments and private firms to provide safe drinking water to the vast majority of the population. Seventy one percent of
The commodification of water is driven by fears of water scarcity, accessibility and cleanliness. Water is recognized a basic human “the human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses” (UN, 2002). But despite this it estimated approximately a billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.
Water and sanitation: Around 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhea diseases caused by lack of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. At any one time about one-half of all people in developing countries are suffering from diseases associated with water. Diseases may be caused by drinking water contaminated by human or animal waste, insects which breed in water or parasites. The energy expended carting water long distances also has a health and time cost on women and children. Improved access to water and a knowledge of hygiene and management practices can lead to improved
One of the most controversial issues today relates drinking water. It could be defined as drinkable water or potable water which is safe enough for drinking and food preparation (Charitywater.org, 2016). Many people argue that some countries are meeting rising problems of not having enough drinking water. For example in Africa, a lot of people suffer and die daily from various diseases because they have unclear, dirty, contaminated water. This essay partly agrees with this statement and will illustrate this issue in term of how important the water is, the causes of getting less clear drinking water, two technological solutions which is waters desalination and groundwater wells and how to apply these solutions to Chad in Africa.
However, that was just not the root of access to clean water, but rather the underlying cause of the issue was financial instability in most of the developing world. As the American nonprofit developmental aid organization, Water.org, states that “1in 9 people lack access to safe water and 1 in 3 people lack access to a toilet,” is the underlying social problems that are slowing the economic prosperity of developing countries from moving forward to achieve quality life for their citizens (Water.org). Furthermore, the nonprofit states that in addition of these numbers, about one million people lose their lives due to water-related disease every year, 2.3 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation, and 844 billion people are in need of safe drinking water in the world today (Water.org). The effect of lack of access to safe clean water and sanitation affect most women and young
As it has been earlier pointed out, majority of people lives in slums. This situation poses a challenge of attaining Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Water is essential for us to live and yet there are still so many issue linked to contamination of water and the health of people. “A large proportion of the World’s population – around 1.1 billion people – does not have access to improved sources of water”(Thompson et al., 2003). Many people take for granted their ability to access clean water. When in reality this problem has been occurring for a very long time and affects a vast amount of people. “The first documented attempts to treat drinking water, which may date back to 4000 B.C., were recorded in Greek and Sanskrit writings”(Barry M and Hughes J, 2008). Even with the technology and knowledge we have today this problem is still occurring. In order to fully understand its implications on people it has to be looked at in a global context.
It is an essential resource for sustaining life as well as central to agriculture and rural development, and is intrinsically linked to global challenges of food insecurity and poverty, climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as degradation and depletion of natural resources that affect the livelihoods of millions of people across the world. According to the World Bank, (2010) report, water is a scarce resource with multiple interwoven uses that range from drinking water, energy, irrigation, manufacturing things, transport of people and goods among others. The report further states that, more than one-sixth of the Worlds’ population does not have access to safe drinking water, with 80% living in rural areas thus access to water cannot not be guaranteed globally.
One of the key challenges to the developing countries is increasing access to safe water supply to the rapidly growing urban population, consequently, billions of dollars have been invested in pursuit of the goal of ‘universal service’ and yet the realization of that goal is still elusive. The goal of the ‘universal service’ is to achieve self-sufficiency in water supply with increased access to safe water of adequate quantity and acceptable quality in sustainable way. The main challenges of increased water self-sufficiency for water managers are: controlling energy demands; controlling environmental impacts; ensuring high quality water and avoiding negative impacts on human health; ensuring public trust in the water supply; and ensuring cost effectiveness.
Access to clean water is a basic human right and yet people around the world don’t have that right and they struggle to survive without it. The many uses of clean and potable water include water for drinking to cooking other daily purpose. It is reported that over 1.1 billion people lack access to an improved water resource and three million individuals, and majority of them children, suffer and die from water-related disease. The need to improve water quality and providing clean water should be major project for developed countries like the US and so called “well developed countries”.
As water supply and sanitation is either non-existent or ineffective in cities and more largely populated areas, it is also struggling in rural areas such as smaller villages. Part of the reason why access to clean, usable water is unavailable is because of