Water Crisis: Impact on Human Health

The world is expected to experience its worst water crisis in this century. Experts have predicted that even there may be wars may be over water. In India, the situation will be alarming. The International Food Policy Research Institute has projected that India’s water need will go up by 50% over the next few year; from just over 600 billion cubic meters in 1995 to over 900 billion cubic meters by 2020. In the northern Gujarat, farmers have to lower their pumps by 3 meters every two years to reach the falling groundwater levels. Over the last decade, some parts of Haryana and Punjab have seen the level sink by over 4 meters. The water levels in Tamil Nadu have fallen between 25 and 30 meters due to over pumping. The National Environmental Engineering Institute reports that in many states, groundwater is being drawn faster than its rate of recharge.

The failure to provide safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services to all people is perhaps the greatest development failure of the 20th century. The most glaring consequence of this failure is the high rate of mortality among young children from preventable water-related diseases. According to the WHO estimates, 1.1 billion people around the world lack access to “improved water supply” and more than 2.4 billion lack access to “improved sanitation.” Water-related diseases are typically placed in four classes.

• Waterborne diseases: caused by the ingestion of water contaminated with human or animal faeces or urine containing pathogenic bacteria or viruses, e.g. cholera, typhoid, amoebic and bacillary dysentery and other diarrhoeal diseases.
• Water-washed diseases: caused by poor personal hygiene and skin or eye contact with contaminated water, e.g. scabies, trachoma and flea, lice and tick-borne diseases.
• Water-based diseases: caused by parasites found in intermediate organisms living in contaminated water, e.g. dracunculiasis, schistosomiasis and other helminthic infections.
• Water-related diseases: caused by insect vectors, especially mosquitoes that breed in water, e.g. dengue, filariasis, malaria, onchocerciasis, trypanosomiasis and yellow fever.

The first three most clearly associate with lack of improved domestic water supply.

 

Dr. D. N. Garg

Former Dean

College of Veterinary Sciences, Hisar-125 004