Sunday, June 17, 2018

Pillars Of Clean Water Supplies

By Frank Reynolds


Every five minutes at least one person dies from a dirty water problem. More than ten million others remain ill from the same. The UN considers access to clean water supplies a basic human right. Basic in the sense that it is an unquestionable entitlement a human being should have access to. This little element has the power to affect multiple facets of human life.

There are guidelines set to determine whether a population is being provided for in this respect. The first is quantity. A human being consumes more than 20 liters a day. This amount goes towards drinking, food preparation, and personal hygiene. The amount can be more. The crisis is present because a significant number of people all over the world live on less than this. The same population does not have safe hydration leave alone enough.

Quality is a cornerstone of safe hydration. The WHO has outlined guidelines for determination of safety. There is a prescribed criterion of chemical and microbial characteristics. Anything less or more is hazardous to human life. It is considered a major negation of the basic human rights articles.

The source should be reliable. The availability of this resource more often than not revolves around seasons. This is in the case of surface water. When the season is low, the people could tap into groundwater. However, when this also dwindles there is a need for a system to be put in place to replenish the supply of this precious commodity if nature does not take care of it. The distribution system should also be reliable. It should be interrupted without notice. The people should be alerted in advance about the possibility of dry taps.

Then there is the cost of access. This is measured in one of two ways. The first being monetary. This is in terms of the fees paid to authorities to deliver piping and manage the distribution channels. The other is time measured. That is how long the people have to go from their homes to the next hydration point. The governments can usually find ways to subsidize either cost.

Imagine a natural disaster that causes an interruption in the supply of water? For such scenarios, human beings should store some. Storage should be done in food grade containers. Plastic soda bottles can also be used after meticulous cleaning. Milk and juice bottles are more susceptible to bacteria growth, as they cannot be sufficiently cleaned.

Every two minutes, at least one child dies from diarrhea, an illness which is usually brought about by unsafe hydration. This astounding statistic alone is enough to understand the extent of impact on the health of the world. Children do not have time to live out their childhoods. They do not have time for school. They are busy helping their parents fetch enough for the family.

About $200 Billion is lost each year due to a collective shortage of proper hydration. Once the crisis is averted, the world stands to gain a lot just from savings on medical costs. The global economy could use a little relief from this problem.




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