MUTIA, MAHIEDA M.
CE 57 – Water Supply and Sewerage
Assignment No. 1
Importance of Safe Drinking Water on Public Health and Common Sources of Water
Supply
(Week 1, August 24-30, 2020)
1) Why safe drinking water is important for public health?
Safe water supplies, hygienic sanitation and good water management are fundamental
to global health. Almost one tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by:
* increasing access to safe drinking water;
* improving sanitation and hygiene; and
* improving water management to reduce risks of water-borne infectious diseases, and
accidental drowning during recreation.
Annually, safer water could prevent:
* 1.4 million child deaths from diarrhoea;
* 500 000 deaths from malaria;
* 860 000 child deaths from malnutrition; and
* 280 000 deaths from drowning.
In addition, 5 million people can be protected from being seriously incapacitated from
lymphatic filariasis and another 5 million from trachoma.
Recommended measures
Efforts to improve water, sanitation and hygiene interact with each other to boost
overall health. Access to sanitation, such as simple latrines in communities, prevents
drinking water contamination from human waste and reduces infections. High-tech
public health measures are not necessarily the best: frequent hand-washing with soap
and safe storage of drinking water are high-impact practices.
Environmental management effectively lowers the rates of malaria and other diseases
spread by insects and prevents death. These measures include eliminating habitats -
such as standing water - for breeding, and screening doors and windows for protection
from mosquitoes.
Economic benefits
Investment to improve drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and water resource
management systems makes strong economic sense: every dollar invested leads to up
to eight dollars in benefits. US$ 84 billion a year could be regained from the yearly
investment of US$ 11.3 billion needed to meet the water and sanitation targets under
the Millennium Development Goals.
In addition to the value of saved human lives, other benefits include higher economic
productivity, more education, and health-care savings.
Safe and readily available water is important for public health, whether it is used for
drinking, domestic use, food production or recreational purposes. Improved water
supply and sanitation, and better management of water resources, can boost countries’
economic growth and can contribute greatly to poverty reduction.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and
sanitation. Everyone has the right to sufficient, continuous, safe, acceptable, physically
accessible, and affordable water for personal and domestic use.
The World Health Organization recognizes the importance of access to clean water. It
has extensive programs in place to assist developing countries in their efforts to apply
appropriate technology to increase water supply and remove waste. It is important to
realise that even when water supplies are contaminated, the availability of water for
handwashing decreases the incidence of diarrhoea by 40%.2,4
The World Health Organization has set new goals (the Millenium Development Goals)
to halve the number of communities which lack sustainable access to adequate water
supplies and sanitation by the year 2015.2 To achieve these goals, a staggering 1.1
billion people must be provided with improved water supplies by 2015. This means that
over 260 000 more people must be connected to a new water supply every day. In
addition, 2.6 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. To meet
the WHO target for 2015, 370 000 more people will have to gain access to sanitation
services every day in the period 2002 /2015.
At the same time as millions of people need basic water supply facilities, many others
are being connected to modern plumbing services. This move to advanced plumbing is
happening at an extraordinary rate, almost 300 000 people are gaining access to such
services each day. For this to be effective in health terms, the mains supply and
household plumbing systems must be properly designed and maintained to minimize
risk.
2) What are the factors affecting water supply systems according to the World
Health Organization (WHO)?
Water and health
Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to transmission of diseases such as
cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. Absent, inadequate, or
inappropriately managed water and sanitation services expose individuals to
preventable health risks. This is particularly the case in health care facilities where
both patients and staff are placed at additional risk of infection and disease when water,
sanitation, and hygiene services are lacking. Globally, 15% of patients develop an
infection during a hospital stay, with the proportion much greater in low-income
countries.
Inadequate management of urban, industrial, and agricultural wastewater means the
drinking-water of hundreds of millions of people is dangerously contaminated or
chemically polluted.
Some 829 000 people are estimated to die each year from diarrhoea as a result of unsafe
drinking-water, sanitation, and hand hygiene. Yet diarrhoea is largely preventable, and
the deaths of 297 000 children aged under 5 years could be avoided each year if these
risk factors were addressed. Where water is not readily available, people may decide
handwashing is not a priority, thereby adding to the likelihood of diarrhoea and other
diseases.
Diarrhoea is the most widely known disease linked to contaminated food and water but
there are other hazards. In 2017, over 220 million people required preventative
treatment for schistosomiasis – an acute and chronic disease caused by parasitic
worms contracted through exposure to infested water.
In many parts of the world, insects that live or breed in water carry and transmit
diseases such as dengue fever. Some of these insects, known as vectors, breed in clean,
rather than dirty water, and household drinking water containers can serve as breeding
grounds. The simple intervention of covering water storage containers can reduce
vector breeding and may also reduce faecal contamination of water at the household
level.
Economic and social effects
When water comes from improved and more accessible sources, people spend less
time and effort physically collecting it, meaning they can be productive in other ways.
This can also result in greater personal safety by reducing the need to make long or
risky journeys to collect water. Better water sources also mean less expenditure on
health, as people are less likely to fall ill and incur medical costs, and are better able to
remain economically productive.
With children particularly at risk from water-related diseases, access to improved
sources of water can result in better health, and therefore better school attendance, with
positive longer-term consequences for their lives.
Challenges
Climate change, increasing water scarcity, population growth, demographic changes
and urbanization already pose challenges for water supply systems. By 2025, half of the
world ’ s population will be living in water-stressed areas. Re-use of wastewater, to
recover water, nutrients, or energy, is becoming an important strategy. Increasingly
countries are using wastewater for irrigation – in developing countries this represents
7% of irrigated land. While this practice if done inappropriately poses health risks, safe
management of wastewater can yield multiple benefits, including increased food
production.
Options for water sources used for drinking water and irrigation will continue to evolve,
with an increasing reliance on groundwater and alternative sources, including
wastewater. Climate change will lead to greater fluctuations in harvested rainwater.
Management of all water resources will need to be improved to ensure provision and
quality.
WHO's response
As the international authority on public health and water quality, WHO leads global
efforts to prevent transmission of waterborne disease, advising governments on the
development of health-based targets and regulations.
WHO produces a series of water quality guidelines, including on drinking-water, safe
use of wastewater, and safe recreational water environments. The water quality
guidelines are based on managing risks, and since 2004 the Guidelines for
drinking-water quality promote the Framework for Safe Drinking-water. The
Framework recommends establishment of health-based targets, the development and
implementation of Water Safety Plans by water suppliers to most effectively identify
and manage risks from catchment to consumer, and independent surveillance to ensure
that Water Safety Plans are effective and health-based targets are being met.
WHO
also supports countries to implement the drinking-water quality guidelines through the
development of practical guidance materials and provision of direct country support.
This includes the development of locally relevant drinking-water quality regulations
aligned to the principles in the Guidelines, the development, implementation and
auditing of Water Safety Plans and strengthening of surveillance practices.
* Guidelines for drinking-water quality
* Water Safety Plan resources
* Developing drinking-water quality regulations and standards
Since 2014, WHO has been testing household water treatment products against WHO
health-based performance criteria through the WHO International ‘ Scheme ’ to
Evaluate Household Water Treatment Technologies. The aim of the scheme is to
ensure that products protect users from the pathogens that cause diarrhoeal disease and
to strengthen policy, regulatory, and monitoring mechanisms at the national level to
support appropriate targeting and consistent and correct use of such products.
WHO works closely with UNICEF in a number of areas concerning water and health,
including on water, sanitation, and hygiene in health care facilities. In 2015 the two
agencies jointly developed WASH FIT (Water and Sanitation for Health Facility
Improvement Tool), an adaptation of the water safety plan approach. WASH FIT aims
to guide small, primary health care facilities in low- and middle-income settings
through a continuous cycle of improvement through assessments, prioritization of risk,
and definition of specific, targeted actions. A 2019 report describes practical steps that
countries can take to improve water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities.
3) Discuss the different categories of water consumption.
Water consumption in a community is characterized by several types of demand,
including domestic, public, commercial, and industrial uses. Domestic demand
includes water for drinking, cooking, washing, laundering, and other household
functions. Public demand includes water for fire protection, street cleaning, and use in
schools and other public buildings. Commercial and industrial demands include water
for stores, offices, hotels, laundries, restaurants, and most manufacturing plants. There
is usually a wide variation in total water demand among different communities. This
variation depends on population, geographic location, climate, the extent of local
commercial and industrial activity, and the cost of water.
Water use or demand is expressed numerically by average daily consumption per
capita (per person). In the United States the average is approximately 380 litres (100
gallons) per capita per day for domestic and public needs. Overall, the average total
demand is about 680 litres (180 gallons) per capita per day, when commercial and
industrial water uses are included. (These figures do not include withdrawals from
freshwater sources for such purposes as crop irrigation or cooling operations at electric
power-generating facilities.) Water consumption in some developing countries may
average as little as 15 litres (4 gallons) per capita per day. The world average is
estimated to be approximately 60 litres (16 gallons) per person per day.
In any community, water demand varies on a seasonal, daily, and hourly basis. On a
hot summer day, for example, it is not unusual for total water consumption to be as
much as 200 percent of the average demand. The peak demands in residential areas
usually occur in the morning and early evening hours (just before and after the normal
workday). Water demands in commercial and industrial districts, though, are usually
uniform during the work day. Minimum water demands typically occur in the very
early or predawn morning hours. Civil and environmental engineers must carefully
study each community ’ s water use patterns in order to design efficient pumping and
distribution systems.
4) Compare and contrast the "Estimated Water Requirements" according to Use
of Purpose proposed by different authors or sources.
Recommendations and Estimates of Requirements
The amount of water needed to replace losses is the absolute requirement. Whereas
requirements are impossible to predict precisely, except under controlled conditions,
recommendations are standards to be used in the assessment and planning of diets for
individuals and for groups, and for establishing policy.
The Tropical Agriculture Association has published water requirements for humans,
animals and irrigated crops, given as liters per year (http://www.taa.org.uk). The
minimum water requirement for fluid replacement for a 70kg human in a temperate
zone equates to 3L per day, or 42.9mL/kg. Minimum requirements for an individual the
same size but in a tropical zone equates to 4.1 to 6L/day, or 58.6 to 85.7mL/kg.
The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), the dietary standards for the United
States civilian population, has their roots in national defence. The Food and Nutrition
Board (FNB), a part of the National Research Council, was established in 1940 “ to
advise on nutrition problems in connection with National Defense (39).” The amount
of 1 mL water/kcal of energy expenditure has been the recommendation since 1945 (40).
In 1989 the FNB added a higher amount, stating, “...there is so seldom a risk of water
intoxication that the specified requirement for water is often increased to 1.5 mL/kcal
to cover variations in activity level, sweating, and solute load (4).”
Age and gender specific Adequate Intakes (AI) for water were established in 2004 by
the Food and Nutrition Board (5). The Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) for water are
shown in Tables 3 and 4.
Athletes, like military personnel, are a population wherein hydration status is critical to
performance. Considerable research has been conducted to explore the measurement
and the consequences of dehydration during physical performance, as well as strategies
and recommendations for fluid intake. Athletes are commonly instructed to replace
body water lost (measured by change in body weight) during training and competition
with an amount of fluid that is equal to the amount lost, using the guideline that 1 kg
equals 1 L. Numerous monographs and papers have been published on fluid needs of
physically and environmentally stressed individuals (41-47).
