Poverty, pollution and environmental degradation
Water is the basis of life on earth. The quality of life directly depends on water quality. .Good water quality sustains healthy ecosystems and
hence leads to improved human well-being.
hence leads to improved human well-being.
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Poor water quality affects the environment and human well-being. Waterborne diseases cause the death of more than 1.5 million children each year. The quality of water resources is increasingly threatened by pollution.
Human activity over the past 50 years is responsible for unprecedented pollution of water resources in history. It is estimated that over 2.5 billion people globally live without adequate sanitation. Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and other effluents drain into the world’s waters. The problem is worse in developing countries where over 90% of raw sewage and 70% of untreated industrial wastes are dumped into surface waters. Many of the water pollutants have long-term negative impacts on water quality, constituting a risk to human health. As a result fresh water is severely reduced. Also, the ability of ecosystems to provide services is drastically reduced, at times with irreversible effects. Consequently the environment is degraded through decreased productivity of biomass, loss of biodiversity and vulnerability to other stresses. It is far cheaper to protect water resources than to clean up after pollution. Protection and maintenance of aquatic environments ensures the sustainability of their ecosystem services i.e. benefits such as potable water, fisheries, recreation and tourism. For instance fully-functioning natural wetlands filter off nutrients and toxic substances from water. Increased funding is required to protect ecosystems and prevent water pollution. Funding should support, and be complemented with, concerted well targeted awareness raising initiatives on water quality issues. Relevance of water quality for achieving MDGs by 2015: MDG 7: Environmental sustainability Target 1: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources Target 2: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss Target 3: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation Target 4: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers MDG 4: Reduce child mortality Target 1: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases Target 3: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases Key questions for researchHow extensively is water pollution and environmental degradation in your country?
How can lack of freshwater interrupt, or even reverse development in a country? What needs to be done to protect our waters from pollution and degredation? Research linkshttps://twitter.com/GCLondon2013
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/2013/02/un-year-of-water-cooperation/ http://www.unwater.org/statistics.html http://www.unwater.org/wwd10/downloads/WWD2010_Facts_web.pdf http://www.unwater.org/statistics_pollu.html http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/facts-and-figures/all-facts-wwdr3/fact-15-water-pollution/ http://www.pacinst.org/reports/water_quality/UN_Water_Statement.pdf |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeY7AyfoqU&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s
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