Lack of consumers’ awareness to the safety conditions of « water-health » link

factors.

ii. Use of raw water for direct consumption from contaminated intake points such as ponds, shallow rivers, stagnant water holes, etc. without going through a minimum purification process due to lack of sufficient supply of safe water at affordable cost.

iii. Extraction of drinking water by means of shallow tube-wells near contamination points (public latrines, urinals, open drains etc.) without proper protective measures around the installations or from already contaminated shallow aquifer in the peri-urban or rural areas.

iv. Using the same contiguous surface water source for drinking as well as for other multipurpose uses (washing, bathing, cleaning etc.), particularly in the peri-urban and rural areas where point sources of safe water supply are lacking.

v. Contamination in the reticulation system by suction through leakage where the supply is intermittent or under low pressure or by direct contact with polluted water (open drains etc.) through defective joints in the water pipes.

vi. High concentration of nitrates (as a result of intensive use of fertilisers or animal wastes in agriculture) or heavy metals and other toxic agents (dioxin, mercury, DDT etc. coming from industries or other uses) in the aquifers or in surface water rendering them unfit for drinking.

vii. Illegal tapping of water from the reticulation system by unhygienic connection.

B. Collection, conservation and storing systems:

i. Uncleaned overhead or unhygienic condition of underground private water reservoirs for storing water, particularly where the supply is intermittent.

ii. Uncleaned water containers for storing water (plastic gericans or other types of unsafe liquid containers usually used for dangerous or non-edible liquids). As a result, even if the initial source of water is safe (city water supply or other point supply), the water thus stored in these containers becomes contaminated and unsafe for drinking.

iii. Distribution of drinking water from uncleaned water tankers or private street vendors using uncleaned containers.

C. Faulty planning and incompatible landuses irrespective of hydrological and natural drainage system

This aspect influences highly the water quality at the intake points and hence the public health condition of the settlement centres. All transformations of natural sites into activity areas changes the soil structure and produce wastes whose quality depends upon the types of landuses. As our sanitary system is mostly waterborne, the domestic, human and industrial wastes go finally to the natural drainage system. If they are not properly treated before discharge, we contaminate heavily the water quality of the resources, some times irreversibly. On the other hand, excessive built-up areas and inconsiderate reclamation of agricultural land by deforestation not only increase the high run-off coefficient of the ground, degrading thereby the regenerating process of aquifers but also increase the pollution content of the water resources carried out by flush drainage of rain water.

D. Lack of consumers’ awareness to the safety conditions of « water-health » link

This factor plays a no less important role than those enumerated above in the degradation of the public health condition related to the use of unsafe water, particularly among the poor living in

the peri-urban and rural areas of the developing countries. It is the total ignorance within these vulnerable consumers’ groups having inadequate access to safe water that unsafe water is the primary vector of the majority of epidemic diseases. This lack of awareness to the safety conditions of the « water-health » link and of their unhygienic practices towards water handling, contributes substantially in the degradation of their health environment. Usually, when they see the water more or less clear, they consider it fit for direct consumption, ignoring the pathological and bacterial risks in the water. For this reason they feel no hesitation to collect drinking water from the same sources which they use also for other purposes.

In this context, it is worthwhile to recall that our universal sanitary system is based upon the waterborne techniques irrespective of the water topography and resources conditions of the area.

We wash everything with water ignoring the contents of the discharges, which ultimately goes to the natural watercourses. This constitutes a permanent threat to our natural water resources, shallow aquifers and surface water system, if the effluents are not properly treated before their discharge. Countries who can afford to pay the costly system of wastewater treatment can be able to control water contamination and to avoid health hazards related to waterborne diseases or polluted water. Unfortunately, a majority of the developing countries are unable to install such costly system to keep their water resources free from contamination and has to sacrifice a large number of lives every year, particularly in the unserviced urban and peri-urban areas due to the shortage of safe drinking water supply.

POSSIBLE SUSTAINABLE APPROACHES TO MEET THE CHALLANGE.

From the above discussion it is clear that the water-health problems have been linked up with a number of parameters related to resources condition, distribution process and consumption condition, hygienic practices, quantity of safe water available at affordable price, landuse configuration and many other factors related to social and economic conditions of the settlement centres. Therefore, we need to develop a holistic approach to these problems if we want to attain a sustainable solution.

Water cartography is a primary tool to understand the holistic state of water condition Before undertaking any action for remedial measures to improve the « water-health » situation of an area, we have to prepare first the proper water cartography of the area indicatingthe availability condition and all the uses of water cycle by the community. It is also necessary to examine simultaneously, the practices of the users’ group to meet their need and the economic activities of the area linked with water market.

Primary action programme

The main focus should be concentrated on the following activities:

• How best to control the contaminating environment of the water intake areas, particularly at the upstream level or at the contamination points?

• How to improve the sanitary condition of water distribution points and within the system to prevent the safe water from coming into contact with bacterial or viral contamination and other pollution endangering heath safety?

• How best to protect the main soft water source of drinking water in rural and peri-urban areas (water holes, ponds or shallow tube-wells) from non drinking uses (bathing, cleaning, etc.) and from the proximity of other contamination points (open drains, latrines etc.) ?

• How best to improve the quality of storage, at least for direct consumption purposes, within the affordable capacity of the consumers, taking into consideration of the shadow cost that the community has to bear as consequences of the health hazards provoked every year under the present situation ?

• How and what are the possibilities of reintroducing with improved design the traditional materials for water purification that the community had been accustomed before for purifying and storing the drinking water ?

• How to introduce effective and simple local participatory programme to create enhanced awareness amongst the vulnerable groups, specially among women and children, regarding easily avoidable contamination sources in the water uses and to develop within these groups the use of some basic elementary hygienic practices (boiling and filtering of water, personal cleanliness, avoiding manipulation of drinking water by direct contact of hands, etc.) related to processing and storing of drinking water ?

• To find out appropriate vehicle and media through which effective awareness building operation can be carried out within the vulnerable groups.

• How to install and operate specific point sources for distribution of safe water in the peri-urban areas, particularly during those seasons when health risk is very high due to acute shortage of safe water supply ?

• To explore the possibilities of installing cheaper and easily maintainable variable drinking water plants in the unserviced or under-serviced peri-urban and rural areas.

POSSIBLE PROPOSALS THAT MERIT TO BE EXAMINED FOR DEVELOPING NATIONS TO REDRESS THE SITUATION.

The success of the battle against the health hazards related to the non-availability of adequate quantity of safe water depends, of course, on the effective level of awareness, within the vulnerable consumers’ groups and on the importance of proper handling and storing of drinking water. But from the operational point of view, it also depends much on the adaptability of the proposed methods to their affordable capacities – both economic and materialistic. The successful actions to carry out such tasks involve clear understanding of the need and capacity of these groups and their hygienic practices as well as societal and governmental consciousness to the problem which is not limited only within the vulnerable groups.

To develop affordable and adapted means to meet the safe water need

Today it is possible to procure, at affordable cost, from a wide range of safe water production plants of variable capacities, to meet the drinking water demand of communities ranging from 50 000 to 250 000 population. Installed with appropriate distribution methods, it is possible to provide a basic quantity of safe water to these communities at an affordable cost and at the most wanted areas.

Shadow cost to the society for failing to provide a basic amount of safe water to the poor We should not forget that besides the commercial importance of water, a minimum quantity of drinking water is a vital necessity for healthy life. Any health hazards of water shortage origin will not remain within this population but going to affect the whole society where they work. We are well aware of the huge indirect cost of these effects in terms of loss of life, manpower and monetary loss to the social development and national economy, which is much higher than the initial investment needed to redress this situation. Therefore, in this regard, it is worthwhile to undertake a socially subsidised programme to procure and distribute improved materials for filtering and storing the water, at least for direct drinking purposes, and providing drinking water point sources within walking distance of these communities.We should remember that mostly the children and the women are collecting the drinking water for the family of these communities when the male members are at their work place. Also, in countries like Africa, where the women and children has to walk 10 to 15 kms every day to procure a few buckets of drinking water from unsafe points, distribution of suitable safe water supply points serving the people of a group of villages is to be assured. This would have spared many avoidable endemic water related health risks and loss of life, particularly children every year.

Introducing new approach to meet the gap by reintroducing traditional methods.

On the other hand, it is worthwhile to undertake some pilot projects of reintroducing with improved design and performance quality, traditional materials that the local people were habituated to use for purifying and storing drinking water. They were mostly made up of burnt earthenware vessels obtained from locally available resources and did not cost much (boiling the water and filtering through multiple earthenware containers with sand charcoal filter beds, using of alum and other affordable disinfectants, etc.). This will create new opportunities of developing sustainable local economic activities and helping to prevent water related health risks at low cost.

The effectiveness of the action on the eradication of water related health risks depend not only with these vulnerable groups but also on the collective action of the society itself. Developing consciousness to “water-health” link would be a programme of the public health education. In this regard unconsciousness to water-health relation is no less important even in most of the developed nations.

CONCLUSION

Access to a basic quantity of safe drinking water is a social and human right and constitutes one of the basic requirements for social development. We have to accept that the present system of water sharing at the social level is irrational. Almost one third of the world’s population are living under permanent health risk as a consequence of this irrational access to safe drinking water even though their requirement hardly surpasses 25 litres/day. Often, a supply of 10 litres/day of city water is beyond the access to more 20% of the urban population in many developing countries, compelling them to meet their need either from unsafe water sources or to procure water of doubtful quality from private vendors at a high cost. Whereas, in the same countries, more than 60% of the city’s water supply is being enjoyed by only 20% of the population of which more than 45% they use for non-essential purposes.

Although drinking water should not be treated as a free commodity and the consumers are required to pay a justified price for assuring its conservation and against misuses, but provision of

a minimum quantity of safe drinking water is a vital necessity for the life and health of a human being. Hence it is a social right and a governmental obligation to assure the supply of this quantity of water at affordable cost to those who are deprived of and forming a part of our society. Therefore, the management and the pricing structure of the drinking water should be such that it would not be treated simply as a market commodity but has a vital and social development necessity. It should be remembered that more than 60% of the water cost is coming from the treatment, infrastructure installation and misuses. One street tap supply 20 to 50 families of this deprived areas for their drinking water, whereas, an apartment equipped with one bath room, one WC and a kitchen, consumes drinking water equivalent to what has been used by 20 families from the street tap.

It is wrong to presume that the « water-health » link is confined only within this population of peri-urban areas living constantly under substandard drinking water shortage and permanent health risks. Unfortunately, in the developing countries, they constitute the main source of cheap manpower needed by innumerable city services such as restaurants, hotels, offices, menials, vendors, shops, housekeeping and others where physical contacts with these people are unavoidable. Any breaking out of health hazards among this population is immediately transmitted by them to the all sections of the city’s population and the ultimate cost is much higher than the investment required to improve their water safety and sanitary conditions. It is a well-known fact that the breakings points of all epidemics and particularly water borne starts from these areas.

Perhaps the city authorities should start thinking, on the principle of “polluters payers”, a water pricing structure starting from “social solidarity price” to “luxury price” based on the quantity of drinking water consumed for absolutely essential uses to luxury non-essential uses. Denying access to vital quantity of safe drinking water means denying social right to a large section of the population who are unable to pay the real cost of water. “Water-health” links to this population sounds empty unless we can be able to assure a basic quantity of safe water supply to them although they are the first victims of any health hazards in the city.

All these factors therefore raise some in-depth questions related to “water rights” and us“water uses”. Questions such as who really wastes water – the rich who can pay and have the right to use it limitlessly or the poor who cannot afford to pay the real cost for a vital quantity for drinking? Would they have social right of having a minimum quantity with a “solidarity price”

different from the real cost? How best can we arrange to share the available supply on a more socially equitable basis? How to develop efficient “water-health link” programme among the different users groups - from rich to poor? And many other questions that we have to deal with more collective consciousness to prevent this avoidable loss of life every year out of health hazards.

In this perspective, is this a too much heavy task for the appropriate authorities to rationalise this highly unbalanced proportion of drinking water share within the citizens of the same society to render the life of millions of useful people living permanently under high health risk by a socially affordable investment with a sense of civic solidarity?

REFERENCES

Calcutta Metropolitan Area Water and Drainage Master Plan 1980-1991

Chittagong Metropolitan Area Development Plan UNDP/UNCHS project 1992-1996 AFRICAN CITIES WATER MANAGEMENT PROJECT 1998-2000.

TOWARDS A RECYCLING SOCIETY:

A CASE STUDY ON THE SUCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PILOT ECOLOGICAL SANITATION PROJECT IN DALU VILLAGE, CHINA

Mi Hua,

Provincial Public Health Bureau of Guangxi 35 Taoyuan Road 530021, Nanning, Guangxi, China

Email: mihua@hotmail.com ABSTRACTS

Water is an increasingly scarce resource and to continue to use clean drinking water as a means to transport human waste is not environmentally sustainable. Linear approaches to problems, in which resources are used and converted into wastes, only to be disposed of, represent a failure in human ingenuity and a flaw in technology design. In order to create a recycling society, we need to capture the wastes, render them safe and return them to productive resources again. Ecological sanitation is based on natural ecosystems. It contributes to environmental health and human well-being by reducing disease transmission and disposal of wastes, by recovering and recycling water and nutrients for increasing food security. Most cities and towns in the Third World will neither have access to the required quantities of water, nor will they be able to generate financial resources for investments in extensive sewerage networks and treatment plants. Ecological sanitation is far more feasible financially and ecologically than conventional approaches to sanitation by reducing external inputs into a closed-loop system and by reducing the export of outputs and wastes from the system. It creates decentralised economies, empowering people, providing for local livelihoods, and enhancing community cohesion. If coverage can be increased, ecological sanitation can serve as the missing link to sustainable urban development, reverse the unconscious pattern of linear thinking and actions, and be a technical solution that protects ecosystems and harmonises with natural systems.

BACKGROUND

Since the beginning of economic reform in the late 1970s, China has witnessed unprecedented economic increase and its people’s living condition has greatly improved. But due to lack of financing, the infrastructure and social service in many areas are usually very poor, especially in rural areas.

China currently has 1.3 billion people¹⁴, of which 80% are living in rural areas. China has a thousands years’ history in using human waste as fertilizer for agriculture activities, and the quantity it recycles probably is the greatest amount. It’s commonly accepted that human excreta is a nutritious fertilizer for plantation. The real problem in China though is that some farmers tend to empty the processing chambers whenever they need fertilizer, regardless of the retention time. This means that partly processed and even fresh faces are spread on the fields. Unicef

China currently has 1.3 billion people¹⁴, of which 80% are living in rural areas. China has a thousands years’ history in using human waste as fertilizer for agriculture activities, and the quantity it recycles probably is the greatest amount. It’s commonly accepted that human excreta is a nutritious fertilizer for plantation. The real problem in China though is that some farmers tend to empty the processing chambers whenever they need fertilizer, regardless of the retention time. This means that partly processed and even fresh faces are spread on the fields. Unicef