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Fungi and Water
Published in Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy, Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy
Water that is safe to drink or to prepare food is called potable water or drinking water. In developed countries, two main types of drinking water or potable water are: tap or municipal water, and bottled water comprising natural mineral water, spring water, and other treated drinking water.
Components of Nutrition
Published in Christopher Cumo, Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
Illnesses can dehydrate the body. Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and celiac disease deplete water through diarrhea. Waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery bring diarrhea, misery, and death to societies that lack potable water. Since 1817 cholera has assailed the world in seven pandemics.96 During the fifth (1881–1896), Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) perished after ignoring warnings not to drink water without first boiling it.97 Other casualties included Prussian military theorist Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780–1831), eleventh U.S. President James Knox Polk (1795–1849), and French engineer and contributor to the science of thermodynamics Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832).
Environmental health
Published in Jan de Boer, Marcel Dubouloz, Handbook of Disaster Medicine, 2020
Regarding quality: potable water is water which contains no elements posing a danger for human consumption or for any domestic use, including personal hygiene. Such elements may be microbiological, chemical, or physical. Water may be contaminated by micro-organisms, usually of faecal origin. The presence of faecal coliforms indicates that the water has been contaminated by faeces of human or other warm-blooded animals. Concentrations are usually expressed per 100 ml of water. As a rough guide, 0–10 faecal coliforms/100 ml = reasonable quality; 10–100 faecal coliforms/100 ml = polluted, more than 100 faecal coliforms = dangerous. The presence of toxic substances (arsenic, nitrates, etc.) or abnormally high levels of trace elements (such as fluoride) in water poses a risk to the health. Physical quality concerns the physical attribute of the water, namely: taste, smell, and appearance.
Isotopic and chemical facies for assessing the shallow water table aquifer quality in Goly Region, White Nile State, Sudan: focusing on nitrate source apportionment and human health risk
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2021
Ibrahim E. A. Idriss, Mussa Abdel-Azim, Kamal I. Karar, Saida Osman, Abubakr M. Idris
Despite the abundancy of freshwater of the White Nile River, Sudan, the shallow water table aquifer in Goly Region, White Nile State, Sudan, is the only accessible and reliable source of potable water across Goly Region, White Nile State, Sudan. This is because the freshwater of the White Nile River requires treatment processes of removing alluvium and silt as well as sterilization. These processes are not available in that region for economic reasons. Therefore, residents use groundwater for domestic, agricultural, and grazing activities, which cover about 1500 km2. Farmers in that area use semi-mechanized system for the production of, mainly, sorghum, millet, groundnuts, pigeon peas, and sunflowers. In addition, residents experience an open pastoralism system for livestock including cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. The area also includes light industries such as food, detergents, forage, and fertilizers. Groundwater in Goly Region is extracted by hand-dug well and well pumps operated by diesel. Unfortunately, there is neither public system nor private system for treatment of wastewater from these activities. Residents in that area have recently complained about the quality of groundwater. In addition, individual investigations, based on personal communications, in that area reported high levels of nitrates. The impact of the extensive use of groundwater has also raised attention toward quality deterioration.
Opinion piece: People need nature to thrive – a case for inclusion of environmental sustainability in occupational therapy practice in rural South Africa
Published in World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin, 2020
Jennifer Claire McAdam, Caroline Margaret Rose
The impact of climate change in South Africa is anticipated to primarily affect water resources, with increasing frequency and severity of droughts, floods and storms exacerbating existing water stress (Department of Environmental Affairs, 2016). Access to potable water is viewed as a basic human right central to sustainable development, as enshrined in SDG 6, to ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ (United Nations, 2015). Inconsistent access to potable water already affects water-scarce countries such as South Africa (United Nations, 2018a). According to the United Nations Report on Global Issues – Water, an estimated 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a water-scarce environment, with 40% of rural households not having piped water within their properties (United Nations, 2018b).
Identification of occupations in a South African rural less-resourced community
Published in Journal of Occupational Science, 2019
Jennifer Claire McAdam, Denise Franzsen, Daleen Casteleijn
Inconsistent access to potable water is a global issue affecting many water-scarce countries, such as South Africa, and is exacerbated by climate change and population growth (United Nations, 2015, 2018a, 2018b). Access to water resources has historically been inequitable in South Africa. The apartheid era riparian water policy framework granted water rights only to land owners and, as the majority of South Africans were precluded from property ownership, this translated into black South Africans being denied access to water for domestic and irrigation purposes (Mokgope & Butterworth, 2001; Perret, 2002; Masangu, 2009). In addition, the separate development policy meant that the majority of the black population resided in specifically allocated areas known as homelands, where limited basic infrastructure such as piped water supplies was developed (Wrisdale, Mokoena, Mudau, & Geere, 2017).