Water scarcity *
Jamie Bartram, Rachel Baum, Peter A. Coclanis, David M. Gute, David Kay, Stéphanie McFadyen, Katherine Pond, William Robertson, Michael J. Rouse in Routledge Handbook of Water and Health, 2015
Measures of water scarcity that focus on water resource availability, withdrawals and the impact of population growth have been criticized for underemphasizing the role of economic, environmental, institutional and social factors that determine access to water. Lack of access to water for the world’s poor, particularly the urban poor, is rarely the result of physical or absolute water scarcity, and is more often the result of political, economic and institutional failure. Lack of infrastructure is more often to blame for poor access to water than physical scarcity of water. Development professionals and academics have argued that an emphasis on water scarcity supports policies that favor market based allocation of resources and large engineering solutions, rather than directly addressing the causes of lack of access to safe water in ways that meet the needs of the poor (Allen et al. 2006, Chenoweth 2008). An alternative approach focuses on the concept of water poverty, rather than water scarcity, to emphasize the economic, social and institutional barriers to access to safe and reliable water, rather than resource scarcity as the driver for policy and development.
Environment
Pamela Mason, Tim Lang in Sustainable Diets, 2017
Water scarcity is a growing problem. The United Nations Environment Programme estimated in 2007 that, by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity and, by 2050, 54 countries would be in absolute water stress, affecting 40% of the future population.71 Those prognoses still hold. Water availability is susceptible to impacts from climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that as soon as 2020 some African countries may witness decreases in yields of up to 50% from rain-fed agriculture owing to climate change.12
Removal efficiency of PAH’s from five wastewater treatment plants in Jordan
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2018
Mahmoud A. Alawi, Ibrahim N. Tarawneh, Zahra’ Ghanem
Jordan is one of the developing countries that have shortage of water resources; it is among the lowest per capita worldwide and the water scarcity is the most important natural constraint of its economic growth and development (Batarseh et al., 2003). The treated water is a potential solution for addressing the problems of poor quantity and quality of water in this region (Al-Khashman et al., 2013). This study took a number of samples of effluent, influent and sludge from five wastewater treatment plants in Jordan to study the removal efficiency polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s), which is considered as one of the persistence organic pollutants (POP’s) in the environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are hazardous organic compounds, considered as one of the most important environmental pollutants, they consist of two or more benzonid groups formed at high temperature during the incomplete combustion of organic matter, they are found in the environment in air, water, soil and food. PAH’s have carcinogenic and mutagenic effect on human body, so a systematic monitoring is applied in most countries worldwide (Ramos et al., 2012; Torretta, 2012; Torretta & Katsoyiannis, 2013).
Multi-parametric groundwater quality and human health risk assessment vis-à-vis hydrogeochemical process in an Agri-intensive region of Indus basin, Punjab, India
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2022
Vijay Jaswal, Ravishankar Kumar, Prafulla Kumar Sahoo, Sunil Mittal, Ajay Kumar, Sunil Kumar Sahoo, Yogalakshmi Kadapakkam Nandabalan
According to the United Nations Sustainable Development report (UNSD 2017), approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide are deprived of safe drinking water. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development has adopted clean water and sanitation as one of the sustainable development goals and propounded that water scarcity would displace around 700 billion people worldwide by 2030. Water scarcity and deteriorating water quality have loomed into a massive threat to people around the world. Around half of the world's total population depends on groundwater as a drinking resource (Shukla and Saxena, 2020a, 2020b). The United Nations (UN) report (2015) states that the groundwater that accounts for 0.61% of total water resource serves 43% of global irrigation in addition to serving the drinking needs. Increasing demand of water for drinking, irrigation, domestic and industrial purposes has deteriorated the groundwater levels to become a major concern in 21st century (Oki and Akana 2016, Kawo and Karuppannan 2018).
Drought-related cholera outbreaks in Africa and the implications for climate change: a narrative review
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2022
Gina E. C. Charnley, Ilan Kelman, Kris A. Murray
Relying on agriculture can become tenuous during droughts, reducing food security through crop failures and livestock losses [17,28]. For example, during 1991–1992, 370,000 cattle were lost in Zimbabwe, crop production in Namibia fell by 70% and Botswana’s maize crop failed [28]. This leads to subsequent famine and malnutrition, decreasing host immune response and heightening the risk of cholera and other infectious diseases [26,36]. Drought and subsequent water scarcity lead to using different sources of food and water. For example, in Mali millet gruel is commonly eaten and acidified with curdled goat milk to prevent contamination, but in times of drought goat milk is often not available, along with several other acidifying ingredients such as lemon, tamarind, and vinegar. Famine foods are also often cooked less to preserve fuel [17]. The lack of available food increases reliance on roadside food vendors [30], which have been shown to increase cholera transmission in other outbreaks [37], often due to poor food hygiene practices, poor regulation, and no enforcement of bans.
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