Implications to Society

Importance of Water on Living Things

        H2O is arguably the most essential biomolecule to all forms of life. Humans, animals, plants and even bacteria cannot survive without the presence of water. This is due to the fact that water is an amazing solvent and mediator of a lot of chemical reactions that occur in our body. As evident, 70% of the constituents in each cell is water. In humans, water plays a major role in maintaining ad regulating our body temperature. Since most of the chemical reactions that occur in our body are catalyzed by enzymes and enzymes denature (deactivate) if the temperature is too high, it is no surprise that lack of water or dehydration is one of the causes of heat stroke. This also explains why the civilizations usually emerge near fresh water resources such as the Mesopotamia civilization that sprawled along the Tigris and Euphrates River and the Mighty Egypt that flourished along the Nile River. Hence, the accessibility for all humans to safe drinkable water is vital.

Decrease in Fresh Water Supply

Unfortunately, our main resource for fresh water is rapidly decreasing. Earth is commonly referred to as the blue planet as most of our planet is covered by water. 71% of Earth surface is water. However, not all the water on earth is drinkable. Only 2.5% of the total water on earth are fresh water, 33.3 of the fresh water are accessible and only 31% of the accessible water are not polluted. That would mean that only 0.256% of all water on earth is drinkable. To make matters worse, global warming has resulted in the shrinking of glaciers, gushing millions of our fresh water supply into the sea. This would mean that Countries that depend heavily on fresh water supply such as Brazil, Canada or even United States of America (USA) can potentially face water shortages in the future. This hence reiterates the necessity of a sustainable water supply such as reverse osmosis.

Importance of Clean Drinkable Water

        There is really no way to understate the importance of clean drinkable water to our health. While dehydration is a great danger, drinking unsanitary water is definitely not a better alternative. This is due to the fact that contaminated water can give rise to water-borne diseases such as cholera, cryptosporidium, cyclosporiasis, diarrheal disease, dysentery, gastroenteritis, giardiasis, guinea worm, hepatitis E and typhoid fever. This is due to millions of pathogenic microbes that may be present in the untreated water. This water-borne diseases are responsible for 3.4 million deaths annually.

Cholera, for example, is a water borne diseases that was first discovered in Ganges delta, India. It is a viral infection from the virus Vibrio cholera that was present in the water. The infection stays dormant for several days and would cause severe watery diarrhoea which can be fatal due to dehydration if not treated. It resulted in the deaths of millions in the 1900s.

Apart from pathogens, unusually high amounts of certain chemicals such as lead or mercury is also detrimental to our health. Such is the case for the Flint County, Michigan where experts say most of the children under the age of six are lead poisoned. Lead poisoning can damage our brain and nervous system. The Flint Water Crisis began in 2014 when, in an attempt to cut cost, the county decided to switch from the Detroit water system to the Flint river as the main source of tap water. This plan inevitably back fired as the water from Flint river is corrosive and caused metals such as lead from the pipes to enter the water. As a result, the citizens of Flint County are cooking and bathing with bottled water. The damaged done by the flint river water flowing through the pipes is estimated to cause 216 million USD to fix, putting the county in a greater state of peril than before.

This highlights the undisputable must for all water supplies to be treated and tested regularly for contaminants.

Image of a polluted lake

Increasing demands of Water

As of March 2017, the current world population is approaching 7.5 billion people and the United Nations projected the population would reach 9.7 billion people by 2050 (Worldometers.info, 2017) (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2015). With a rapid increase in human population, the demand for fresh drinkable water will also rise as water is essential for survival. Unfortunately, approximately 783 million people currently lack access to drinking water and this problem will only continue to exacerbate as the years go by. The lack of access to drinkable water may also lead to more epidemics as inadequate consumption of water often leads to a compromised immune system and a population of weak immune system is able to propagate diseases as a faster rate.

As water is also required for food production, the rising water shortage would decrease the food supply which would be detrimental to our growing world population where already 795 million people are living in hunger. In addition, the United Nations warns that political turmoil, social unrest, civil war and terrorism could result from food shortages unless food production is increased by 60% by 2050.

 

Reverse Osmosis as a Solution to Water Shortage

        According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), Singapore is one of the one of the 36 countries that faces water shortage as we lack natural potable water resources however, in Singapore there is no lack of access to drinkable water as Singapore has 4 National Water Taps that supply the country’s water, one of which is NEWater. NEWater is essentially reclaimed water that was purified through Reverse Osmosis (RO) and is projected to be able to supply 50% of the country’s water by 2030. Accompanied with desalination, that would mean that Singapore would be self-sustained by 2030.

Reference:
https://www.pub.gov.sg/watersupply/fournationaltaps
http://www.seametrics.com/blog/water-shortage-consequences/http://growingblue.com/implications-of-growth/economic-implications/http://growingblue.com/implications-of-growth/social-implications/http://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change/impacts-society
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17671660
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http://www.sharenator.com/image/55892/