WATER AND HEALTH : SOME SELECTED CASE STUDIES

Abstract

Water is an essential resource for life, especially for public health, agricultural and industrial uses. But globally, fresh water supply far exceeds the needs of the people, due to limited fresh water supply and, its unequal spatial distribution world-wide. But this limited fresh water may not be available in the quantity and quality as it is needed by the people. Anthropogenic activities cause deterioration of the quality of natural fresh water resources to the extent that they require treatment to improve their quality, which incurs high costs. As a result, the general population in economically developing countries do not have access to safe fresh water. "Unsafe water" is the major cause of illnesses and high mortality in many economically developing countries. Each day 35,000 people in developing countries die of contaminated water. The number one cause of death in many developing countries is dysentery, caused by impure water, which kills 5 million children per year (Singh & Helweg, 1990).

The evaluation of the problem of inadequate safe water supply to the general population in developing countries shows that various factors seem responsible for this problem. A critical analysis of these factors reveals that in most cases, the inadequate safe water supply is due to the lower priority assigned to water resource management and thus, less capital resources allocated for this purpose. In order to evaluate the causes for the poor supply of clean fresh water supplied to the population on earth, this study reviews four countries, Pakistan, Singapore, Bangladesh and the United States, representing a spectrum of varying economic development and water availability.

Two parameters are used to define these four countries; water-poor or water-rich country and financially poor or financially rich country. The water-rich countries are Bangladesh and the United States, with the other two being water-poor. An analysis of the water-related data shows that irrespective of being water-rich or water-poor, the people in the developing countries suffer from inadequate safe water supply, due to poor allocation of capital and other vital resources in water resource management. In contrast, the developed countries which are financially rich, spend more on the water sector to provide adequate safe water to the people. This study also indicates that it is not only just resource allocation which determines the availability of adequate safe water, but the priority assigned to the water resource management.