Today, we discuss the destruction of the environment and contamination of drinking water.

In the view of scientists, water contamination is tantamount to distortion of the quality and combination of water such that it becomes unusable as the consequences of detrimental impacts on it, losing its economic value to a large extent. However, one of the wonders of nature is that it can clean up many of these contaminations. The environmentalists have found out that the layers of Earth have created the most precise recycling and purification system alongside the regular circle of the disintegrating bacteria. Upon such a mechanism, for centuries, natural wastewater, upon going through several layers and reaching underground, turns into transparent and clean water. In accordance to this manner, Earth has for centuries kept contaminations at bay. However, human beings, with their misconducts, have rendered ineffective the largest and most effective purification system of the world, causing one of the main challenges of contemporary world which is contamination of drinking waters. The industrial wastewater, household, industrial, and chemical wastes that enter water sources are the most important causes of contamination of drinking waters.

Several studies have shown that today the underground waters, especially in macro and populous cities of the world face several sources of contamination. Infiltration of industrial wastes, wells used for absorption of sewage, irregular consumption of washing and chemical detergents, and infiltration of chemical fertilizers have all and all contaminated the underground water sources. The water currents of rivers, lakes, and even the water gained from the melting glaciers and snowflakes are full of industrial contaminations. The pollutants which are dissolved in water are in need of complicated and expensive technologies such as reversed osmosis in order to be separated from water. Usage of such technologies for purification of large volumes of water is not economic for any country, even developed states. Hence, today, governments only try to at least provide healthy water via usage of chlorine.

The United Nations Development Plan considers access to fresh water as the fundamental right of nations. In the year 2001, the former UN chief, Kofi Annan, named access to clean and healthy water as a basic need and an unquestionable right, while considering contaminated water as the root cause of harm on the physical and social health of the members of the community. According to existing evidences, contamination of water is one of the main causes of mortality rate in the world, with roughly 14,000 people dying due to water contamination per day. The contamination of drinking water and the ensuing ailments take the lives of more than five million people every year. The statistical figures have revealed that currently over one billion people do not have access to healthy drinking water, while roughly two billion people contract illnesses related to contaminated drinking water every year. Each day, 5,000 children perish due to consumption of contaminated water. China is ranked first, followed by US, which is ranked second, in contamination of water sources.

Based on estimations, 700 million Indians don’t have access to appropriate toilets, which has led to water contamination. A thousand Indian children die of diarrhea and nausea every day. Approximately, 90% of cities in China grapple with contaminated water and nearly 500 million people lack access to healthy drinking water. The World Health Organization names unhygienic water as the root cause of one in ten illnesses, and 6% of mortality rates across the globe. Typhoid fever and Mediterranean fever are the most important illnesses resulting from consumption of contaminated water. Brain, the nerves system, and eyes are the most important tissues of mankind which are harmed as the result of these illnesses. In developed countries, contaminated water is the cause of less than one percent of mortality rates, while this figure stands at 12% to 23% in developing countries.

One of the most common sources of contamination of water in a present day industrial city is a rise in the volume of nitrate in water. Absence of a sewage system, especially in populous cities; infiltration of industrial wastewater into underground water sources; and infiltration of fertilizers into the ground raises the level of nitrate in underground water currents. Hence, in warm and dry countries, in which 80% to 95% of cities’ drinking water is provided by underground water sources and wells, the level of nitrate in water is more than natural level. According to experts, nitrate imposes inappropriate impacts on the ecosystem. An irregular rise in the volume of nitrate in soil and water impacts mankind’s health and the regional fauna and flora. Nitrate is the root cause of malfunction in delivery of oxygen to cells, while causing irreparable impacts on the health of children, and pregnant women. Nitrate raises the possibility of contraction of cancer, and also causes major disorders in breastfed infants, who maintain more fragile physiques.

One of the regions, whose water is contaminated with nitrate, is Gaza Strip. A group of Palestinian and German scientists have confirmed this fact, after carrying out a joint research. In accordance to the outcomes of these studies, 90% of the water samples collected from this region have shown excessive contamination of these waters with dissolved nitrate. In this study, 640 newborns in Gaza were tested for signs of nitrate poisoning. Unfortunately, half of these newborns suffered from nitrate poisoning.

As of the year 2001 to 2007, samples were taken from 165 water wells in Gaza; the results of which showed with the exception of 13 wells, the rest of these wells maintained excessive nitrate levels.

Contamination of drinking water is not restricted to developing countries. Several industrial and developed countries also suffer from this problem. Fifteen countries in the European Union have announced the contamination of their underground water currents with nitrate. This contamination is mainly due to irregular consumption of chemical fertilizers. For this reason, the majority of contaminations have taken place in small local wells in villages.

MR/ME