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by Prof. Hemanthi Ranasinghe, Head/Department of Forestry & Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayawardenepura

The theme of World Environment Day 2003 - "Water: Two Billion People are Dying for It!" - highlights the centrality of water to human survival and sustainable development.

The issue of water - its quality, its quantity and its guaranteed availability to all people regardless of income or social status - is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world community today. That is why UNEP has chosen the slogan - "Water - Two Billion People are Dying For It" for this year's World Environment Day celebrations.

Water makes up 60 to 70 per cent (by weight) of all living organisms and is essential for photosynthesis. The total amount of water on earth barely changes from year to year. The hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation circulates the earth's water between the oceans, land and the atmosphere. Water covers 75 per cent of the earth's surface 97.5 per cent of that is salt water, only 2.5 per cent is freshwater. Icecaps and glaciers hold 74 per cent of the world's freshwater. The rest is almost deep underground, or locked in soils as moisture or permafrost. Only 0.3 per cent of the world's freshwater is found in rivers or lakes. Less than one per cent of the world's surface or below-ground freshwater is accessible for human use. Within 25 years, half the world's population could have trouble finding enough freshwater for drinking and irrigation.

Rivers form a hydrological mosaic on the political map of the world. There are 263 estimated international river basins, which cover 45.3 per cent of the earth's land surface area (excluding Antarctica) and are home to more than half the planet's human population. One third of these 263 transboundary basins are shared by more than two countries. Rarely to watershed boundaries coincide with administrative boundaries. Many countries also share groundwater aquifers. Groundwater aquifers store as much as 98 per cent of accessible freshwater supplies.

They provide 50 per cent of global drinking water, 40 per cent of industrial demands and 20 per cent of water for agriculture. On average, individual daily domestic use of freshwater in developed countries is 10 times more than in developing countries. In the UK the average person uses 135 litres of water every day. In the developing world the average person uses 10 litres.

Currently, over 80 countries, representing 40 per cent of the world's people, are subject to serious water shortages. Conditions may get worse in the next 50 years as populations grow and as global warming disrupts rainfall patterns. A third of the world lives in water stressed areas where consumption outstrips supply. West Asia faces the greatest threat. Over 90 per cent of the region's population is experiencing severe water stress, with water consumption exceeding 10 per cent of renewable freshwater resources.

Improved water management has brought enormous benefits to people in developing countries. In the past 20 years, over 2.4 billion people have gained access to safe water supplies and 600 million to improved sanitation. Nevertheless, one in six people still have no regular access to safe drinking water.

More than twice that number (2.4 billion people) lack access to adequate sanitation facilities. Those without access to adequate sanitation are the poorest and most vulnerable. The problem is particularly severe in remote rural and rapidly growing urban areas. In Africa, 300 million people - 40 per cent of the population - live without basic sanitation and hygiene, an increase of 70 million since 1990. As much as 90 per cent of waste water in developing countries is discharged without treatment into rivers and streams.

Unsanitary water, which provides a breeding ground for parasites, amoebas and bacteria, damages the health of 1.2 billion people a year. Water-borne diseases are responsible for 80 per cent of illnesses and deaths in the developing world, killing a child every eight seconds. Half the world's hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from water-borne diseases. Almost 40 per cent of the world's population lives within 60 kilometres of the coast. Disease and death related to polluted coastal waters alone costs the global economy US$ 16 billion a year.

In Southern Asia, between 1990 and 2000, 220 million people benefited from improved access to freshwater and sanitation. In the same period, the population grew by 222 million, wiping out the gains that had been made. During the same period, in East Africa, the number of people without sanitation doubled to 19 million. The cost of providing safe drinking water and proper sanitation to everyone in the world by 2025 will be US$ 180 billion a year, two to three times greater than present investments.

Among the most significant sectors responsible for the unavailability of fresh water in developing nations, domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors can be mentioned. Improper sanitation especially due to poverty and lack of education and awareness on personnel hygiene, domestic cleanliness and community cleanliness contributes immensely to pollution of water in the domestic sector.

Among the most important pollutants human excreta, sewage, household waste, domestic water can be mentioned. With the increase of urban environments all over the world with special reference to developing nations, the emanating of both domestic and industrial waste by way of sewage, liquid wastes, kitchen wastes, laundry, storm water contributes to the pollution of existing waterways in the urban setting. The use of polythene and other non-degradable products in day-to-day life functions as clogging agents in the drains, hindering the proper flow of drainage water, thus causing floods and thereby pollution of water with waste matter.

Industries in developing nations are mostly located in urban environments and most of the medium and small scale ones do not treat their waste water thus causing pollution of waterways and streams. Discharge of these pollutants cause eutrophication of waterways (about 54% of the lakes in South and South East Asia have been eutrophicated). Further, the heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, nitrate, phosphorus, arsenic etc. once mixed with water has been reported to have causes many human diseases including skin cancers, neuropathy etc. Such incidence have been reported widely from Bangladesh, China, India etc. In Colombo, Sri Lanka out of the 625,000 people 50% belong to low income groups. 10-15% of them are living in canal reservations.

Wastes of all their day-to-day activities are released to the waterways. Less than a quarter have sewers in Colombo. It has been estimated that about 500 tons of waste is generated per day. Due to poor drainage, sewers when overflown could pollute the waters.

Most of the industries are (80%) located in Colombo and Gampaha. Of them, about 6% have been categorised as heavy polluting while about 40% are categorised as medium polluting. About 60% industries have the potential to pollute the environment. Most of the medium and small category industries do not have waste treatment facilities and therefore the waste directly goes to the environment untreated. Among the types of industries, textile dyeing, leather, printing have the potential to pollute the environment much more as they emanate more toxic constituents.

With regard to agriculture, it accounts for about 60-90% of the annual water withdrawals in the world. Most of this water is evaporated back to the atmosphere. Considerable number of agrochemicals are being used in agriculture to enhance productivity as well as controlling pests and diseases. Most of the time, through ignorance, more than the prescribed amount (by Dept. of Agriculture) are being used on the crop with the intention of increasing production. Further, most of the river bank reservations that have been assigned originally have been cleared and agriculture has been practices upto the very edge, facilitating the flowing of the agrochemicals to the water courses easily. Once they enter the water course, through food chains, these could enter the bodies of all component organisms of the food chains, aggravating the effects with every entry.

In addition to the effects caused by the above, deforestation and denudation of especially the watersheds of rivers and streams, conversion of forest land to non forestry purposes etc. has led to the depletion of surface as well as groundwater resources. Due to the non-regulation of water in the absence of a proper forest/tree cover, the water from the rain tends to go waste, causing overland surface runoff causing soil erosion and sedimentation of water courses too. One of the causes for the recent flash floods in Sri Lanka also points to the conversion of the hill tops from a permanent forest cover to various agricultural practices.

Future

Two hundred scientists in 50 countries have identified water shortage as one of the two most worrying problems for the new millennium (the other was climate change). Since 1950, global water use has more than tripled. On current trends, over the next 20 years humans will use 40 per cent more water than they do now. The number of people living in water-stressed countries is projected to climb from the current 470 million to three billion by 2025. Most of those people live in the developing world. To achieve the 2015 targets for freshwater provision, water supplies will have to reach an additional 1.5 billion people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Nearly 200 million people in Africa are facing serious water shortages. By 2025, nearly 230 million Africans will face water scarcity, and 460 million will be living in water-stressed countries.

Water problems are more related to mismanagement than scarcity. Up to 50 per cent of urban water 60 per cent of water used in and agriculture is wasted through leaks and evaporation. Logging and land conversion to accommodate human demand has shrunk the world's forests by half, contributing to increased soil erosion and water scarcity. Between 300 and 400 million people worldwide live close to and depend on wetlands. Wetlands act as highly efficient sewage treatment works, absorbing chemicals and filtering pollutants and sediments. Urban and industrial development has claimed half the world's wetlands.

What is needed, along with fresh water, is fresh thinking. We need to learn how to value water. While in some instances that may mean making users pay a realistic price, it must never mean depriving already marginalized people of this vital resource. It is one of the crueller ironies of today's world water situation that those with the lowest income generally pay the most for their water.

To alleviate this alarming situation, action has to be taken at all levels; international, national, local and individual. Fresh thinking and approaches to the problem need to be done. Among the most important actions which needs to be taken, policy adjustments and policy formulation, development of new environmental measures including standards, capacity building in intersectoral planning and decision-making health impact assessments and strengthening of health services are vital.

In recognizing the importance of the issues of water to the entire world, the year 2003 has been designated as the Year of Water by the United Nations. UN also designated 1981-1990 as the International Drinking Water Decade as a direct outcome of the UN Water Conference of 1977. Water Quality Standards had been introduced by the World Health Organisation. At the Millennium Summit and World Summit on Sustainable Development, the international community set measurable, time-bound commitments for the provision of safe water and sanitation.

These targets - to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation services, both by the year 2015 - are vital in and of themselves, but are also crucial if we are to meet the other Millennium Development Goals, including reducing child mortality, combating malaria, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, empowering women, and improving the lives of slum dwellers. If the world community is to meet the commitments agreed at the Millennium Summit and at last year's World Summit on Sustainable Development to half by 2015, the number of people without access to safe water and adequate sanitation, the world will have to spend up to US $ 180 billion annually, more than double what is being spent today.

In the face of this critical situation, exploitation of the resource by a handful of multinational companies has also commenced. There are a handful of companies around the world lodged in developed nations dealing with production and sale of bottled water. There is also a concerted effort to popularize bottled water irrespective of the need. This situation has to be taken under control.

Governments had also been urged to formulate and enforce appropriate legislation on water and its use. The necessity to consider water as a central resource and to have central legislation for it is very important as it was the practice to have numerous sectoral pieces of legislation as water is a cross cutting resource.

For instance, in Sri Lanka there were more than 41 Acts and Ordinances pertaining to water and therefore there were numerous institutes' organizations having the authority to enforce legislation. However, due to the scattered natured of same, the enforcement was not carried out effectively. However, the recently established Water Resources Secretariat and the draft Water Policy can be cited as attempts to centralize this most important but fast vanishing resource.

The need to have proper legislation in place for management of watersheds is also important and adequate attention has to be focused on it. Currently, these are being done on project basis, ie, Upper Mahaweli Environmental Division, of the Mahaweli Authority and Watershed Management Project of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

Therefore, let us pledge to do our utmost to respond to the plight of two billion of our fellow human beings, who are dying for want of water and sanitation.

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