Water is one of the most important components of the environment. The demand for water is increasing day by day. But if that water is not safe, it becomes a threat to life. Contaminated water can often cause death. Two-thirds of our body is water, which is 83% in the blood, 22% in the bones, 74% in the brain, and 75% in the muscles. In other words, water is needed for the proper functioning of the internal organs of the body.
An adult person needs to drink 2-3 liters of water daily. Water is one of the key to maintaining a healthy body. According to research by the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the United States, drinking just 500 milliliters of water per day increases the body's metabolism by 30% and drinking 2 liters of water produces 400 kilojoules of energy. We lose water from the body in different ways every day such as urine, sweat, and breathing.
In this country, 30.21 cubic kilometers of water is extracted from the ground every year, of which 86 percent is used for agriculture, the remaining 13 percent for household purposes and 1 percent for industrial purposes. Statistics showed that the daily water requirement in the capital Dhaka is 220-230 core liters. The water supply companies in Dhaka also supply the average daily demand.
However, the city dwellers have long complained that WASA water has excessive odor and dirt. The water that is extracted from the ground water or the river is completely decontaminated by purification in two stages, but even then this pure water cannot be supplied to the houses in Dhaka.This is because the water is contaminated due to leakage or old pipes in the pipelines that supply this water to people's homes.
The World Bank recently conducted a survey on the quality of water supplied across the country, including Dhaka. According to their report, the amount of E-coli bacteria in the water supplied to the home is about 82 percent. Drinking water should have zero (0) E-coli and zero (0) total coliforms as per the standard of the Department of Public Health Engineering.
On the other hand, there are many causes of surface water pollution, some of which are due to the waste of various mills, household waste in ponds, canals and washing dishes in water, bathing of people and cattle, traditional methods of removing jute fiber. The lack of safe water is very serious in 28 countries. After 30 years, the number of people affected by water shortage will be two to three hundred million.
According to a report titled Asian Water Development Outlook-2016, river water in Bangladesh is the most polluted among the 48 countries in Asia and the Pacific, and the most degraded river basin is the Ganges basin flowing through Nepal, India and Bangladesh. The report further said that Bangladesh's position is risky in terms of water security. Groundwater abstraction is more prevalent in Bangladesh.
Experts fear that the abnormal population growth and climate change will lead to a catastrophic situation in the future, which could exacerbate the water crisis. Conventional water sources are constantly exposed to various types of pollution including arsenic, iron and bacteria. As a result, ensuring water quality has also become a big challenge. Water is another name for life, but if it is polluted, then water can be the cause of various diseases.
Every year, about 31 million people around the world die from various diseases as a result of drinking contaminated water. About 90 percent of them are children under 5 years old. One child dies of waterborne disease every 15 seconds in the world. Contaminated water is the source of deadly diseases like hepatitis, typhoid, diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, jaundice.
The National Center for Biotechnology, a US-based research institute, has said that contaminated water can lead to serious diseases such as cancer.Their report further states that contaminated water contains chemicals that reduce the functioning of the human pancreas. As a result, the normal secretion of insulin is stopped and people become diabetic.
In this case, it must be remembered that public health cannot be threatened without providing clean water. Drinking safe water is not an alternative to water purification. Ponds, wells, canals and other small reservoirs where there is no external contamination can be filtered and cleaned with alum, thus dissolving unwanted material such as phytoplankton in the form of sediment. Chlorine is a widely used chemical to kill water germs.
Solving the problem of safe water is very important for the survival of mankind. Most of the countries of the world have already become active and are taking active measures to conserve water resources and prevent pollution. Realizing the need to drink water, one should always keep pure drinking water at hand and drink more and more water. The problem of safe water is everywhere in cities and villages.
The problem of safe water will increase as the days go by. And this problem is solvable.Consideration should be given to solving water problems in haors and coastal areas. In addition, a big issue is to ensure safe water in educational institutions. Because students spend a big part of the day there. We need to focus on how dynamic the work of identifying arsenic-free tube wells.
But the biggest thing is to create awareness among everyone about the use of safe water. It has become urgent to think about it. If we do not make people aware, it is not possible for people to be aware of everything on their own. This problem will be solved only if we take joint initiative from each other's position. We want safe water for all people.So we should all drink moderate amounts of safe water and ensure that water is not polluted through our own activities.
The writer is a student, Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, JatiyaKabiKaziNazrul Islam University. Trishal, Mymensingh.
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