Water Quality in Developing Countries, South Asia, South Africa, Water Quality Management and Activities that Cause Water Pollution

摘要

Water is the most abundant chemical in the human body and plays a central role in the regulation of nutrient transport, toxic waste removal, thermal regulation, digestion, and organ functioning. About 55-65% of the human body weight comes from water. To maintain optimal health, the Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly 3.7 liters (about 16 cups) of total water a day and women consume 2.7 liters (about 12 cups) of total water a day. So water quality should be grow faster day by day in order to maintain people ‘s health. Protecting water quality is a top environmental priority as we approach the twenty-first century. There are many water quality problems in both developing and developed countries. Of all the environmental concerns that developing countries face, the lack of adequate water of good quality is probably the most serious. The sustainable management of water quality has policy, technical, institutional and financial components. In many developing countries restricted funding is usually combined with fragile or unstable institutions and limited technical capabilities to deal with an expanding range of water quality problems. At the technical level, there has been great progress in western nations in developing more costeffective monitoring, analytical protocols, and assessment methods. This flows not only from better scientific knowledge, but also from recognition that conventional monitoring programs are inefficient, expensive, and often not very useful. Regrettably, financial institutions and ODA programs tend to reinforce conventional approaches in developing countries with the result that these countries have little opportunity to develop a new, more appropriate and more sustainable data paradigm. In lesser developed countries where public health is the major concern, the traditional model of a centralized monitoring program often does not work, suggesting that a new model of decentralized community-based monitoring would be more effective. All waters contain dissolved salts and trace elements, many of which result from the natural weathering of the earth’s surface. In addition, drainage waters from irrigated lands and effluent from city sewage and industrial waste water can impact water quality.