Awarness of Aresenic Severity in People´s Behavior Essay

In the fourth chapter, “Fouling Our Own Nests,” of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to do About It, Robert Glennon discusses the dangers of water contamination that plague many parts of the United States. His main claim that water pollution requires the help of the entire population stems from an unmentioned warrant: contaminating the national water supply with chemicals from individual communities and industries is detrimental to American society. In order to strengthen his argument, Glennon showcases the impacts of local contamination issues on larger populations and utilizes quantitatively intimidating statistics to solidify his position and inspire his readers to fight for better water regulation.

Water, like food, is a necessity for human life that is used for many purposes such as agricultural, industrial, and domestic systems. While water is a common element around the world not all of it is clean and able to be consumed or used by humans. With only a percentage of the world’s water being clean and the use of water increasing, the availability of water around the world has become a common issue in the developing and even the developed world. This may be a smaller problem in areas close to clean water sources compared to areas far from a clean water source but, the availability of water is not strictly based on location, it also depends on the specific political and social needs and issues of the area as well. These all become issues that must be accounted for when deciphering whether water is a basic human right or a commodity and what action must be taken to aid the developing water systems in community’s that lack them.

The environmental issue of interest is clean drinking water and the abuse of our water sources. The interest in this discipline is because clean water and water abuse have been an issue for many years. Many countries around the world and in our own back yard lack clean drinking water. The cause of unclean water can be caused by bad agriculture practices and industrialization. The cause of these unhealthy practices may cause waters to be contaminated with a mineral called Chromium; this mineral exposes a high risk of cancer. The county of Gwinnett is full of lakes, rivers, streams, creeks and ponds but the only source of drinking water that is disposed to residents comes from a man-made lake called Lake Lanier. The lake provides clean drinking

The Antofagasta Region has an extremely arid climate and low rates of precipitation, which greatly limit water availability and further exacerbate the effects of the natural arsenic contamination. The Loa River and its tributaries of San Pedro, Salado, and San Salvador are the only surface water sources, but this river is very saline and home to a range of arsenic levels. These arsenic levels naturally fluctuate due to its natural volcanic and geothermal origins, but generally, all the concentrations are above safe set limits for human consumption as set by the World Health Organization at 10 ug/L.

I will argue that water shortages are nothing new, and that throughout the history of our common human civilization various solutions were implemented to overcome water scarcities and enhance water security. However, I will submit that such solutions were always short-lived a temporary relief because the social and cultural consequences of each solution led to a gradual, cumulative increase in the demand for water.

High arsenic concentrations are observed in Grand Island, so northeast of Grand Island, inhabitants near the Platte River switched to city water from private wells. Moreover, public water supplies need to be checked frequently with yearly water

The earth is facing a lot of environmental crises today; which humans have caused. To make life more comfortable, Humans have advanced in technology to such extent that it has reached every corner of the world. Bent on improving the conditions of life for humans without giving attention to what affect this development will have on other types of life on earth. Everyone is so caught up in paying attention to the growing industries and the growth of the community that they don’t realize how the things that are good for us as humans can also be harmful to all forms of life on earth. All aspects of life on the earth have been affected, as well as the sources of water. The contamination of water has affected life everywhere due to the fact that water is the essence of life. Contamination to water of any kind is altering life itself.

Drinking water is completely an essential necessity and its quality can never be over emphasized just as its availability. Over 3 million people including children below the age of six making up more than 50% of that number die every year from drinking contaminated water. According to UNICEF and WHO, one in eight people worldwide lack access to safe and clean portable drinking water. As a result of this, many of these people are forced to drink this infected water knowing that it is harmful and life threatening. In poor developing countries, people are only able to get about 19 – 20 liters of clean water daily. The demand and supply or availability of clean water in these countries have made people to walk for hours and travel miles on foot to get access to less contaminated water.

Safe drinking-water is essential for healthy life, and United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking-water as a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life [1]. Moreover, the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene for health and development has been reflected in the outcomes of a series of international policy forums [1]. These have also included health and water-oriented conferences, but most importantly in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the General Assembly of the UN in 2000. The UN General Assembly declared the period from 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” [1]. Access to safe drinking-water is important as a health and development issue at national, regional and local levels. Bangladesh, a developing country from South Asian (SA) region also takes several steps for ensuring sanitation and safe drinking water facilities among the people. As a result, Bangladesh has made great progress in this sector. The government also claimed that it has achieved the MDG indicator of ensuring safe drinking water for 85% people of the country. According to different demographic and health surveys, the percentage of using improved sources of drinking water is about 98% (reported in the latest two surveys Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) 2012-13 and Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2014) [2,3]. But, this achievement statistics are overlooking the shortcomings.

Today, water scarcity is one of the most serious issues in the world. With over 2 million people dying each year, the majority being kids, from water-borne diseases. Along with one-sixth of the entire population not having access to safe drinking water. “The hardest hit regions have been countries in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.”(Fox)

The initial article that I have chosen is an overview of the connection between human health and groundwater. Written by Stephen Foster and Gillian Tyson (2016), the key messages of this article are how many of us rely on groundwater, which makes us more susceptible to pollution, and the effects of pesticides and chemicals. Published by the International Association of Hydrogeologists, this article directly relates to two of the United Nation’s Sustainability Goals, which are Clean Water and Sanitation, and Good Health and Well-Being, as well as being indirectly related to many others.

Many Americans have thought of places without access to clean water as third world countries, not places right here at home like Flint, Michigan with their lead infested waters. In contrary to popular belief, Flint is just one of thousands of contaminated water sites that happen right here in America and is America’s first look into the issue. This crisis was first brought to my attention when I have visited China and had a tasted of this problem, in the summer before my sophomore year of high school. In the larger cities, they have very unsafe drinking water, the tour guide (a Beijing native) does not trust the system and advises everyone to not drink water that restaurants provides you or even from water bottles because of how horrible the Chinese sewage system is. The tour guide actually provided us with a filter to filter our water. However the water in villages, such as my mom’s hometown, has to face an even devastating problem they have to face where they did not even have proper plumbing in order to conserve their water. The only source of their drinking water comes from a single well, drilled in the center of the village. If this well was to be contaminated then the people who can afford it, would have only bottled water to survive on and some who cannot will have no water until the next rainfall. In a privileged country, Americans hear about all of these stories of how people struggle but to really see it in person, it is very different and that is why this water

Due to the consumption of contaminated drinking water, many people suffer repeated cases of illnesses that can stunt their growth and prevent many from going to school to get a proper education (Southwestern 1).

Protecting groundwater by developing a “closed-loop” policy will reduce the use of pesticides and will help more Americans residing in farming regions have access to healthy tap water. Prevention of mostly the nitrate chemical is essential in terms of emphasizing safe drinking water since cleaning polluted groundwater requires a tedious, expensive and time consuming process. Sadly, in some areas the groundwater pollution has reached a degree of damage that’s irreversible. In short, implementing a “closed- loop” policy would be needed because people’s health is declining in agricultural areas. The industrial agricultural sector is a major contributor in water pollution because it heavily relies on the use of nitrate chemicals as means to improve soil fertility and keep pests away from crops. However, the high-input agriculture in the United States today needs modification since its exploitation is not particularly producing biodiversity. Also, the current use policies have affected the land and water conditions negatively. A “closed loop” policy consists in introducing non-polluting tactics by the federal government; it ranges from applying different farming practices to eliminating the use of insecticides and taxing those who don’t. This policy that aims to reduce nitrate suggests a rare win-win situation because it will

Safe drinking-water is essential for healthy life, and United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking-water as a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life [1]. Moreover, the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene for health and development has been reflected in the outcomes of a series of international policy forums [1]. These have also included health and water-oriented conferences, but most importantly in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the General Assembly of the UN in 2000. The UN General Assembly declared the period from 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” [1]. Access to safe drinking-water is important as a health and development issue at national, regional and local levels. Bangladesh, a developing country from South Asian (SA) region also takes several steps for ensuring sanitation and safe drinking water facilities among the people. As a result, Bangladesh has made great progress in this sector. The government also claimed that it has achieved the MDG indicator of ensuring safe drinking water for 85% people of the country. According to different demographic and health surveys, the percentage of using improved sources of drinking water is about 98% (reported in the latest two surveys Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) 2012-13 and Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2014) [2,3]. But, this achievement statistics are overlooking the shortcomings. The MICS