Water and wastewater treatment plants in developed countries provide potable wat
ID: 289585 • Letter: W
Question
Water and wastewater treatment plants in developed countries provide potable water and help prevent discharge of pollutants into waterways. Even areas that are arid or have fewer natural water resources can provide these conveniences through built infrastructure. For example, the Hoover Dam provides water to southwestern United States. Developed countries also have many environmental regulations to protect the environment and human health. Even with regulations, however, environmental accidents of widely varying ranges can still threaten our environment. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 is a great example.
Less developed countries often do not have the necessary resources to provide treatment facilities and/or enforce environmental regulations. In fact, many people do not have easy access to potable water, or they have to watch as their water is contaminated by industry, without the ability to take legal action.
For this discussion, find information about a conflict over a water supply or water quality anywhere in the world and summarize the conflict for your classmates. Discuss your views on how a growing world population affects a resource such as water and how water quality impacts human health. Does this differ in developed versus undeveloped countries?
Explanation / Answer
ANSWER-
In 2017,a proposal to divert the Brahmaputra ,one of Asia's major rivers,from Tibet into Xinjiang province was posted online in China.Others include blowing a hole into himalayas to bring warm Indian ocean winds and taking water from the Bohai sea .It somehow creates a threat to the equilibrium flow of Brahmaputra water between India and Tibet.The project fail to address even the social and environmental consequences,just seeming to work on a map free of people.For the project to be done,constructions are to made at be an altitude of 3000-4000 m in frozen conditions with poor transportation and adverse complex terrain.The conflicts against redirecting of the water from Yangtze to the yellow river rasie eyebrows due to following factors-
-the region is prone to geological disasters ,
-environment is vulnerable and it is home to ethnic and religious minorities .
-cost of construction and maintenance as well as environmental and social costs ,would be huge.
-natural water supply would be insufficient for the demands of the people.
But in a society with low levels of environmental awareness and scientific training ,such ideas gets welcomed.Hence the concern and a conflict.
During recent decades,Renewable natural resources such as water bodies have underdone drastic changes in its quality and quantity thus affecting the supply.Capetown of S.Africa is soon to be declared dried ,with its dryness acceleratin due to over population by migration.Also in India ,water available for per capita consumption during 1947 is reduced to its 20% by 2018.The main reason behind such is exponential population growth coupled with excessive consumption of resources and lack of water management.
On the same side,another problem is water quality that affects human health .Industrialization and urbanization also causes immense environmental problems even if they act according to the government regulations.World wide 1.1 billion people have no access to clean water and 2.6 billion people not having adequate sanitation supplies which leads to the death of around 4000 children daily from waterborne diseases.
Developed countries do pay attention and have better infrastructure for asserting methods to prevent depletion of water resources though industrialization has its toll on environment in some way mainly through education.But in undeveloped countries with resources and wealth deprived conditions the people see worst phases of life due to lack of basic education and scientiifc training leading to low level of environmental awareness.
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