The Town of the XXI Century
Series of reports on ecological situation in Central Asia

THE SOURCE OF LIFE ON THE PLANET

Water crisis - poor health

Deficit of fresh clean water is a cause of many diseases and even of people's deaths. As a result of illnesses caused by dirty water a child dies every eight seconds.

In the developing countries 80 percent of all diseases are spread because of consumption of dirty water. Disease-causing micro organisms living in the water and pollution annually kill 25 million people. The highest rate of deaths from lethal illnesses related to dirty water, such as dysentery, cholera, typhus is registered in tropical countries. However, developed countries also suffer from water pollution. In 1993, in the city of Milouwakee, Wisconsin, 400000 people became sick because of drinking water filled with chlorine-resistant micro organisms. After that people started to boil the water.

They do not preserve what they have

The consequences of the irrational use of water resources are especially harmful if we consider the fact that it is not always accompanied by increase in agricultural productivity. The unwillingness to create appropriate draining systems at the crop lands (immediate saving of funds) results in expansion of swamps and increase in the level of salt on the crop lands, which in turn leads to loosing productivity of the lands.

*In accordance with the estimates of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), as a result of the increase in the levels of salt at the crop lands and because of unsatisfactory draining systems in developing countries more than 45 million hectares of crop lands require re-cultivation; this is almost half of 92 million hectares of crop lands available to the third world countries.

*In some of the countries expansion of swamps and increase in the levels of salt at the crop lands resulted in taking out of production as many crop lands as were included into land stock thanks to irrigation.

*Industry uses much less water, but consequences of the use can be much more dangerous because of the following reasons. First of all, the use of water for industrial needs is not regulated by the governments and this may result in abuses. Second, industrial wastes thrown into the water can make on-the-ground and underground waters dangerous for people's health.

*Volumes of water used by various industries may differ because of the use of different technologies and the scale of used water re-circulation. Smelting of one ton of steel may require as much as 190000 liters of water or as little as 4750; one ton of paper may require 340000 liters or 57000.

Even in those countries where the price rates for water reflect the actual price of this resource the cost of water, except rare exclusions, represents only a small share of production costs (1-3 percent) of manufactured goods. Even in water-consuming industries the share of actual costs related to payments for water are not high: usually about 20% in food producing industry, 25% - in paper producing, 33% - in textile industry. The leftover water is either re-circulated (as it is more and more often done in developed countries) or drained after passing through filters. More realistic price rates for water are important for increasing sustainability of the water producing industry, but they still do not provide effective stimulation for increasing the effectiveness of the use of water supply. More effective is to toughen water distribution rules and environmental protection environments. For example, in Israel limits for using water resources are set for some of the industries and distribution of water is done in accordance with these limits. As a result, within last 20 years water consumption per unit of output has decreased by 70%.

Industrial wastes are often thrown without being appropriately processed. They may be thrown into rivers or other streams of water, polluting them, or they may be thrown into seas or underground waters. The harm caused by these wastes is non-proportional to their volume. Many of the modern chemical substances have such a strong effect that as a result of leftover pollution large quantities of water become unusable without being specially processed.

And the remedy for this is in prevention, not in actual cure. As it has been noted in one of the World Bank's reports and in the report of the European Investment Bank entitled "Industrial pollution of the Mediterranean Sea", "increase in the effectiveness of exploitation and better re-circulation of resources will provide higher returns than expensive processing in the end of the industrial cycle, because some of the problems of pollution are directly related to the problems of exploitation and technical servicing the same as with inadequate measures of stimulation of resource conservation and resource re-generation".

In accordance with the analysis of ecological problems of the Mediterranean Sea conducted by the organizations mentioned above, primary processing of industrial wastes will cost 10-20 % of the costs associated with full processing, but it will neutralize from 50 to 90 percent of the most dangerous toxic substances. Drastic decrease in the amount of industrial wastes using the primary processing mentioned above will probably ensure stronger ecological effect than the persistent attempts to achieve complete processing and cleaning of the much smaller quantity of municipal wastes.

The question is not whether there is enough water or there is not enough water, but the question is that having enough water it is distributed irrationally and non-proportionally.

*A lot of water is lost because of the cracks and leaks in the water supply systems The volume of unaccounted water (UAW - water produced but not paid for because of leaks or "administrative losses") is as high as 35 percent of the total supplied amount. Increase of the volume sold from 65 to let's say 85 % could have provided an opportunity to improve the "costs-effectiveness" indicator by 30% in comparison with the current situation. The

The quality of water resources is also decreasing. Together with being polluted by city and industrial wastes, they are also significantly polluted by drained water from the fields.

The situation with the city sewage systems is much worse than with the water supply systems. Many of those who have access to these services, use water closets or other non-hygienic devices, which often do not work because of unstable water supply However, even in those places where these devices do not cause any troubles for their owners, they are dangerous for the environment since the wastes are thrown without being processed.

Non-complete coverage and unsatisfactory work of the appropriate agencies and poor quality processing of sewage create terrible living conditions. Water carries contagious diseases, water supply works unstably and sewage enters the water supply systems, when pressure in the tubes falls. The consequences of this, especially for children, are terrible. Even seemingly healthy people do not have the work ability, which the could had, if they did not suffer from stomach parasites.