Friday, April 28, 2006

Polluted water bodies


According to Wikipedia, Water (from the Old English waeter; German Wasser), in its pure form, is a tasteless, odourless substance that is essential to all known forms of life and is known also as the most universal solvent. It appears colourless to the naked eye in small quantities, though it can be seen to be blue in large quantities or with scientific instruments.

This natural resource is becoming more scarce in certain places, and its availability is a major social and economic concern.

Currently, about one billion people around the world routinely drink unhealthy water. Poor water quality and bad sanitation are killers; some five million deaths a year are caused by polluted drinking water.

Hardly surprising, since in the developing world, 90 per cent of all wastewater still goes untreated into local rivers and streams. Some 50 countries, with roughly a third of the world's population, also suffer from medium or high water stress, and 17 of these extract more water annually than is recharged through their natural water cycles. The strain affects surface freshwater bodies like rivers and lakes, and also degrades groundwater resources.

4 comments:

Stud said...

Slander not my rivers for I warn you all:(

Kartoshka said...

Then again, can we consider Fluorinated water a pure water??? Doesnt seems right.

Unknown said...

Technically or scientifically speaking, no, fluorinated water is not "pure". I would not call fluorine a pollutant though, and that's an important distinction. Pollutants are by definition things which degrade the quality of what they are in; fluorine enhances water by giving it an extra health benefit.

Prash said...

Yes, true...water scarcity is not realised by many and we seldom talk about it. I agree !