182 research outputs found
Wastewater: the untapped resource
Most human activities that use water produce wastewater. As the overall demand for water grows, the quantity of wastewater produced and its overall pollution load are continuously increasing worldwide. In all but the most highly developed countries,
the vast majority of wastewater is released directly to the environment without adequate treatment, with detrimental impacts on human health, economic productivity, the quality of ambient freshwater resources, and ecosystems. Although wastewater is a critical component of the water management cycle, water after it has been used is all too often seen as a burden
to be disposed of or a nuisance to be ignored. The results of this neglect are now obvious. The immediate impacts, including the degradation of aquatic ecosystems and waterborne illness from contaminated freshwater supplies, have far-reaching implications on the well-being of communities and peoplesâ livelihoods. Continued failure to address wastewater as a
major social and environmental problem would compromise other efforts towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the face of ever-growing demand, wastewater is gaining momentum as a reliable alternative source of water, shifting the paradigm of wastewater management from âtreatment and disposalâ to âreuse, recycle and resource recoveryâ. In this sense, wastewater is no longer seen as a problem in need of a solution, rather it is part of the solution to challenges that societies are facing today. Wastewater can also be a cost-efficient and sustainable source of energy, nutrients, organic
matter and other useful by-products. The potential benefits of extracting such resources from wastewater go well beyond human and environmental health, with implications on food and energy security as well as climate change mitigation. In the context of a circular economy, whereby economic development is balanced with the protection of natural resources and environmental sustainability, wastewater represents a widely available and valuable resource. The outlook is undeniably optimistic, provided action is taken now
Swajaldhara: âReversedâ Realities in Rural Water Supply in India
For the last two decades and more, nations, international organisations and civil society, both local and global, have been rallying for the cause of âefficientâ and âequitableâ water supply and distribution. To this end, the New Delhi Statement, a precursor to the Dublin Statement, in many ways marks the first step in reforming the water sector. This article explores how ideas of community ownership and participation lauded in the New Delhi Statement and reiterated in the Dublin Statement later translate into practice when they meet the complex sociopolitical and institutional realities at the ground. It locates the genesis of Swajaldhara, the flagship rural water reform programme in India, the origin of which can be traced to the Delhi?Dublin configuration and shows how a success model became a story of poor implementation defined in the language of âgaps and slippagesâ or âpolicy reversalsâ. It argues further that the objective of âSome for Allâ still remains a target yet to be achieved in many parts of the country. The work underlines the disconnect between the global paradigms and local manifestations of such ideas and investigates the reasons for the same. Based on field research in two villages of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the article unpacks the processes that lead to policy?practice dichotomy
The european water framework directive facing current challenges: recommendations for a more efficient biological assessment of inland surface waters
High quality water is vital for human life, and ensuring its availability is a basic requirement and a
major societal aim. The Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) is a key piece of legislation
for the protection and sustainable use of water in the European Union. In this work we briefly review
the WFD directive and the current status of European inland surface waters. Additionally, we
summarize major challenges and threats for the biological assessment of inland surface waters
under climate change effects and invasion by alien species, and highlight the emerging tools
and approaches that might help improve biological assessments, including molecular indices
based on environmental DNA (eDNA), to new data from the Earth Observation programmes, and
data-sharing platforms. Finally, we present recommendations to improve monitoring systems
and assessments in the context of the WFD. Developments in this field may increase the
likelihood of assuring high quality water for societyFRESHING Project funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science
and Technology (FCT) and COMPETE (PTDC/AAG-MAA/
2261/2014 â POCI-01-0145-FEDER-356 016824). AFF,
AGR, and JPR were supported by FRESHING. FMSM was
supported by FCT grant SFRH/BD/104703/2014. MJF was
supported by the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013
granted to MAR
An ecological quantification of the relationships between water, sanitation and infant, child, and maternal mortality
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Water and sanitation access are known to be related to newborn, child, and maternal health. Our study attempts to quantify these relationships globally using country-level data: How much does improving access to water and sanitation influence infant, child, and maternal mortality?</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data for 193 countries were abstracted from global databases (World Bank, WHO, and UNICEF). Linear regression was used for the outcomes of under-five mortality rate and infant mortality rate (IMR). These results are presented as events per 1000 live births. Ordinal logistic regression was used to compute odds ratios for the outcome of maternal mortality ratio (MMR).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Under-five mortality rate decreased by 1.17 (95%CI 1.08-1.26) deaths per 1000, <it>p </it>< 0.001, for every quartile increase in population water access after adjustments for confounders. There was a similar relationship between quartile increase of sanitation access and under-five mortality rate, with a decrease of 1.66 (95%CI 1.11-1.32) deaths per 1000, <it>p </it>< 0.001. Improved water access was also related to IMR, with the IMR decreasing by 1.14 (95%CI 1.05-1.23) deaths per 1000, <it>p </it>< 0.001, with increasing quartile of access to improved water source. The significance of this relationship was retained with quartile improvement in sanitation access, where the decrease in IMR was 1.66 (95%CI 1.11-1.32) deaths per 1000, <it>p </it>< 0.001. The estimated odds ratio that increased quartile of water access was significantly associated with increased quartile of MMR was 0.58 (95%CI 0.39-0.86), <it>p </it>= 0.008. The corresponding odds ratio for sanitation was 0.52 (95%CI 0.32-0.85), <it>p </it>= 0.009, both suggesting that better water and sanitation were associated with decreased MMR.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our analyses suggest that access to water and sanitation independently contribute to child and maternal mortality outcomes. If the world is to seriously address the Millennium Development Goals of reducing child and maternal mortality, then improved water and sanitation accesses are key strategies.</p
Water quality and its interlinkages with the Sustainable Development Goals
Interlinkages among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lead to important trade-offs and synergies among the goals and their underlying targets. The aim of this paper is to review the role of water quality as an agent of interlinkages among the SDGs. It was found that there are a small number of explicit interconnections, but many more inferred interlinkages between water quality and various targets. A review of case studies showed that interlinkages operate from the municipal to near global scales, that their importance is likely to increase in developing countries, and that new SDG indicators are needed to monitor them. The analysis identifies many different SDG target areas where a combined effort between the water quality community and other sectors would bring mutual benefits in achieving the water quality and other targets
Self-Potential as a Predictor of Seawater Intrusion in Coastal Groundwater Boreholes
This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council in the UK, as part of the Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet Doctor Training Partnership, run by the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. We thank Southern Water for access to the boreholes at Saltdean and Balsdean. We thank Southern Water and Atkins Global for funding the installation of the equipment. We also thank Dr Amadi Ijioma for providing a prototype of the electrodynamic modelling code in MATLAB, which has since been adapted for use in a coastal chalk aquifer. Three anonymous reviewers are thanked for their comments, which greatly helped to improve the manuscript. The data used in this paper are in the tables, figures and cited information. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.Peer reviewedPublisher PDFPublisher PD
Surface runoff and accelerated erosion in a periâurban wellhead area in southeastern Brazil
Degradation of hydrological conditions can adversely impact water resource quality and quantity. This degradation can
generate social and economic losses, including losses for users outside the basin area. Therefore, studies focusing on surface
runof and accelerated erosion processes are needed to enable interventions that address degradation-induced challenges.
In the present study, the surface runof and accelerated erosion potential of the FeijĂŁo River basin were presented in charts
at a 1:50,000 scale. The FeijĂŁo River basin has an area of 243.16Â km2
and is used as the main water source for the city of
SĂŁo Carlos, Brazil. Geoenvironmental attributes, such as substrate, climate, relief, soil, water bodies and land cover and
use, were integrated and assessed in a GIS environment, using a multicriteria analysis and weighted sum tool. The results
show that a large part of the area (86.12% of the basin) exhibits a low surface runof potential and a moderate accelerated
erosion potential. Accelerated erosive processes are triggered by changes in soil cover and have a direct relationship with the
removal of existing vegetation and implementation of anthropogenic activities. In this case, as well as for most of the areas
in southeastern Brazil, extensive grazing followed by sugar cane cultivation was the main driving force of erosion, acting as
trigger for accelerated erosive processes at the water source area
Challenges Using Extrapolated Family-level Macroinvertebrate Metrics in Moderately Disturbed Tropical Streams: a Case-study From Belize
Family-level biotic metrics were originally designed to rapidly assess gross organic pollution effects, but came to be regarded as general measures of stream degradation. Improvements in water quality in developed countries have reignited debate about the limitations of family-level taxonomy to detect subtle change, and is resulting in a shift back towards generic and species-level analysis to assess smaller effects. Although the scale of pollution characterizing past condition of streams in developed countries persists in many developing regions, some areas are still considered to be only moderately disturbed. We sampled streams in Belize to investigate the ability of family-level macroinvertebrate metrics to detect change in stream catchments where less than 30% of forest had been cleared. Where disturbance did not co-vary with natural gradients of change, and in areas characterized by low intensity activities, none of the metrics tested detected significant change, despite evidence of environmental impacts. We highlight the need for further research to clarify the response of metrics to disturbance over a broader study area that allows replication for confounding sources of natural variation. We also recommend research to develop more detailed understanding of the taxonomy and ecology of Neotropical macroinvertebrates to improve the robustness of metric use
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