Happy Belated World Water Day 2008
I am ashamed, embarrassed, feeling guilty, and the whole plethora of adjectives that can apply to someone who actually does research on the governance of wastewater and sanitation. I *should* have remembered that March 20th was World Water Day 2008. I *should* have remembered that this 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. I *should* have remembered to post something. And I forgot.
Admittedly, up until this past Monday, I was really sick and trying to just nurse myself back to health. But this is way too important a topic for me to forget. So if you are a close friend of mine, feel free to scold me. Ok, with that out of the way, I’d like to just remind my readers (particularly those who live in Canada, but also in other parts of the world) that the more water you use, the more water you end up polluting. So, think twice before having long showers, repeatedly flushing the toilet and leaving the tap running while you wash your hands.
While a vast majority of Canadians enjoy access to municipal sewage systems, lack of access to sanitation is still a problem in the developing world.
Nearly 75% of Canadians are serviced by municipal sewer systems. In 1999, 97% of the Canadian population on sewers received some form of wastewater treatment. The remaining 3% of Canadians served by sewage collection systems were not connected to wastewater treatment facilities in 1999 and discharged their untreated sewage directly into receiving water bodies.[Environment Canada]
Water quality is just as important as water quantity, particularly because of the intricate linkages between ecosystem health, water pollution and human health.
Unsafe water and the lack of basic sanitation and adequate hygiene contribute to the leading killers of children under five, including diarrhoeal diseases, pneumonia and undernutrition, and have implications for whether children, especially girls, attend school. This means that achieving Millennium Development Goal 7 and its 2015 targets of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation are of vital relevance for children and for improving nutrition, education and women’s status.[UNICEF, Water, Environment and Sanitation]
Thus, please think twice before letting the water run. And happy belated World Water Day!
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