In 2009, the theme for World Water Day was "Shared Water - Shared Opportunities". Special focus was placed on transboundary waters. Nurturing the opportunities for cooperation in transboundary water management can help build mutual respect, understanding and trust among countries and promote peace, security and sustainable economic growth. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) lead the activities of the day with the support of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of fresh water and advocating for the sustainable management of fresh water resources. Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. The World Water Day 2010 and its campaign is envisaged to:
- Raise awareness about sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being through addressing the increasing water quality challenges in water management.
- Raise the profile of water quality by encouraging governments, organisations, communities, and individuals around the world to actively engage in proactively addressing water quality e.g. in pollution prevention, clean up and restoration.
Worldwide water quality is declining mainly due to human activities. Increasing population growth, rapid urbanisation, discharge of new pathogens and new chemicals from industries and invasive species are key factors that contribute to the deterioration of water quality.
How does water quality affect human health?
Sufficient quality of water is critical to ensure a healthy environment and human health. The basic requirement per person per day is 20 to 40 litres of water free from harmful contaminants and pathogens for the purposes of drinking and sanitation, rising to 50 litres when bathing and kitchen needs are considered.
In many countries, however, the amount of water required daily for drinking and sanitation is not provided in the required quality. Developing countries undergoing rapid urbanisation suffer from lack of sewage treatment facilities which results in the contamination of drinking water, thus it becomes a major cause of illness (which impacts poverty and education) and death.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 4 billion cases of diarrhoea each year in addition to millions of other cases of illness are associated with lack of access to water that is safe for human consumption. Per year 2,2 million people die as a result of diarrhoea most of them are children under the age of five. Human health is severely impacted by water-related diseases (waterborne, water-washed, water-based, and water-related vector-borne infections) as well as by chemical pollution despite progressive improvement in the provision of sanitation since 1990, providing safe water and sanitation to large parts of the human population remains a challenge. Today, 1.1 billion people around the world still lack access to improved water supply and more than 2.6 billion people lack access to improved sanitation.
Keeping water clean: A shared responsibility
Protecting water sources from pollution is everyone’s responsibility. It can not be left to public authorities alone. All sectors, public and private, must take appropriate and adequate action to prevent pollution. It demands the open engagement of all - from individuals and local communities to international organisations, non-governmental organisations and civil society.
There is an urgent need to step up research, monitoring and assessment of water quality at global, regional, and local levels; taking an integrated approach using the basin as a management unit. Scientific findings from research should inform sound policy formation and implementation. Furthermore, sufficiently funded and manned regulatory functions are required to ensure compliance with and enforcement of rules and regulations.
Clean water is life. We already have the know-how and skills to address it. Let us now have the will. Human life and prosperity rest on our actions today to be the stewards, not polluters, of this most precious resource – our clean water.
Water quality impacts every one of us, and our lifestyles impact the quality of our water. And On World Water Day, let's reaffirm that clean water is life, and our lives depend on how we protect the quality of our water.
very gud one..
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