Will science and technology conquer water-related diseases?

No

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by Nadia Promi

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Two basic facts related to water determine our lives: most of the human body is made up of water and most of the Earth's surface is covered by water. We cannot live without water. And yet, we are not aware how precious it is. Most of us, living in comfortable homes and having an easy access to fresh water, take it for granted. At the same time we are witnessing the breakthrough scientific achievements, advances in new technologies and their immense role in changing the patterns of life. One may think that at such a high level of development technology and science could solve all problems the world faces today. That may be true but it is not only the matter of technology and science. Much, much more on the part of human will and behavior is needed.

Water scarcity already affects every continent and it is getting worse due to the population growth, unplanned and chaotic urbanization, pollution, alteration of river flows and the increase in domestic and industrial water use. Global freshwater consumption rose six-fold between 1900 and 1995 - at more than twice the rate of population growth. Yet for many of the world's poor, one of the greatest environmental threats to health remains the lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitary systems. Roughly, half the people in African and Asian cities lack healthy and convenient water and sanitation. Over one billion people globally lack access to safe drinking-water supplies, while 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation. According to the World Health Organization, diseases related to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene result in an estimated 1.7 million deaths every year.

The forecast for the years to come is not optimistic: UN experts estimate that two out of every three individuals on the globe may be living in water-stressed conditions by the year 2025. Although the Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, it does not seem, according to the actual global situation, that the goal is likely to be reached. Therefore, with extremely strong reasons this year, 2008 has been proclaimed the International Year of Sanitation.

The World Health Report 2007 shows how the world is at increasing risk of disease outbreaks, epidemics, industrial accidents, natural disasters and other health emergencies which can rapidly become threats to global public health security. In a recent statement Director General of the World Health Organization has warned that we are badly off track in meeting the Millennium Development Goal target. Lack of sanitation kills, said dr. Margaret Chan. It degrades health - especially that of children. It affects whole communities but consistently those most severely affected are the poor and disadvantaged.

Expert s have been warning for years that the preservation of coastal ecosystems is vital to the health and well-being of an increasing proportion of the world's population. Unsustainable development of aquaculture and mass tourism, transport and industrial plants, even dams upstream, can irreversibly diminish vital coastal ecosystem 'services' to human health. The cycle is closed. As it is stated in the Worldwatch Institute Report, water management methods in the twentieth century have attempted to control and manipulate the hydrological cycle with dams, diversions, levees, and reservoirs, to best fit human needs. Is there a good will to change the established ways of behavior and action?

In the past twenty years hundreds of conferences have been organized, reports written, millions of dollars spent on political meetings and yet, not much progress has been seen with regard to the environmental protection. Many will remember the 'road' from the epoch-making Earth Summit in Rio 1992, to Johannesburg in 2002. Any changes for better? The state of the environment is worse, climate change is taking its toll, thousands of invaluable species are disappearing daily. I remember an incident in Malta in 1999 when the Barcelona Convention for the protection of the Mediterranean, one of the most polluted regional seas, had to be ratified twenty-four years after it had been signed. Local eco-activists organized a street protest carrying banners and shouting 'Empty words, empty seas'. I didn't agree with their almost violent action but now I ask myself: were they right? Probably yes, because not much has been done in more than thirty years although decisions have been made and declarations written. Therefore I do not believe that science and technology on their own, without some fundamental changes in behavior and much deeper, true collaboration across the borders, will conquer water-related diseases.

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