by Ben Hughes

Created on: February 21, 2009

In 1854, Doctor John Snow indicated the importance of healthy water to a region when he took bold action to deal with a water pump on Broad Street in London. As cholera was taking a grip across the capital city, Snow's independent studies revealed a cluster of cholera outbreaks around the Broad Street area; the only people who were unaffected were a group of workmen who hadn't used the water pump. Doctor Benjamin Richardson, Snow's friend, wrote in 1858, that Snow had "fixed his attention on the Broad Street pump as the source and center of the calamity. He advised the removal of the pump handle as the grand prescription. The Vestry [the term used for a committee of members elected to administer the temporal affairs of a parish] was incredulous but had the good sense to carry out the advice. The pump handle was removed and the plague was stayed. There arose, hereupon, much discussion among the learned... but it matters little for the plague was stayed." (Quoted from Removal of the Pump Handle)

This shows one of the main problems with the health of water. Although the Broad Street pump was bringing up contaminated water from a well below the surface of the street, this story demonstrates the effect of water contamination on a region. Unhealthy water, whether from a well or a river brings diseases and illness, which can spread quickly and dramatically, soon becoming an epidemic. (In fact, Snow's research and work to remove the pump handle started the school of epidemiology.)

This is particularly true in poorer regions where there is little money or resources for effective water treatment. Some years ago during a holiday in Thailand, my wife and I witnessed locals swimming and urinating in the same stretch of river. The health risks here are obvious.

Rivers also support an enormous diversity of life by providing a range of habitats between aquatic and land ecosystems. River habitats include the river channels, the vegetation on river banks, the floodplains and estuaries and lakes. Each of these habitats includes a complex array of smaller habitats with different physical conditions. For example,

1. River channels have pools, riffles, debris dams, rocks, woody debris, river banks and benches;

2. Floodplains may have intermittent lakes, swamps, chains-of-ponds, debris piles and channel systems; and

3. River bank vegetation includes reeds, grasses, shrubs and trees;

Maintenance of this diverse range of habitats and the animals and plants depending on them is of key importance

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