Clean and safe water today's major concern

Professor Ramesh Kanwar of Iowa State University's department of agriculture and biosystems engineering, was speaking at the Royal Golden Jubilee Ph.D Program's annual conference entitled " Climate change and its impact" at Pattaya.

He said although much of the Asian subcontinent is blessed with rich water resources, some areas of Asia and the rest of the world face major challenges.

At present, more than one billion people out of a total population of 6.5 billion lack access to safe drinking water. And 2.5 billion do not have access to good sanitation systems to avoid waterborne diseases which cause several thousand children to die every day, he said.

" The major question for scientists and the academic community is what needs to be done to reverse these trends and bring water security to all living things - humans, animals and plants. What research, training, policy and economic needs are required to bring water security for all living species on this planet?" he said.

Kanwar said today's surface and groundwater resources are sufficient to meet Asia's growing irrigation and industrial development needs to the year 2050, although the distribution of water resources in Asia - including Thailand - are highly variable.

Agriculture is by far the largest consumer of worldwide renewable water resources - about 71 per cent -whereas about 20 per cent is used by industry and the remaining 9 per cent consumed in domestic and municipal use.

The intensification of agriculture has led to heavy chemical use with negative impacts from pesticides and fertilisers on human health and the rest of the environment -a source of major concern for society.

Much untreated municipal and industrial wastewater flows directly into rivers and groundwater systems in a majority of developing countries.

" Poor environmental practices and lack of desire to implement local environmental regulations are the main causes of this dilemma," he said.

Water quality problems, especially linked to waterborne disease, human and animal health, should be the focus of major research efforts this century.

" If we do not increase research efforts in this area, society is likely to face many unknown waterborne diseases, especially from the migration from water or food to humans," he said.

There is a serious need to revise our current educational curricula at masters and doctoral degree levels to include advanced topics on environmental quality or chemistry, environmental regulations, water policy and marketing, and international water conflicts.

"This will require international collaboration and partnerships between leading global institutions to solve complex issues in research and education," he said.