Emerging Issues In Drinking Water Treatment Assignment Sample
Introduction
Currently, pollution is increasing in the environment; due to this reason, nature is getting affected. As a result, water, soil and air are being polluted. Many factories, industries and other chemical laboratories are draining harmful chemicals and garbage in the river. Due to this reason, rivers are getting polluted, and health issues have occurred after drinking the polluted water. In this literature review, some problems of drinking water will be discussed to identify its effect on humans. Here, emerging issues, trends, causes, and drinking water treatment will be analyzed to understand the significance of maintaining drinking water from pollution.
Emerging issues in drinking water
In daily life, water is a necessary part of the human body; without water, people cannot live. However, many factories and industries drain waste, and other people throw their garbage into ponds and rivers. As a result, water resources are getting polluted. Apart from this, Li, and Wu (2019) stated that drinking water maintains public health and safety factors; in that case, drinking water must be clean, and its quality should be at a higher level by filtering water. This issue can be found in multiple developed countries, such as India, Iran, Israel, and others. Due to this drinking water issue, people have suffered many diseases; for instance, diarrhoea, hepatitis, cholera, polio, typhoid and many more.
On other hand, Danopoulos et al. (2020) mentioned that microplastic objects are regularly thrown into the rivers and other water resources. Due to that reason, underwater animals and humans face health problems. Regarding this fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has provided guidelines to manage health problems by consuming healthy food and drinking water to increase physical strength. Usually, microplastics affect human bodies and damage internal organs (Allaire et al. 2018). It is known that microparticles of plastics and other harmful object consumptions can cause various types of diseases; as a result, people can die. In this case, people must be aware of the environment and stop making polluted water resources (Li, and Wu, 2019). No issues can occur in drinking water, and people can maintain their health condition by focusing on WHO guidelines and social instructions.
Currently, people use more plastic objects and microplastic waste; due to this reason, soil and underground water are polluted. Microplastic objects affect water resources, and it makes them more contaminated. By analysing this case, it is identified that people consume polluted water, and their health decreases. Due to this reason, water treatment is needed to change the health condition. Proper filtering techniques are essential to mitigate this drinking water issue, where activated-carbon filtering, boiling, distillation and many other processes are included.
Based on drinking water filtering, Noubactep (2019) opined that the water filtering process was used in the 19th century. After that, technology and systems are gradually developed to maintain drinking water safety. Besides all filtering systems, membrane filtration needs to be implemented to purify water to prevent uncertain health attacks. In this way, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) will be maintained to balance the environment. Based on the SDG goals, clean water and sanitisation processes must be included to maintain a healthy structure for the public (Un.org, 2022). In this way, people can make their health safe and prevent health issues. Therefore, it is important to maintain a filtering process to mitigate or prevent diseases due to consuming polluted water.
Trends in drinking water quality
A variety of trends can be found in rural and urban areas based on drinking water quality. Apart from this, Kelly et al. (2018) stated that rural communities manage their water resources from tap water, ponds, rainwater and other resources. From a survey report, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and other countries use this process to collect water. This is the trend in rural areas. With the help of these sources, they can manage drinking water for their daily life. Water community, water system management, and external support are not sufficient; due to this reason, drinking water in rural areas is not properly purified. However, it can be said that the water system breakdown cycle is not developed, and different health problems occur within this area.
Figure 1: Seasonality affects water system breakdown cycle
(Source: Kelly et al. 2018)
In contrast, it can be said that urban areas are more developed than rural areas. People of urban regions maintain a hygiene and sanitisation process to prevent health issues. They use water purifiers and other filtering processes to maintain drinking water quality. Based on Omarova et al. (2018) statement, morality and diarrhoea morbidity are caused by protozoa; in this case, bacteria-killing water purifiers are essential to enhance drinking water quality. Apart from this, it is identified that many urban areas are based on packed mineral water; for instance, USA, UK, Australia and many other countries. Due to this reason, they do not waste water and maintain proper sanitation.
Gradually, the water level is decreased from the global sources; for this reason, saving water is important and mitigating contamination to manage the public health systems. Regarding this fact, personal hygiene, safety sanitisation process, maintaining water resources and other relevant aspects should be changed to improve the quality of drinking water (Noubactep, 2019). Therefore, it is clear that urban residents are aware of their health and are focused on drinking water quality to maintain their health by consuming quality food and water.
Figure 2: Systematic approach of Water, Sanitisation and Hygiene
(Source: Omarova et al. 2018)
In contrast, Allaire et al. (2018) argued that ensuring a safe water supply is vital for maintaining social approaches. Rural areas are now maintaining water systems to reduce drinking issues; besides, they maintain higher sustainability than urbanised areas. Some regulatory compliance, governmental rules, and other instructions are currently followed to manage the wastage of drinking water. Due to this reason, the Safe Drinking Water Act is served among 79-94% of the population, so that they can maintain their health conditions; mitigate violence, vulnerabilities and other issues to maintain sustainability (Omarova et al. 2018). Approximately 9-45 million people are affected due to polluted water at the age of 34 years. This issue needs to be mitigated to change the poor situation.
Causes of unsafe drinking water
According to Sorlini et al. (2019), drinking water is made available to the common public by purifying the water by using various chemical compounds and by adopting different methods. The water from the rivers, ponds and the seas are not suitable for drinking as they contain a lot of impurities and germs. The water from these water bodies are collected and treated by adopting several methods and procedures. In recent years, the level of pollution has increased drastically. The population of the world is rising at a rapid rate, which is also a major contributing factor for the increase in pollution.
The rise in the level of pollution indicates that living beings such as humans, aquatic and every other animal apart from those that belong in the category of microorganisms and plants will be affected by several diseases (Sorlini et al. 2019). Water pollution is a matter of serious concern among the governments and the environmentalists. Water bodies are gradually getting polluted with each passing day. The seas and the ocean are getting polluted by marine vehicles. As per the views of van Wezel et al. (2018), they dump solid wastes into the oceans which cause the natural aquatic ecosystem to get disbalanced.
The aquatic animals and the plants get killed from consuming the solid wastes like plastics and other materials that are extremely harmful for the oceans. The force of the sea waves makes the dead aquatic plants and the animals end up in the beaches and the shores. They gradually start decaying and as reality emits foul smells that disrupts the natural order environment around the areas, which in turn is a major factor for the humans and other living beings to get affected by life-threatening diseases (Ghernaout et al. 2018).
The people residing in the coastal areas do not have the option to rely on any other source of drinking water, than the sea. Among the people who reside in those areas, many belong to the low-income section of the society and live in remote areas, where they do not have the access for purified drinking water nor do they afford packaged drinking water. They consume polluted sea water which affects their health in adverse ways (Ghernaout et al. 2018).
On the contrary, it is argued by Shamsollahi et al. (2019), treated water from water treatment plants and from the purified devices installed in households and commercial spaces, do not purify the water as much as it should, which is a major cause of stomach issues among the citizens. The water in most areas contains arsenic and other poisonous metals in them. Many people drink the arsenic filled water, which is a major issue in causing gastritis problems and other issues related to liver and stomach.
Drinking water treatment
According to Jung et al. (2022), the water treatment plants purify the water that is extracted from the rivers, oceans, lakes and the ponds for the purpose of consumption and drinking by humans. The water treatment plants comprise of a large area which is mostly located near the water bodies, the reason for the water treatment plants to be located near the water bodies ins due to the fact that it would be easier to collect the water. The water treatment plants that are located far from the water bodies have to bear the extra cost of maintaining the pipes and the equipment that is placed along the path of the long pipes (Kelly et al. 2018).
The equipment is used to regulate the water pressure and also to maintain the speed of the flow of the water in the pipes. The whole process of water treatment involves a series of steps which are carried out by skilled engineers and the workers. The water treatment plant employs a huge number of people who work in shifts. The equipment installed inside the water treatment plants keep running continuously for 24 hours at a stretch for more than two to three months continuously. These plants contain two similar areas.
When the machineries and the equipment of one area are put to rest, the other area becomes functional. It is important to run constant tests before carrying out the operations (Jung et al. 2022). The responsibility to manage the water treatment plants are given to highly experienced engineers and extremely skilled workers. Any wrong step might lead to the systems to malfunction, resulting in causing severe damages to the water treatment plants, including causing injury to the employees. Before the beginning and completion of shifts, the workers and the engineers conduct thorough checks on the equipment to ensure that every task is executed by following the strict set of rules and systems.
As per the views of Sorlini et al. (2019), the purified water is made to travel through the pipes and distributed to the households and the commercial areas like the factories, schools, colleges, airports, railway stations and so on. The water is stored in gigantic reservoirs after it reaches the area of distribution. Cities and towns usually comprise of 5-6 giant reservoirs and tanks which distribute to the areas and regions allotted for each tank. The households and the commercial spaces receive the water by means of underground pipes (Sorlini et al. 2019). In many places, people receive water only three times a day. The specific period of time is set by the municipal bodies and the corporations.
Literature gap
The current study is based on the emerging issues in the case of drinking water. While studying the problems and the causes for unsafe drinking water processes, the gap has been identified that existing literature is less focused on the challenges faced by the governments in making the water treatment plants to combat the ongoing issues to remove the impurities from the water. The study has scope to focus on the general issues involved in purifying water and the strategies adopted to mitigate the problems.
Conclusion
From the existing literature, it can be concluded that the major reason for unsafe drinking water is due to the rapid rise of pollution. The drastic rise of population in the last years is mostly responsible for the increase in the rate of pollution. The water treatment plants play a crucial role in making the drinking water available to the general public.
References
Allaire, M., Wu, H. and Lall, U., 2018. National trends in drinking water quality violations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(9), pp.2078-2083.
Ghernaout, D., Aichouni, M. and Touahmia, M., 2018. Improving operational procedures in Riyadh’s (Saudi Arabia) water treatment plants using quality tools. Applied Engineering, 2, pp.60-71.
Jung, J.W., Kim, S., Kim, Y.S., Jeong, S. and Lee, J., 2022. Tracing microplastics from raw water to drinking water treatment plants in Busan, South Korea. Science of The Total Environment, p.154015.
Kelly, E., Shields, K.F., Cronk, R., Lee, K., Behnke, N., Klug, T. and Bartram, J., 2018. Seasonality, water use and community management of water systems in rural settings: Qualitative evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia. Science of the Total Environment, 628, pp.715-721.
Li, P. and Wu, J., 2019. Drinking water quality and public health. Exposure and Health, 11(2), pp.73-79.
Noubactep, C., 2019. Editorial for the Special Issue: Filters in Drinking Water Treatment. Water, 11(3), p.522.
Omarova, A., Tussupova, K., Berndtsson, R., Kalishev, M. and Sharapatova, K., 2018. Protozoan parasites in drinking water: A system approach for improved water, sanitation and hygiene in developing countries. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(3), p.495.
Shamsollahi, H.R., Ghoochani, M., Sadeghi, K., Jaafari, J., Masinaei, M., Sillanpää, M., Yousefi, M., Mirtalb, S.T. and Alimohammadi, M., 2019. Evaluation of the physical and chemical characteristics of water on the removal efficiency of rotavirus in drinking water treatment plants and change in induced health risk. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 130, pp.6-13.
Sorlini, S., Collivignarelli, M.C. and Miino, M.C., 2019. Technologies for the control of emerging contaminants in drinking water treatment plants. Environmental Engineering & Management Journal (EEMJ), 18(10).
Un.org, 2022. Goals. Viewed on 22/3/2022 from <https://sdgs.un.org/goals>
van Wezel, A.P., van den Hurk, F., Sjerps, R.M., Meijers, E.M., Roex, E.W. and Ter Laak, T.L., 2018. Impact of industrial waste water treatment plants on Dutch surface waters and drinking water sources. Science of the Total Environment, 640, pp.1489-1499.
van Wezel, A.P., van den Hurk, F., Sjerps, R.M., Meijers, E.M., Roex, E.W. and Ter Laak, T.L., 2018. Impact of industrial waste water treatment plants on Dutch surface waters and drinking water sources. Science of the Total Environment, 640, pp.1489-1499.Alshammari, Y.,
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
