Africa has many fresh water sources such as Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria, the Zambezi, Nile, and Juba Rivers. Theoretically, Africans should be able to at least, adequately sustain healthy life with this amount of water (Whiteford & Whiteford, 2005). On the other hand, several issues affect the water sources making them either inaccessible, or dangerous to use. Diseases form and spread all through Africa, deteriorating life due to deficient amounts of clean water (Whiteford & Whiteford, 2005).

The reason for the water problems majorly involves dams and deforestation, along with pollution. Firstly, dams provide irrigation and hydropower, but hidden underneath these benefits are the massive and long-term detriments of destroying the well-known system of flood-plain agriculture and deforestation due to incomplete dam projects. Flood-plain agriculture is the classic system of agriculture that was mainly used along the Nile River as well as several other rivers in Africa. These traditional systems of agriculture depend on the annual floods in order to fertilize and water their crops. Water, as well as the silt that once functioned as fertilizer, are now built up behind the dams and are unusable. Secondly, deforestation dries up the land even more because interception and transpiration from trees stop, causing more forest fires and destruction of habitats. Deforested land becomes a dried up desert absolutely unusable by all habitats, especially humans (Jobin, 1999). Thirdly, pollution caused by poor sanitation techniques, in addition to industrial and chemical pollution are major reasons for the decline of life in Africa. Poor sanitation techniques lead to human and animal feces infest water, leading to increase in diseases related to water. The industrialization and urbanization in some parts of Africa leads to high levels of modern environmental health hazards. This results in other severe health problems indirectly related to water. For example, in the Nairobi River Basin in Kenya, there were effluent concentrations of elements such as nickel, copper, and lead, which were 60, 600, and 120 times higher than recommended (Nweke and Sanders, 2009). Another major cause of chemical pollution all across Africa is the use of pesticides in agriculture which have been detected in streams and rivers in different regions. These pesticides contaminate soil, water, air, and food sources, posing serious health threats to Africa’s populations. Endosulfans, as well as more dangerous organochlorines, such as DDE and DDT have recurrently been detected at water sources near agricultural areas in South Africa. This contamination has been confirmed to regularly exceed the “European drinking water standard of 0.1 g/L” (Nweke & Sanders, 2009). This contamination not only poisons potential sources of food, but it also destroys habitats which all have a chain reaction pertaining to the sustainability in Africa. In summary, these factors influence the water quantity and quality in Africa. It also negatively affects people’s habits regarding water usage. If people realize they have little water, they ration it ineffectively. For instance, they will take up water usage reducing habits such as not washing hands, clothes, food products, dishes, themselves, etc. leading to less hygiene and increasing the likelihood of getting disease. If there is plenty of water but it is contaminated, the pollutants in the water source will cause diseases. Therefore, due to poor water management in Africa, diseases related to water have been severely affected.

Water-related diseases differ from waterborne diseases in that the disease is not directly caused by the water consumed. Instead, the vector of the disease uses water as a breeding ground from which the vector then emerges. Common water-related diseases include malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis or bilharzia, and onchocerciasis or river blindness (Whiteford & Whiteford, 2005).

Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, is a disease that is highly prevalent along the Nile River as well as all other fresh water resources throughout Africa caused by parasitic worms and snails (Jobin, 1999). The most common parasitic worms that cause bilharzia in humans are Schistosoma mansoni, D. haematobium, and S. japonicium (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). Infection occurs when the larval stage of schistosomes search for a human host while swimming in the water. After parasitizing the human circulatory system by penetrating the skin of an individual in contaminated water, they reproduce in the human gut or bladder by laying their eggs there (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010; Jobin, 1999). These eggs pass out of the body by means of human waste and reach aquatic habitats of snails (Jobin, 1999). After the eggs hatch, they develop into larvae which penetrate the snail, developing further and “multiplying by astronomical factors” (Jobin, 1999, p. 66). The parasite larvae then leave the snail continuing the reproduction cycle. As written by Jobin (1999), “bilharzia is a debilitating disease which can cause early death of persons parasitized by large numbers of worms” (p. 68).

Symptoms of bilharzia include developing a rash or itchy skin within days of infection. Within 1-2 months of the infection, symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, and muscle aches may also appear, but people tend to have no symptoms at this early phase. The eggs that travel in the body can also cause inflammation and scarring. As reported by CDC (2010), infected children may “develop anemia, malnutrition, and learning difficulties.” All of these symptoms are reactions of the body to the eggs produced, and not by the worms themselves. Treating schistosomiasis is essentially effortless; you must take a pill 1-2 days (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010).

Since the health care systems in some African countries are shoddy, and the majority of these populations cannot afford treatment or drugs, prevention is the most efficient technique to fight disease throughout the continent (Falola & Heaton, 2007). Bilharzia can easily be prevented in Africa by avoiding swimming in fresh water sources, health education, drugs, focal application of biocides to kill snails, and improved water supply and sanitation are also required to stop the spread of the infection. Using feces and urine contaminated water is a major cause of spread of the disease due to the nature of the parasite’s reproductive system, but another equally important issue is intensifying agriculture. Increased agriculture results in runoff with high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous, which act as a fertilizer (Peace, 2006). These compounds trigger an increase in aquatic weeds, the ideal habitat for snails, which causes increased bilharzia transmission. In addition, since people wanted to clean the water sources from the weeds, they would manually try to clean the water supply, without taking any precautions. This exacerbated the situation by exposing themselves to the disease (Jobin, 1999).

An example of the relationship between agriculture along with irrigation, and bilharzia as well as malaria transmission can be seen in the Gezira-Managil Irrigation System in Sudan. In 1925, when the irrigation system was first constructed, the overall agricultural intensity increased by 300%, this was because the natural system had been altered with. Naturally, the water should have dried out by April-May, but instead it ran 100% of the time. The Gezira-Managil Irrigation system became the main source of income in Sudan, producing 3/4 of the gross national cotton production. By 1970, the proliferation of agricultural pests, aquatic weeds, snails, mosquitoes and silt in the canal lead to the decline of the agricultural system. As a result, cotton was infested by the white-fly, pathogenic viruses and bacteria multiplied in the water making it unusable. Malaria mosquito populations increased, attacking at night and increasing transmission of disease, since there were no longer dry seasons to destroy their habitat. Similarly, bilharzia snails increased since the unnatural, man-made system had constructed an exceptionally ideal habitat for them, attacking during the day as people waded in the waters, and intensified the transmission of the disease. People who worked on the fields and near the irrigation system got infected, not being able to work on the nearly non-existent cotton fields. The country’s gross income changed from approximately US $228 million to US $76 million by 1981. There was no longer any money, which meant no more facilities for community water supplies and sanitation, increasing disease and unemployment, resulting in even less money in a seemingly endless cycle (Jobin, 1999).

There are many factors that act as obstacles in the way of African well-being. The most prevalent type of disease in Africa is waterborne and water-related. Sheik-Mohamed & Velema (1999) report that “major causes of mortality and morbidity seem to be preventable infectious diseases.” Govender et al. (2011) similarly state that “diarrheal diseases are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries” and that these diarrheal diseases can be prevented simply through improved water quality. Every 8 seconds a child dies from a disease related to having either unclean or not enough water. Diseases linked to water kill more 5 million people each year – ten times the amount of people killed in wars (Whiteford & Whiteford, 2005). These statistics are outrageous. Every human should have the right to have clean water. Every human should have the right to live in a healthy environment and be in good health.

References

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010, November 2).
• Schistosomiasis: General Information. Retrieved October 2011, from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/schistosomiasis/gen_info/faqs.html
• Falola, T., & Heaton, M. M. (Eds.). (2007). HIV/AIDS, Illness, and African Well-Being. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
• Govender, T., Barnes, J. M., & Pieper, C. H. (2011). Contribution of water pollution from inadequate sanitation and housing quality to diarrheal disease in low-cost housing settlements of Cape Town, South Africa. American Journal of Public Health , 101 (7), e4-e9.
• Jobin, W. (1999). Dams and Disease. London, UK: E & FN Spon.
• Nweke, O. C., & Sanders, W. H. (2009). Modern environmental health hazards: a public health issue of increasing significance in Africa. Environmental Health Perspectives , 117 (6), 863-870.
• Sheik-Mohamed, A., & Velema, J. P. (1999). Where health care has no access: the nomadic population of sub-Saharan Africa. Tropical Medicine and International Health , 4 (10), 695-707.
• Whiteford, L., & Whiteford, S. (2005). Globalization, Water and Health. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Reasearch Press.

The Aral crisis is the best example of an ecological problem with serious social and economic consequences, directly or indirectly connected with all the states of Central Asia. The critical situation caused by the Aral Sea drying off was the result of agrarian economy tendency on the basis of irrigated agriculture development and volume growth of irrevocable water consumption for irrigation.

The Aral Sea was once the fourth biggest inland sea of the world, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (formerly in the Soviet Union). It moderated the inland climate for many centuries through water evaporation, which gave life to the surrounding deserts of Central Asia. The Aral Sea also was inhabited by more than one hundred fish species and supported productive fishing industries. Some fifty years ago the Aral Sea was surrounded by prosperous fishing towns like Moynaq.

The water area of Aral has periodically expanded and contracted in the course of history. These changes have affected the climate and the state of the region and led to important migrations in history. In spite of the massive glacier melting in the North and South Pole because of global warming, which would be expected to increase the level of inland waters, the Aral is rapidly losing its water. Because of poor environmental planning and the negligence of humans, the Aral Sea is now dying and according to the experts it will disappear in less than ten years.

The Aral Sea started to dry off in the early twentieth century. In 1918 Lenin decided that the only two water supplies of the Aral, the River Amu and the River Syr should be diverted for irrigation of the desert to increase land for agriculture. The idea was to boost agriculture, and this worked for a short period of time. The Soviets or Uzbekistan became the world’s largest exporter of cotton, which they referred to as white gold. The area of irrigated lands increased from 3 million hectares to 8 million. The population of the region increased from 7 million (1940) to 50 million (2000). At the initial stage of this project which seemed a brilliant idea at first sight, the irrigated land built up the economy of the Central Asian Soviet States and produced millions of jobs. Although, the result of the project was brief joy and success, the price of poor planning turned out to be by far too high.

First of all, the government had decided to grow cotton in a desert terrain. Cotton farming requires lots of water, which would not occur naturally in the desert. They also increased the production of other crops like water melons, cereal, and rice. Diverting the rivers cut the supply to the Aral Sea, and due to evaporation, it began to shrink. The first irrigation canals were initiated in the 1930s; however, these canals were poorly built, extremely inefficient, and wasted more than 50% of the water. Even today in Uzbekistan only 12% of canals are leakproof. The level of the sea has gone down constantly ever since; in the 1960s it became obvious that the sea level was falling; there was an average 20cm fall per year until the 1970s, when the fall became 50–60cm a year, and now it is 80–90cm a year. Especially in the period of 1960–1980 the diversion of water doubled, which reflected on cotton cropping as much as on the decreasing sea level.

The loss of water exposed the salty sea bed in the Southern Aral. Dust storms spread salty soil into the irrigated areas. Farmers tried to fight against salt contamination by flushing the soil with large volumes of water, which makes its way back to the sea. In addition, farmers used high levels of pesticides and fertilizers to increase the efficiency of crop production. However, these chemicals leave traces of nitrogen and other salts in high amounts in the soil. By flushing the soil with water to reduce salt levels, pesticides and fertilizers were also washed out and further polluted the sea.

Even more unsettling is that the Soviet government knew that they would lose the Aral Sea; in 1968 an expert said “it is obvious to everyone that the evaporation of the Aral Sea is inevitable”; and they also knew that fishing would be hit but the sad fact is that the government saw the Aral as an “error of nature.” The consequences of cutting the Aral’s water supplies and the irrigation of the desert were the beginnings of serious ecological and social problems in the 1960s. The sea was lost to fishing and transportation. This business of “killing nature” has not only affected the people living in the immediate vicinity of the sea. They did lose their jobs and they had to restart their lives, but the whole environment was affected too. Loss of water caused an increase in the overall salinity of the sea. Besides that, the bed of the sea, which held toxic chemicals and pesticides, was now revealed. The local drinking water is hence contaminated. The Aral was once the habitat of more than 120 unique species; now it has only thirty-eight. Being a heat reservoir, it had a cooling effect on the environment, but now the temperature can go above 120 degrees, winters still being harsh. Poisonous dust and salt storms take their toll. Infant mortality, tuberculosis, cancer and lung disease are thirty times higher than normal levels because the water is contaminated by fertilizers, pesticides and salt.

Currently the sea has lost more than 60% of its surface area and more than 80% of its volume; as of 2004 the salinity is 45g/l, normal value being 10g/l. While shrinking, it has split into two lakes, the North and South Aral Seas, now 95 miles away from Moynaq, leaving vast areas of salty desert behind. A BBC reporter said, “What appears to be snow on the seabed is really salt. The winds blow this as far as the Himalayas. The children of Moynaq have made a playground out of the wrecks of ships which might have provided food and a future for them.” The drying out of the Aral may lead to even more serious consequences in future if measures are not taken soon. First, increased temperatures may lead to the degradation of mountain glaciers. This could be highly dangerous for the region because the glaciers feed the River Amu and River Syr, and they are the only remaining storage for the supply of fresh water and moisture. Second, the Aral’s sea bed emits massive amounts of salt and dust into the atmosphere. Polluted air is carried over the area by a powerful air stream. Traces of pesticides and salt from the Aral region are now found in the blood of penguins in Antarctica. Moreover, the pollution affects areas thousands of miles away, such as the glaciers of Greenland and the forests of Norway.

In 2003 Kazakhstan decided to make this split permanent by building a dam (Kokaral Dike) between the northern and southern parts. The restoration effort focuses on the Northern Aral which is small and less polluted. This seals the fate of the Southern Aral, and is synonymous with its vanishing. The northern water supply, the River Syr has been restored and diverted back into the sea. Although it will not be the same again for sure, planners think that fishing will be rescued and the North Aral Sea will stabilize the climate by smoothing out the high and low temperature extremes and increasing rainfall. The efforts have helped to lower the salinity level which has even allowed the reintroduction of fishing in this area. The result is surprisingly encouraging. There are other proposals like diverting the Volga, Ob, and Irtysh rivers but this would be very costly and could cause yet another catastrophe.

This story has everything in it. Humans who disregard the ecosystem takes the gift in nature for granted. As we can see, however, nature is not infinite and it is breakable. Hundreds of years may pass until the region completely recovers. The magnitude of the disaster is comparable in scope to those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and might be even worse. This is a great example of short-term greed and ill-guided economic moves disregarding the whole ecosystem and bringing consequences which have to be dealt with in the long run. In this particular case, there could have been other ways to avoid the damaging decision to cut the water supply of the lake fully, such as relying on a different type of crop which requires less water, or making more efficient use of water, and so on.

This disaster is a single example of the type of global catastrophe we might encounter again in the future. This being so it should be kept in mind when we think of our future. A lot of the damage humankind causes might still be avoided if we act firmly and quickly. This is not just necessary for our grandchildren or our children but even for our own generation since the consequences of ecological destruction are being seen more rapidly now. The widely known global warming cannot be belittled, and, as the Aral Sea example might have taught us, the consequences can be terrible. It is likely that more such unpredicted events will afflict us. Added to this, there are water pollution, deforestation, and the destruction of wet-lands. Every day we hear or read about these consequences of negligence and greed. But these geographical features are all in perfect harmony, and we cannot rudely and unthinkingly destroy them. As Lester Brown comments, “Previous generations have always been anxious about the future, but we are the first who decide if the Earth inherited by our children will be inhabited.”

Timur Ceylan is an expert engineer at AMD Technologies, San Francisco.

References

• National report: “On the environment state and use of natural resources in the Republic of Uzbekistan.” State Committee on Nature Protection of Uzbekistan. Tashkent, 1998.
• K.Isentaev. “Geological structure and perspectives of oil and gas reserves of the Aral Sea.” Workshop report. Almaty, 1997.
• Ministerial conference of Central Asia. “Assessment of the environment.” Aarhus, Denmark, 1998.
• J. Mahambetova. Non-government union. “Aral tenizi.” Aralsk, 1999.

More than 97 per cent of this water is in the oceans. The rest-about 37 million cubic kilometres-is fresh water but most of that is of little use since it is locked in icecaps and glaciers. Current estimates are that about 8 million cubic kilometres are stored in relatively inaccessible ground water and about 0.126 million cubic kilometres are contained in lakes and streams.

Like coal, oil, iron or soil, water is a natural resource. But there are many ways in which water differs from other natural resources. First, it moves. Second, its total quantity on the earth is fixed and can be neither increased nor decreased. Thirdly, water is essential for human survival.

The human being’s biological need for water is modest. A dozen or so cupfuls a day are all that are required for survival. Even so, there are many areas of the earth where even this requirement is difficult to meet. Rainfall in many desert regions is limited to a few millimetres a year, and this often falls at unpredictable times during the space of a few isolated days. Survival in these regions is impossible unless water is imported.

Biological survival, however, is not the issue in today’s water-stressed world. Water is required for household needs, for industry and agriculture. Household needs-drinking, washing and cooking-could be adequately met everywhere in the world by less than 100 litres per person per day, roughly the amount used for an average shower. Of this, only one litre a day is required for drinking. A hundred litres a day is the equivalent of about 35 cubic metres per person a year. If every man, woman and child on the planet were provided with 100 litres of domestic water a day, the water bill for a population of 5 billion people would be 180,000 billion litres a year; or 180 cubic kilometres. In theory, the Amazon river alone with an annual flow of nearly 6000 cubic kilometres could supply the domestic water needs of a world population more than 30 times as large as it is now.

A supply of unpolluted drinking water and the sanitary disposal of human wastes are fundamental to health. Water pollution moves through shared rivers, lakes and seas. An estimated 60 million people died of diarrhoea diseases due to unsafe drinking water and malnutrition, most of the victims were children.

Irrigation is by far the biggest use of water and also the most rapidly expanding. Plants use large quantities of water during their growth. Under dry conditions, it takes about 1000 cubic metres of water to produce one tonne of plant growth. The amount of water used for irrigation has increased 10 times this century and elaborate plans are still being made to extend irrigation to more and more areas. The basic addition is simple: 565 cubic kilometres for domestic, industrial, cooling and livestock use, plus 3,300 cubic kilometres for irrigation. As near as makes little difference, the answer is 4000 cubic kilometres a year, equivalent to 44 per cent of the total reliable run off.

In 1940, total water use was about 1000 cubic kilometres a year. It had doubled by 1960 and doubled again by 1990. The rising need for water has two components: One is that more and more people use water and the other is that they use more of it than they used to.

The Qur’an reminds us that water is the source of all life. “Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together, then We clove them asunder and We made every living thing out of the water? Will they not then believe?” (21:30).

The phrase can equally mean that every living thing is made of water (as its essential component) or that every living thing originated in water. The meanings are strictly in accordance with scientific data. Life is indeed of aquatic origin and water is the major component of all living cells. Without water, life is not possible. When the possibility of life on another planet is discussed, the first question is always: Does it contain a sufficient quantity of water to support life?

References

• Robin Clarke (1991), Water: The International Crisis. Earthscan Ltd., London, UK.
• Maurice Bucaille (1983), The Bible, The Qur’an and Science, Seghers, Paris, France.
• The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
• Ahrned Zidan Ann Dina Zidan (1989), Translation of The Glorious Qur’an, Biddies Ltd., Guildford, UK.