So much have been written and said about climate change. But there is one crisis that has failed to ignite world leaders: water. And to think of, water, is one of the most important components for a person to live.
“A person can survive only three to five days without water, in some cases people have survived for an average of one week,” says thewaterpage.com. “Once the body is deprived of fluids the cells and organs in the body begin to deteriorate. The presence of water in the body could mean the difference between life and death.”
“Water is the most precious asset on Earth,” points out Dr. Sandra Postel, director of the Massachusetts-based Global Water Policy Project. “It is the basis of life.” She believes water problems will be right there with climate change as a threat to the human future.
“Although the two are related, water has no substitutes,” Postel says. “We can transition away from coal and oil to solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. But there is no transitioning away from water to something else.”
In a report some years ago, the Nobel-prize winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that by 2080 nearly half the world’s population will be without clean water.
The New York-based United Nations Development Program (UNDP) echoes the same concern.
“The necessary sense of urgency is lacking,” UNDP said in a statement. “The facts have been staring us in the face for years. While demand increases, the annual available fresh water supply per inhabitant is regularly decreasing and is expected to fall to an average 4,800 cubic meters by the year 2025 against 7,300 cubic meters in 1995.”
In the Philippines, current statistics show that 20% of the population have no access to potable water and 432 municipalities have less than 50% service coverage. About 6,000 premature deaths a year are caused by water-borne diseases.
In the 1950s, the Philippines had as much as 9,600 cubic meters of clean water per person, according to Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero, former head of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development. Four decades later, Filipinos must make do with little more than a third for that volume – 3,300 cubic meters per capita.
Although the government is trying its best to provide Filipinos potable water, its efforts are outwitted by rapid population growth. From 1995 to 2005, the government had successfully provided water for an additional 23.04 million people. That may seemed a good news but the sad thing is that population increased by 24.5 million over the same period.
Experts claim that with an annual population rate of 2 percent to 2.3 percent, the Philippines would be facing a water shortage by 2025. That’s seven years from now!
“The rapid urbanization of the Philippines, with more than 2 million being added to the urban population annually, is having a major impact on water resources,” a report from the Asian Development Bank pointed out.
Maude Barlow, in her book The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for Right to Water, points out that “access to clean water is a human right.” She exhorted the international community “to see beyond the borders to the moral courage necessary to conserve and share this precious resource, as well as working on a treaty like the one we hope to see regarding the climate crisis that sets goals for conservation, sharing of resources, providing technology necessary to developing countries that helps them with conserving through agriculture, infrastructure, and basic education.”
In response to the urgent need for potable water in most parts of the country, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) promoted the use of ceramic water filter, which the Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) has developed.
“The ceramic-based water filter can remove contaminants in drinking water, making them perfect for home use,” wrote Violy Balaoing Conoza, of the S&T Media Service.
So far, three models had already been developed. The first two pot-type ceramic filters can carry 6.5 and 1.5 liters of water, respectively. The most recent edition, the candle type water filter, has 1.5-liter capacity.
The ceramic filter is lodged in a plastic container with a faucet at the bottom for collection of the filtered water.
“The filter is made from red clay and we added nano (very, very small or minutest) antimicrobial agent that can eliminate water-borne organisms,” explained Josefina Celorico, supervising research specialist and lead researcher.
According to Conoza, all three models can purify tap water, deep well water, and raw water (from ponds and spring). “Through the filters, safe, potable drinking water is readily available and accessible even in remote areas,” she said.
The ITDI researchers said the filtered water from ceramic filter have passed the Philippine National Standard for drinking water in both tests/counts for coliform and Escherichia coli, the most common form of water-borne disease-causing microorganisms.
The ceramic filters are easy to install and maintain – aside from they are reasonably priced.
My source said that as of the third quarter of 2013, about 10,000 pieces of candle type ceramic water filters had already been produced.
Since then, nothing is heard of the ceramic water filters. I think with the problem of water pollution and water scarcity, it is high time to produce ceramic water filters at the areas where clean water is necessary.
Aside from rapid population growth, water crisis in the Philippines can also be traced to degradation condition of the environment and pollution. According to an ADB study, only about 33 percent of river systems are classified as suitable public water supply sources, and up to 58 percent of groundwater is contaminated.
Of the 457 water bodies classified by Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), only 51 percent meet the 1996 water quality standards. Sixteen rivers are considered biologically dead during dry months.
“Water is the most precious asset on Earth,” points out Sandra Postel, director of the Massachusetts-based Global Water Policy Project. “It is the basis of life.”
