Environmental Risk Assessment : Polluted drinking water

Running head Environmental Risk Assessment
Environmental Risk Assessment
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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Introduction
Polluted drinking water is one of the most prominent factors that are responsible health
hazards and high mortality rates. The lack of clean drinking water and accessible sanitary
facilities paves way for pathogens and parasites to grow at an alarming pace, and eventually, this
leads to the transmission of several life-threatening diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea,
dysentery, cholera, typhoid, schistosomiasis, Guinea-Worm and so on. These diseases, coupled
with malnutrition and poor immunity, amounts to the huge mortality all across the world. Each
day, more than 1000 children die from water related diseases (Landrigan et al., 2019). Besides,
with the rapid rate of resource depletion, pollution and environmental degradation, the
groundwater tables are also severely damaged. Thus, along with the natural water bodies,
groundwater table will also be unable to provide safe drinking water in near future. Researchers
from the United Nations Knowledge Platform opine that within 2050, more than 50% of the
global population will be forced to live under severe water stress, due to the scarcity of clean and
unpolluted water sources (UNwater.org, 2017). Access to clean water is not only important for
health and hygiene, but also its absence can adversely impact the livelihoods and food security of
many families. Besides, national priorities on economic growth, green energy, sustainable
consumption, production and industrialization as well as resilient infrastructure are intricately all
linked with the sustainable supply of clean water. To this end, the United Nations, emphasizing
the importance of the accessibility to clean water, has adopted the agenda in their global goals
and assigned the Sustainable Development Goal 6 to ensure availability and sustainable
management of water and sanitation for all (Londoño, 2020).

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Researchers opine that the planet still has plenty of clean water sources to sustain all its
population for several upcoming years, if managed and regulated effectively. However, poor
infrastructure, injudicious political frameworks and inadequate economics skew the accessibility
of clean water unfavourably. Developing countries with poor economies are majorly affected by
this menace. Among all such countries, the African continent is one of the worst sufferers of
water-related diseases and poor infrastructure. The lack of availability of clean water is also a
significant driver of major economic losses in the region, causing rising expenditure of health
costs and decreased working hours (Olmstead & Zheng, 2019). Hence, it is important to review
the water management situation pertaining to Africa, and identify the major gaps in policy and
implementations to develop an effective mitigating framework that will aid the critical situation
in the region.

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Analysing the Water Crisis in Africa Using DPSEEA Framework