Dr Samvedna Sharma
Everything in life is connected by water. Having access to clean water and sanitary facilities may swiftly transform issues into opportunities, giving people more time for employment and education and improving the health of women, children, and families globally.
Currently, 3.5 billion people-or 2 in 5-do not have access to a safe toilet, and 2.2 billion people-or 1 in 4-do not have access to clean water. We give these folks more power.We are tackling this clean water challenge day in and day out. Our goal is to provide everyone with clean water and proper sanitation. By giving them this basic human need, we’re enabling families to overcome the cycle of poverty and provide them hope, health, and opportunities.
Pure water is good for health but infected water calls out diseases like hepatitis A, typhoid, polio, diarrhea, dysentery, cholera and other symptoms can include skin, ear, respiratory and eye problems are among the illnesses that can spread due to contaminated water and inadequate sanitation. People are exposed to health hazards when water and sanitation facilities are insufficient, mismanaged, or nonexistent. This is especially true in healthcare settings where poor access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services puts both patients and employees at risk of infection and illness.
The unsafe contamination or chemical pollution of hundreds of millions of people’s drinking water is caused by improper handling of wastewater from urban, industrial, and agricultural sources. Arsenic and fluoride, which are naturally occurring in groundwater, can also have health implications. Lead, on the other hand, may be present in higher concentrations in drinking water due to leaching from water supply components that come into contact with the water.
Locally, the submontane tract known as the “Kandi belt” is located in the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir’s outer Himalayas. This unit includes the states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttaranchal. It is an extension of the Kandi belt. The lower Kandi belt is made up of farmed land and gully beds, while the top part is made up of low hills covered with bushes and forest. Its geography is undulating, with steep and uneven slopes, low water retention and erodible soils, and severely disjointed terrain caused by many gullies.
Excessive runoff, soil erosion, land degradation, and irregular rainfall distribution in space and time are the main issues with land and water management in the Shivalik Hills and Kandi belt, which hinders agricultural output. The area has a deep groundwater table. Because of the area’s unstable geology, streams in the rainy season bring enormous amounts of debris.
The rate of deforestation has increased due to human activities including careless agriculture practices and the removal of domestic trees and shrubs. Deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans .
An estimated 1 million individuals are thought to perish from diarroheal illness every year as a result of poor hand hygiene, sanitation, and drinking water quality. However, 395 000 children under the age of five could not die from diarrohea every year if these risk factors were addressed.
In situations when access to water is limited, individuals may disregard the importance of handwashing, increasing the risk of diarrohea and other illnesses.
Drinking water tainted with germs or bacteria that cause disease is the source of waterborne illnesses. Notably, a number of aquatic infections can also be contracted by person-to-person transmission, contact with animals or their surroundings, or ingestion of tainted food or drink.
Thus, there are numerous challenges and limitations related to water crises and water borne diseases in the Jammu and Kashmir region’s Kandi belt. Appropriate measures and approaches are needed to address these issues in the research domain.
(The author is Lecturer in GDC Ramkote)
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