Water supply and sanitation

WASH (safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene) are critical to raising people’s living standards. Better physical health, environmental protection, higher educational performance, time savings, assurance of lives, and equitable treatment for men and women are among the enhanced standards made possible by WASH. Poor and vulnerable people have less access to improved WASH services and engage in riskier behaviors. As a result, the objective of  WASH is critical to decreasing poverty, promoting equality, and fostering socio-economic development.

Water supply

For excellent health, a safe, dependable, inexpensive, and easily available water supply is vital. Despite this, approximately a billion people in underdeveloped nations have been without a safe and sustainable water source for decades. A minimum of 7.6 liters of water per person per day is necessary for the home for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene, the most basic demands for water; at least 50 lit. per person per day is required for all personal hygiene, food hygiene, domestic cleaning, and laundry needs. Even in prosperous countries where per capita household water consumption much surpasses the demands of agriculture and ecosystems, domestic water consumption is dwarfed by agricultural and ecological demands.

Sanitation

For many years, most Indians relied on on-site sanitation, which primarily consisted of pit latrines in rural areas. The government has been investing substantially in sanitation units as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission, which has yielded positive results. The Indian government succeeded in making household toilets available to almost 99 percent of the population between 2014 and 2020.

The practice of manual scavenging linked to the legally outlawed caste system involves the dangerous and indecent emptying of toilets and pits. The handling of raw, untreated human excreta is a unique Indian concern.

Infrastructure components

The infrastructure for pumping, diverting, transporting, storing, treating, and delivering clean drinking water is water supply infrastructure. This infrastructure includes surface-water intakes, groundwater wells, reservoirs, dams, storage tanks, pipes , drinking-water facilities,and aqueducts.

A conveniently open and free source of groundwater is required. Groundwater is drawn from a single or several wells and is naturally stored in subsurface geologic formations. Surface water can be obtained through an input pipe in a river, huge lake, canal, or manmade reservoir.

Low-head dams may be utilized to pool water for more effective removal in some rivers. In some circumstances, enormous dams have been built to impound large amounts of water, assuring a consistent water supply throughout and from year to year.

Infrastructure requirements

The Water Infrastructure Network is a coalition of wastewater & drinking-water, government officials, environmentalists, state health administrators, and engineers dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

Three major infrastructure requirements have been recognized by the Water Infrastructure Network for the country.

• The mechanism of the drinking-water supply system consists of water treatment facilities, source-water protection, water storage and distribution systems, water-supply interconnection and management, untreated water conveyance, demand management and storage infrastructure rehabilitation.
• Stormwater wastage control systems and management, including pollution prevention reduction techniques and pollution prevention as well as extra water collection, conveyance, and treatment facilities.
• Domestic wastewater systems include, pumping, collection and discharge infrastructure as well as wastewater treatment plants, wastewater reuse facilities, and biosolids (sludge) management.

About WHO WASH

To significantly improve health in all contexts by ensuring the safe management of water, sanitation, and hygiene services. WASH at health care facilities is linked to the Organization’s efforts to improve the safely managed drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in households, as well as other UHC priorities.

The WHO WASH Strategy Principles

• Prioritize activities with the greatest impact on public health in areas where WHO has or can develop comparative advantages.
• Strengthen the health sector’s capacity to promote safe WASH and assume its public health oversight role in WASH, including implementing effective outbreak response mechanisms.
• Align with the Sustainable Development Goals, including WASH, health, climate change, and nutrition targets, as well as human rights principles.
• When defining standards and good practice processes, use the highest quality science, including the gathering, review, and utilization of evidence about WASH impacts on health as well as a wide range of practical experiences.
• When assisting countries in setting national WASH standards and ambitious but attainable national targets, promote a contextual, gradual improvement strategy.
• Utilize current regional policy frameworks that promote WASH and establish national goals.
• Stimulate long-term change through improving government institutions and mechanisms in charge of WASH service delivery implementation, supervision, and regulation.

Conclusion

Sanitation improvements, safe drinking water supplies, and improved hygiene habits all have an impact on people’s well-being, livelihoods, and economic development. Strategic investments in environmental health could have far-reaching consequences that go beyond the water and sanitation industry.