Life is Healthy

Tempo Interactive, Monday, 10 May, 2010 | 19:56 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Kebumen: The number of deaths caused by diarrhea is high in Kebumen. Throughout 2009, 18.854 cases of diarrhea were reported, 13 of which led to deaths. The reason is that only 68.6 percent of all Kebumen residents own toilets. “Only 17 villages in Kebumen have their residents defecating and urinating in proper toilets,” said Kebumen regent Nashiruddin Al Mansyur yesterday.

Nashiruddin has called on the government to prioritize the construction of sanitation facilities. To support this program, the government will launch a sanitation awareness program this month in 86 model villages. “The government will continue to encourage investments in the sanitation sector,” he said. According to Nashiruddin, there are three important agendas in the program, namely cleaning water channels, creating healthy homes, and providing potable water.

ARIS ANDRIANTO

Prof. Hubert Gijzen (Photo: Ms. Siti Rachmania/UNESCO Jakarta)

Every March 22 the world commemorates World Water Day and this year the theme is “Clean Water for a Healthy World”. The world is currently facing multiple problems impacting access to clean water including climate change and rapid population growth. In recognition of World Water Day, The Jakarta Post’s Evi Mariani interviewed UNESCO Regional Director and Representative Prof. Hubert Gijzen, who formerly taught as a professor at the UNESCO-IHE Institute of Water Education, in Delft, The Netherlands. Below are some excerpts from the interview.

Question: What is the meant by World Water Day, and what should people know about water?

Answer: World Water Day has been observed since 1993, following the adoption of a resolution by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, which designated March 22 of each year as World Water Day. This was done in recognition of the key importance of water for people, for the environment and for all life on this planet.

While generally our daily relation to water is focused on the uses and functions of water for our society and our economy, we must not forget that also nature, the environment and biodiversity are sustained by the vast freshwater resources on earth.

World Water Day is therefore meant to serve as a reminder to governments, to the private sector and to the general public of the importance to achieve access to safe and clean water for all people, and of all other important functions of water, while also managing water to ensure the long-term sustainable use of water for both people and the environment.

It also reminds us of the long way we still have to go to achieve this. Today, many of the world water resources are highly polluted, and/or becoming depleted. At the same time there are almost 1 billion people that lack access to safe water, while the number of people without access to appropriate sanitation services amounts to a daunting 2.4 billion.

This year’s theme is “Clean water for a healthy world”. What does water have to do with health?

Water is life, but on the other hand I should add that water is also a major killer. Every year several million people die from water-borne diseases, and these are mostly children under five years of age. The main culprits are pathogens, bacteria and parasites, which have been brought into the water from fecal contamination, causing diarrhea, which if not treated in a timely manner may lead to death due to dehydration.

So, indeed, there is a direct relationship between water and health, but access to safe water is not enough. It needs to be accompanied by education and awareness-raising on hygiene and health issues.

There is a growing notion among people that fresh water is getting scarcer. Is this true?

The total amount of water on earth remains basically the same. Water, however, moves in a hydrological cycle, in total about 40,000 km3 per year, and this determines when and where there will be water and in what amounts. This has been the case for many millions of years, but over more recent time spans, say in the past 50 years, the impact of people on water has become visible in two distinct ways. First, the combination of rapid population growth, urbanization, industrialization and higher standards of living has lead to more consumption in general, and of water in particular.

I estimate that world wide, less than 20 percent of all domestic and industrial wastewater receives some kind of treatment before its disposal into surface waters. This means that every day, more than 2 million tons of sewage and other effluents are dumped into the world’s waters.

The problem is much worse in developing countries where more than 90 percent of raw sewage and 70 percent of untreated industrial wastes are discharged into surface waters, and the results can be seen. Take a look at the water resources in and around Jakarta for instance. There is indeed no clean freshwater resource available anymore.

The emerging water crisis is not merely one of insufficient water quantity, but it is further aggravated by severe water quality destruction.

Second, there is the much-debated phenomenon of climate change. It is generally accepted that climate change is the main trigger behind the increase in extreme weather events, leading to a sharp increases in floods and draughts.

In developing countries, including Indonesia access to clean water is directly related to poverty. How can we ensure to make clean water accessible to all?

Indeed, water is directly related to poverty, and in that sense to the general wellbeing of people. Poor people generally pay much more for safe drinking water than the middle class living in cities and having access to municipal water supply services; this means that a disproportional share of the family income goes to the purchase of drinking water, but it also explains why poor people easily revert back to unsafe sources of water for potable use.

On top of this comes the effect of ever-increasing water quality deterioration, which jeopardizes food security and livelihoods, again with the poor being most affected. This is in fact what is meant by the term “poverty trap”. This is also why water needs specific attention when we talk about the achievement

of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Water relates not only to poverty (MDG 1), but also poor water and sanitation services (MDG 7) lead to students dropping out of school (MDG 2), especially among girls (MDG 3), and it also leads to increased under-5 mortality and other major diseases (MDGs 4 and 6).

In order to address these challenges and to break the poverty trap, 24 different UN agencies joined forces to form UN Water, which brings together a wide range of expertise and capacities in all fields of water, related to food production, hygiene and health, education, the environment and many other dimensions of water.

In my view the key challenge for UN Water in cooperation with governments all over the world will be to revisit the way we have been managing our water resources. This is a challenge of developed and developing countries alike. It seems we need to rethink the way we deal with water, both in developing and developed countries.

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Citarum River in Indonesia supplies around 30 million people with water
• Extreme pollution means many who live in villages along its banks often fall ill
• Poor sanitation compounds the problems for health of people and environment
• Asian Development Bank spending $500 million on river clean-up project

Bandung, Indonesia (CNN) -- The small village of Sukamaju on the outskirts of Bandung, West Java is nestled within mountains and rice plantations. To the naked eye, the scenery looks beautiful but on closer inspection, this ecosystem is supported by a water source that is sick and heavily polluted.

We've arrived to cover a story on the Citarum River, considered one of the most polluted rivers in Indonesia, if not the world. Around 30 million people rely on this water basin and it provides 80 percent of Jakarta's drinking water.

While this water is obviously treated for consumption in the larger town and big cities, in Sukamaju what's in the river is pumped directly to the community. The only filtration available is a towel or sock wrapped around a waterspout. The villagers use this water everyday to bathe, wash and cook.

But for drinking, they will boil it. Health experts tell us, this process will kill the bacteria but it certainly won't get rid of the heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

Near the village there are dozens of textile factories -- the main source of employment for many of the local people. They're also one of the biggest polluters of the Citarum River, spewing industrial waste directly into the waterways.

At one spot outside a plant, the water is black with pollution. Children play in it; crops are grown beside it.

A little further upstream, 10 meters before the water turns black, we meet a man who is washing plastic bags he will then sell. He says he does it here because of the strong chemicals in the water -- it helps him do his job more effectively.

We meet Nyai, a 60-year-old great grandmother who has a persistent skin infection. She has welts, lumps and dark markings all over her torso. Her daughter, grandchildren and great grandchildren all suffer the same condition, including 4-year-old Wildan.

I ask him to show me where it's itchy and he points to the spots covering his face and neck. Nyai says this skin condition only became a problem for her village after the textile factories set up in the 1980s.

Asked if she's angry about the water situation Nyai replies: "We have no choice, this is the only water we have. Everyone in this village only has this water source. If it's raining then our wells will get fresh water but if it's dry season, everyone must use this water."

But it's not just the factories, using the Citarum as a dumping ground; the community effectively use it as an open sewer. As we walk through the village, children squat over canals and defecate directly into the water. Any garbage is thrown in the waterway or dumped on the side of the riverbank.

Re-educating local communities on how to look after the Citarum is one of the main projects for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It's investing $500 million dollars over the next 15 years to try and save the Citarum and the communities who rely on it.

The ADB will work closely with Indonesian government to rehabilitate the entire river basin, addressing the issues of pollution, sanitation, and environmental problems like deforestation, siltation and flooding. Tom Panella from the ADB is fully aware of the enormous task in front of him and his team, but he remains hopeful .

"The Citarum is very sick and needs everybody to help bring it back to a state of health so all communities reliant on it can have a good quality of life and sustainable livelihoods," he says. "It's not dead but it needs a tremendous amount of work from all of us."

Two scavengers search for plastic garbage in Citarum River, Baleendah in Bandung on Sunday. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has declared the 270 kilometer river as the world’s most polluted river. (Antara/Rezza Estily)

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