RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WATER POLLUTION AND HUMAN HEALTH IN CHINA

The transition from a command economy to a market economy has brought tremendous changes to china .The economy high growth rate is exerting extraordinary pressure on natural     resources,particularly water. Which brought us to water pollution one of the greatest dangers to human health, afterall people can't survive without drinking water and if there freshwater resources are polluted, they can become ill from drinking them. Also fishes, birds and wildlife depends on clean water just as people do. According to Lu et al.(2008) water pollution is another trait of water resources in China, water contamination resulting from large amounts of untreated waste water discharge, has caused ecological deterioration, decling the efficiency of water sources and reducing the quantity of water use. Lu et al. also suggested that with the influx of environmental pollution the percentage of polluted water in urban areas is higher than 90%.
 I was going through my internet and i came across a news on cancer villages in China, these are villages surrounded by chemical plants or coal-fired power plants, villages with soil and water supplies that are contaminated, usually with heavy metals.These are entire village where every houses contains someone dying of cancer or some sort of respiratory problems. Below is a map of the distribution of cancer village and major river in china.

Map by environment international

Below is a table of number of cases of illness associated with the contaminated of water supplies suggested by Wu et al.

According to Lu et al.(2008) the ministry of Water Resources disclosed that the total quantity of waste water discharge across the country in 2006 amounted to 73.1 billion tons of which 2/3 was from industrial sector and 1/3 was from tertiary industry as well as urban domestic sewage. The video below highlights most of the problem faced in some of the providences in the country.

video by Tech Insider.

The critical deficits in basis water supply and sewage treatment infrastructure have increased the risk of exposure to infectious and parasitic disease and to growing volume of industrial chemicals, heavy metals and algal toxins. The degraded condition of much of China's surface water resources, together with the lack of coordination between protection of public health and Management of water quantity pose serious threat to human health.


Reference
Lu, W., Xie, S., Zhou, W., Zhang, S. and Liu, A.. (2008). Water Pollution and Health Impact in China: A Mini Review. Open Environmental Sciences journal. 2 (1), p1-5.

Wu, C., Maurer, C,. Wang, Y,. Xue, S,. and Davis, D.. (1999). Water Pollution and Human Health in China. Environmental Health Perspectives . 107 (4), 251-256