Assessment of Bacterial Pathogens in Drinking Water: a Serious Safety Concern

2021 
Access to safe water supplies is a critical human need. However, bacterial contamination, environmental and anthropogenic factors such as climate changes and high growth rate of the population have contributed to continuing water scarcity and degradation. Fresh water paucity and land use changes following rapid urbanization have also led to a need for increased capacity of treating bacterial load in the water bodies. Consumption of contaminated water causes an estimated 88% of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) from diarrheal disease, and is responsible for 1.8 million deaths and 4.1% of total DALY global burden of diseases (GBD). The United Nations (UN) has defined a water stressed area as regions where water consumption surpasses 10% of renewable fresh water resources. Around 97% of water on earth is salt water in the oceans and fresh water comprises only 3% of total water on earth. Around 68.7% of fresh water is reserved in glaciers. Approximately 30.1% and 0.3% of fresh water is ground water and surface water respectively. 0.9% of the remaining is water in other forms including soil moisture, swamp water, and permafrost. A primary use of fresh water use is for drinking but 70% of fresh water withdrawal on earth has been used for this purpose. The demand for fresh drinking water has steadily grown in parallel with increasing food needs from a growing world population.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    31
    References
    1
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []