Part 1a: Human-Water Interactions
Seminar 1
Water phases depending on temperature and pressure
Liquid, liquid and vapor phase
Comes from unique character water —> high heat capacity and solvent
Solvent —> because of clarity. Most substances dissolve easily in water.
Why water management
- water related health risks
- Ensuring water is where we need it, when we need it
- Allocation among different uses/users
- Protection from flooding
- Water shapes landscapes
- Unintended consequences of water management
Water-related health risks
Infectious diseases:
1. water-borne diseases
- when we ingest water but not well treated, it has bacteria in it, from unhygienic conditions —>
contamination of drinking water with wastewater/faecal matter.
- Lack of adequate infrastructure
- High population density (downstream water use)
- Often in relation with natural disasters (infrastructure failures, mixing of waste water and drinking
water)
- Examples: Cholera, typhoid fever, diarrhea, guardians, leptospirosis, botulism,
2. Water-washed diseases
- lack of washing
- Caused by too little water (used) for hygiene (after animal contact, defecation, food handling,
human-human)
- Informal settlements
- Refugee camps
- Examples: cholera, hepatitis, rainworms, lice, fleas, influenza, tapeworm.
3. Water-based
- organisms that live in water and enter the human body
- Mostly worm infections
- Tropical areas
- Part of life cycle of those organisms
- Examples: diarrhea, salmonella, schistosomiasis,
4. Water-vector
- organisms that breed in water, with life-stages in humans
- Water as a medium where vector is mosquito?
- Examples: malaria, yellow fever
All most common in Africa
Chemical contaminants
1. Environmental chemicals:
,metals,
arsenic, cancerogenic, source: groundwater, when it creates dust it can cause skin and lung
cancer.
radon, cancerogenic, source: shallow groundwater
fluoride, source: groundwater, damage bones
salinity, source: groundwater
- Cyanobacteria —> surface water, partly anthropogenic (farming animals)
2. Anthropogenic chemicals
- Nitrate: should be <50 mg) —> eutrophication and blue-baby syndrome.
- Pesticides: herbicides, fungicides, insecticides (DDT, Agent organic, glyphosphate). —> impact
on biodiversity (insects, birds, microbiota) and humans (cancer, respiratory disease, neurological
disorders). Control issues cumulative effects, metabolites, tracing of impacts. There are so
many, and they interact with each other and other components, and decay into different
components. They can accumulate in the environment and go through all food webs. The
pesticides can go into other chemical forms that they originate are.
- Other organic compounds from industry: petrochemicals. Gastro-intestinal and neurological
disorder, birth defects, cancer, infant mortality.
- Heavy metals: lead (neurotoxin, used in fuel for cars, water pipes from lead by Romans, but
people were getting sick, still used until 60s), chromium (cancerogen, colored leather), aluminum
(brain damage)
- Emerging contaminants:
- endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC)
—> disrupt hormones:
- decline in fertility (fish, birds, mammals)
- reduced hatching success, offspring survival (fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles)
- feminisation/masculinisation (all vertebrate groups)
- thyroid problems (fish and birds)
- potentially cancerogenic
- chlorine in combination with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) —> reacting with each other then
potentially cancerogenic.
- nanomaterials, microplastics,
- pharmaceutical residues (antibiotics, bacteria get used to it and reproduction of bacteria that
survive and not vulnerable to antibiotics, may not work)
- accumulation of it, don’t know long term effects. No effects on humans yet.
- Phosphorus
- Pit mining
What kind of research and/or management efforts should be promoted to reduce water-related
diseases?
Water quantity-related health risks
- Flood
- Droughts
- Water scarcity (for direct/indirect uses).
Water-temperautre-related health risk
- snow/ice loss (dampening annual variation in water availability)
- Heat waves
- Storms/hurricanes
- Climate change
,Methane emission —> climate change impact on health, such as heat waves.
Water has temperature dampening effect/cooling effect.
Higher humidity harder to handle by human body.
Example Bangladesh
3 large rivers that come from Himalaya mountains to the sea.
Most dense populations
Lower than sea level, and many rainfall
Need transboundary agreements with neighboring countries, lot of dams build by china for
example in the river, which flows into Bangladesh
Deforestation, confinement of rivers (diking), land degradation and water withdrawal in upstream
countries worsen flooding and low flows in Bangladesh
Too little water but also too much.
Every year >20% of land is flood each year.
Cyclones
Spread of cholera, saltwater intrusion and land erosion. Because damage of transportation
Less water comes from the mountains —> water held back because of dams and withdrawal of
water, or groundwater that doesn’t infiltrate into river. Deforestation, barrel land doesn’t come as a
normal flow.
Water-washed diseases: Diarrhea
UN recommended should drill ground water —> much less Diarrhea. But new problem:
Arsenic in shallow ground water where they take their water from.
Response to surface water pollution and risk of water-washed diseases, shallow well water has
caused an arsenic crisis in Bangladesh.
Impacts by extreme weather events: land erosion
It is becoming less and less, but many people live rural, dependent on agriculture.
Eight moth embankments: built dikes by hand to keep salt water out, to do agricultural farming.
During mon soon period, these where washed away.
Cycle that kind of works, but permanent embankments which was recommendation of UN. Such as
polders in NL.
Flood water brings sediments that washed down from mountains and fertile soils it creates
because of nutrients in it. But permanent embankments: keep water out, trapping the sediments in
the canal, can’t distribute over fields, losing fertility and loosing sediments that also built land. Land
gets lower and more compacted, standing water you get on it, trapped sediments inside
embankments where you don’t want them. You get clogged up riverbeds.
Land management impacts
- shift from agriculture (rice) to shrimp farming
—> antibiotics to keep shrimps healthy. All for export the shrimp. Consequences for food
security for local people.
- Destruction of mangrove forests
Vulnerability to cyclones and flooding, land loss —> more channelized.
- salinization
Natural ecosystem consequences: mangrove forests: Sundarbans are mangrove forests called.
Water management: use of infrastructure and institutions to ensure water services:
Infrastructure includes all engineered systems
- Reservoirs, canals, groundwater wells, dikes, sluices, water distribution networks, (waste)water
treatment plants
Household water technologies: water meters, toilets, showers, washing machines.
Green infrastructure can be engineered or natural
- mangrove forests, buffer strips along rivers/agricultural fields (also: oyster reefs)
- Green roofs and drainage systems (Swales, infiltration strips and ponds)
- Green infrastructure is also referred to as nature-based solutions, ecosystem-based
infrastructure
, Institutions refer to rules, norms and regulations
Formal institutions: legal frameworks and laws (dutch water act, EU nitrate directive, EU Water
framework directive
Water pricing regulations (water supply, sewerage)
Informal institutions
- ways of doing and working —> organizational rules/policies, social norms (how most people
think or behave in a given context)
need to be formalized if it happens, that for example people can’t or can do something, so shape
each other and both change over the years.
Paradigms
- control water, keep us safe from water
- Accommodate water
- Water for human needs/ecosystem needs
- Rights of nature
- Human right to water versus water as an economic good
Water Management vs Water Governance
Water governance: refers to the process of interaction among actors (individuals and
organizations) that leads to water decision-making. It negotiates the institutional context (laws,
regulations, norms) within which water can be managed.
Water management: refers to decision-making, planning and operation within agreed-upon rules
and among actors with agreed-upon responsibilities
Dutch Water Act
When enacted, by whom and what does it regulate?
EU Water Framework Directive
What does it do, who enforces it and how?
Assignment 1
1. What are three important issues that the Dutch Water Act regulates?
flooding, swamping and water shortage
chemical and ecological status of water systems
societal functions of water
2. When was the Dutch Water Act enacted?
22 december 2009
3. What is the EU Water Framework Directive and what does it aim to achieve?
An EU directive that commits the member states of the European Union. It achieves good
qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies.
4. How is it implemented and by whom?
It prescribes steps to reach the common goal. The Framework determines that the EU member
states must jointly draw up action programs for each river basin, covering all aspects of water. The
Commission adopted a proposal to revise the lists of pollutants in surface and groundwater. If the
proposal is agreed by the Council and the European Parliament, Member States will be required to
take measures to meet the quality standards for the additional pollutants and to make their
monitoring data available more often.
Many European river basins are international, crossing administrative and territorial borders. A
common understanding and approach is crucial.
The River Basin Management Plants are the key tool for implementing the WFD.
The Common Implementation Strategy for the WFM is agreed to ensure the coherent and
harmonious implementation of the WFD and its daughter directives.
Process of finding an agreement —> water governance