I think it is important to look at the availability of drinkable water. There can be available water, but the question is whether the water is safe from external or internal contaminants. Over the past several decades, human health protection for chemical contaminants in drinking water has been accomplished by the development of chemical-specific standards (Curtis, 2006).
Water scarcity means not only availability of water but the quality and sanitation of the water. Climate change might reduce the capacity of the state to provide health care to the population. Thereby, climate change has direct and indirect impacts on human security, and hence health effects may result from (climate change-induced) water scarcity (Zakar, Zakar & Fischer, 2012). The shortage of water has seen an increase in communicable and respiratory diseases, mostly in developing. Most of these diseases are ‘washable diseases’ (Curtis, 2006), meaning that the diseases are preventable, provided there is sufficient availability of fresh clean water for bathing and more so for minor hygienic practices, such as hand-washing after visiting the bathroom; before and after food preparation; and before eating other basic hygienic habits. The water problem seemed suited for typical public health interventions, particularly considering the field’s foundations are rooted in the work of 1850s British physician John Snow, who famously traced a cholera epidemic to a public water pump (Krisberg, 2009). However, one of the “challenges of water and sanitation is precise that the solution seems relatively simple, but the devil’s in the details, there’s no silver bullet,” Rheingans, an APHA member, told The Nation’sHealth. Often the barrier is a nation’s or community’s lack of technical capacity to improve water access and quality, including building proper infrastructures, as well as a lack of acknowledgment that safe water is a public good, he said (Maluseau, 2015).
Curtis, T. R. a. V. (2006). Handwashing and risk of respiratory infections: a quantitative systematic review. Tropical Medicine and International Health, 11(3), 258-267. doi: doi:10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01568.x
Krisberg, K. (2009). Access to safe water a growing concern around the globe. Nation’s Health, 39(8), 1-14.
Murphy, E. A., Post, G. B., Buckley, B. T., Lippincott, R. L., & Robson, M. G. (2012). Future Challenges to Protecting Public Health from Drinking-Water Contaminants.
Maluseu, T. (2015). Water scarcity and its negative impact on health: a case study of Funafuti, Tuvalu.
Zakar, M. Z., Zakar, R., & Fischer, F. (2012). Climate Change-Induced Water Scarcity: A Threat to Human Health. South Asian Studies, 27(2), 293-312.
