BANGKOK — Access to safe drinking water is a basic human right. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an intergovernmental organization that directs and coordinates international health, safe drinking water is that which does not “represent a significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption.” By this metric, the water quality in Thailand has made tremendous improvements, but it is still lacking.
The Global Aid Network (GAN), a worldwide humanitarian relief and development organization, says that increasing population and economic, agricultural, and industrial expansion are major causes of the deterioration of water quality in Thailand. Additionally, the contamination of “bacteria and chemicals like cadmium, iron, lead, [and]manganese” have made the quality of rain and tap water sub-par.
The Water Environment Partnership in Asia (WEPA), a program seeking to share knowledge about water quality in Asia, maintains that discharge of wastewater in rivers in populated areas has also contributed to the contamination of water sources. According to the GAN, an estimated 4.3 million Thai people are drinking contaminated water. For comparison, the Thai population is approximately 68 million.
The low quality of water alone can be detrimental to a person’s health. However, combined with poor sanitation and hygiene it can become deadly by encouraging the spread of diseases such as typhoid and diarrhea. Storing rainwater is a pragmatic solution to poor water quality since rainwater is one of the purest sources of water.
In the 1980s, the government of Thailand started a Rainwater Jar Programme aimed at providing its citizens (especially in Thailand’s rural areas) with clean drinking water. Approximately 300 million rainwater storage jars were made between 1980 and 1991, making the program a smashing success. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), describes the initiative as unprecedented because it combined a “top-down” and “bottom-up” approach of community involvement. “Households, communities, NGOs, and the private sector with support from the government at local, provincial, and national levels” were all involved.
Storing rainwater is a short-term solution to the problem of poor water quality in Thailand, however. The program represents the level of cooperation that is required to profoundly improve water quality. Things like building wells are more effective and longer-term solutions. The GAN has made drilling wells its mission. Drilling one deep-water well can provide 1,000 people with contaminant-free drinking water. Thus far, under the Water for Life Initiative, the GAN has drilled eight wells across Thailand.
The construction of wastewater treatment plants and the management of other waste sources are also needed to combat poor water quality in Thailand. Combined, the storing of rainwater, the drilling of wells and the construction and management of wastewater treatment plants can be an effective combination to improving water quality in Thailand.
– Rebeca Ilisoi
Photo: Flickr