Water is one of the most essential elements to health and is so important that human body actually has a specific drought management system in place to prevent dehydration and ensure survival. Water makes up more than two thirds of human body weight. The human brain is made up of 95% water, blood is 82% and lungs 90%. A mere 2% drop in human body’s water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, and difficulty focusing on smaller print, such as a computer screen. Mild dehydration is also one of the most common causes of daytime fatigue.
Water serves as a lubricant in digestion and almost all other body processes. Since water is such an important component to human physiology, it would make sense that the quality of the water should be just as important as the quantity. Therefore, drinking water should always be clean and free of contaminants to ensure proper health and wellness.
Perils of Contaminated Water
About 70 to 80% of water borne diseases in India are caused due to contamination of surface and ground water due to discharge of untreated/partially treated sewage and industrial effluents into the water bodies.
It has been widely established that global and regional climate change is taking place at a rapid pace. The impacts of the variabilities of climate (changes in rainfall and temperature) on human health will be greater in developing countries like India; whereas the future wet and warm temperature regions are going to be affected by many diseases. The water-borne and vector diseases will be major problem among below-poverty-line population living in unplanned areas where water supplies are unsafe and water logging and drainage congestion are common scenes.
As temperature increases year by year the problem of vector and water-borne diseases shall endanger humanity.
The slow rates of climate change and seasonal and inter-seasonal variabilities will preclude the detection of vector and water-borne diseases. There is, therefore, a need for greater vigil, particularly in Indian towns, cities and rural agglomerates where health and sanitation infrastructure are a problem and further where sewerage drains are not well protected.
Provisioning of safe drinking water is one of the main components of primary healthcare as determined at international conference on primary healthcare in Alma-Ata in 1978. In India, risks to health are associated with use of poor water quality, contaminated both by microbial and chemical contaminations. 
The memories of 1957 still haunt Delhites when large scale epidemic was reported in New Delhi due to sewage contamination of public water supply. One needs to catalogue water borne diseases out breaks in India under different climatological regions with a view to bringing out to the notice of people, the potential hazards associated with water fecally contaminated water particularly in rural and peri-urban and urban areas of India. Such an effort would help developing adaptation strategies to eliminating and or minimizing the impacts of climate change an environment. Medical practitioner should help in clarification of possible diseases due to contaminated water and due to bacteria, virus and parasites in climate changing regions in India.
Though guidelines for drinking water quality exist, its outreach is still a weak area in view of lack of water literacy in rural and pre-urban areas. There is no regular reporting on epidemiological surveillance. Hygiene activities and education programme, therefore, assume significance to safeguard against wide spread risk of water-borne infections.
In rural India, the known problems of water quality are the reported presence of high level of arsenic and fluoride in sub-surface water sources which have variously caused skm- dermatosis, bone deformation and dental decay in eastern and southern states. Newer water contaminations due to presence of high levels of nitrate epidemic culminates into blue baby syndrome, the surveillances and modeling of pesticide contamination in water including its in-sites bio-remediation should be considered.
The water quality surveillances and quality control assume greater significance in Indian context particularly amongst rural communities and resource-poor groups. Increased involvement of community in surveillance including their education and training may be an effective preventive method towards developing and providing safe drinking water in rural habitations.
As such, policy intervention may be taken up by the concerned departments engaged in water supply and sanitation particularly in the rural and slum areas. Few well-designed environmental epidemiological studies are required to be undertaken to find out and to evaluate the magnitude of health impacts and to develop strategies to prevent and control water borne diseases.
The medical community would need to be attentive and alert to signs and symptoms of climate change related diseases. They need to work in tandem with municipal administration and communities towards monitoring and surveillance of outbreaks and planning for disease preventive and mitigation measures.
Conclusion The uptake of heavy metals by vegetables, cereals, fruits, grains etc. have been reported in certain areas and as such the consumption of such contaminated food has to be checked by the concerned Department of the Central/State Governments. Hence the irrigation of agricultural fields with the treated/untreated effluent containing heavy metals such as chromium, lead, mercury, arsenic etc. should not be allowed.
Health Risk Studies due to naturally occurring arsenic and fluoride in the ground water be undertaken in the areas affected by these contaminants. Policy interventions in endemic areas are needed to supply alternate drinking water and ensure health improvement of the community.
Adequate Monitoring and Surveillance System is needed to be created by the regulatory authorities to check surface and ground water contamination.
Simultaneously, people would need to be made aware and educated about the increase of slow change in climate parameters which will carry the threat to health if action plans are not properly prepared and implemented. The medical community, therefore, also has social and cultural responsibility towards determining and analyzing causes and impacts of climate warming on human health.
There is a need to prepare literature for public use, in simple and local languages, to carry details of infectious diseases being transmitted by water and insects and by bacteria, virus and parasites. The fact remains that people should be aware of potential hazards associated with future climate variabilities and contaminated, untreated and unprotected waters; and whether temperature and mortality rate bear direct and inverse relationship is a subject of continuous research.
By Meenu Sharma, Ph.D scholar, University of Salford Manchestor, U.K
