Cleanwaterforum : A forum to discuss how to achieve universal access to safe, physically accessible, sufficient and affordable, clean water.

We set up this blog to discuss issues surrounding universal access to safe, physically accessible, sufficient and affordable clean water. These issues include, but are not limited to: 1) whether access to clean water should be enshrined as a fundamental human right; 2) how to respond to the increasingly prevalent treatment of water as a commodity rather than a public good (corporate social responsibility and water); 3) clean water as global health issue; 4) clean water as a poverty issue; 5) clean water as a global security issue; 6) clean water as a gender issue.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

South Africa's looming water crisis - threat of violence/

In a country where  access to water is enshrined as a constitutional right, observers are fearing violence could errupt, due to even the perception that water needs aren't being met. 

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081214084955869C275213

By Eleanor Momberg

South Africa's water crisis was "like a ticking time bomb" waiting to explode. "All the signs are there," said Deon Nel, the manager of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Sanlam Living Waters Partnership.

Nel's confirmation of the looming water crisis comes on the heels of the warning by Dr Anthony Turton, the former natural resource and environment unit fellow at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), that the water crisis and the lack of surplus water in South Africa would hamper future economic development.

Turton also stated in a paper - which he was prevented from delivering at a CSIR conference last month - that violence similar to that experienced during the xenophobic attacks in May could be unleashed "in response to perceptions of deteriorating public health" as a result of declining water quality.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My brother in law is a recent RPI grad and he's taking a project he worked on in school and is trying to pursue it now. He's working on a cheap and affordable water purification system that filters sediment and bacteria. there's a video of a prototype in action here. With help from the web community this could make a real difference.
http://www.osmopure.com/