Indirect Effects of Covid-19 on Water Quality
The provision of safe water as well as its functioning waste management play key roles in preventing and combatting disease outbreaks such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Good water quality is needed for effective hygiene measures like washing hands as well as for lowering pathogen transmission. Almost according to research all over the world, especially in developing countries, water is vulnerable and at high risk and surging insecurity with time. Effective water management, sanitation, and hygiene help protect lives during the global COVID-19 pandemic. While sanitation and hygiene also disturb the quality and increase water consumption per capita to 40% comparatively and wastewater production in many developing countries. This rapid increase in water consumption puts direct pressure on water reservoirs and inadequate wastewater management is also a serious threat to waterways. Similarly, the quality of water bodies is significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the risk of its transmission of COVID-19 through sewerage systems is recorded as low. Hence, the current review paper is planned to highlight the main concerns directly linked with the frequent usage of detergents/soaps and also alcohol-based hand sanitizers on water quality and the post-pandemic handwashing habits to overcome the COVID-19 spread also threatening the water reserve by high consumption along with more wastewater production with less water reuse efficiency and collectively the pressure on drinking water facilities.
Water quality is a major challenge for humankind in the twenty-first century. On one hand, water is viewed as the most fundamental of natural resources that is imperative for human existence, while on another hand, human activities present serious dangers to freshwater systems around the globe. Currently, anthropogenic contamination of freshwater is a great concern for the world. The unnecessary utilization of water for different activities like industrialization and urbanization amplifies human access to water but frequently hinders access to drinking water, with conceivably serious but un-quantified costs.
The water quality concerns for under-developed countries are aggravated due to unplanned and vigorous urbanization. The unorganized development of major urban areas has huge pressure on groundwater. This causes unsanitary conditions which undermine the health of urban inhabitants (Rahman et al., 2018). Although the water quality is disturbed by several reasons, water shortage, pollution brought about by the utilization pattern and the absence of effective wastewater treatment systems are viewed as the fundamental driver of water pollution. As per United Nations proposals, the subsequent twenty years will bring serious challenges to water quality as well as quantity, especially in South Asian countries. Different reports on a global level concluded that the water quality of urban areas specifically highly intense areas has serious consequences for living healthy.
Water pollutants occur due to two main sources i.e point or dispersed sources. A point source pollutant is due to a single and identifiable source, for example, an out-fall pipe or sewage discharge. Dispersed sources are wide, un-confined areas from which pollutants enter a waterway. Surface run-off from ranches is a dispersed source of contamination, adding manures, herbicides/pesticides, and sediments into nearby streams. Metropolitan water waste may convey sand and other lumpy materials, oil deposits from autos, and road synthetic compounds are considered dispersed source because it joins the neighboring lakes and rivers at various points. It is easier to control point source pollution than dispersed because the source of point pollutants is known where treatment protocols can be installed to avoid causing pollution. Such control measures are not generally applicable to dispersed source pollution.
Hand washing is a significant factor in preventing contact transmission of microbes and fecal-oral. Hand hygiene is a significant helpful practice and it has been perceived to be an advantageous, successful, and practical method for forestalling contagious diseases. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa also increased the demand for clean water for treatment and prevention. Keeping in view the COVID-19 outbreak, the practice of handwashing increased many times as compared to routine practice before the pandemic. During this COVID-19 outbreak, 20 to 30% of tap water used increased for handwashing in Inda. Similarly, Jordan Water Sector officially mentioned that the 40 % water demand increased after the lockdown with the strict order to stay at home because handwashing activities suddenly enhanced the water used. A sum of 80% of the members washed their hands routinely after getting back from outside. About 57.27% of members for the most part did not turn off their tap when washing their hands. A single member, who keeps his tap on throughout the handwashing cycle, squandered roughly 1.7 L of water per hand-wash and 14.9 L of water daily. Handwashing increased thirteen-fold in freshwater locals during this pandemic.
The circular water economy is the business model that aims to reuse non-conventional water as an alternative water source for various purposes while extracting valuable resources from non-conventional water to realize sustainable production and consumption (Fig 1). From the perspective of integrated water resource management, the beneficial reuse of non-conventional water deserves attention as a route toward sustainable water supply. Non-conventional water(as shown in figure 2) comes from seawater, stormwater, agricultural drainage, thermoelectric cooling water, hydraulic fracturing water, industrial processed (waste) water, domestic wastewater, and commercial discharges (e.g., hot spring discharge). The massive amount of non-conventional water provides a promising opportunity to meet the demand for water as we head toward a new era of urbanization.
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(figure 2)
Already, the water restores are under pressure due to the blind use of water which ultimately increased the water demand. Hand washing is one of the imperative civic health measures to forestall the COVID-19 pandemic from the spread. However, loss of water from extreme handwashing may squeeze the generally over-stretched groundwater resources and family units' financial well-being. Additionally, the present circumstance of COVID-19 deteriorating and drying the water reservoir exponentially. Thus, excess water loss during the washing of hands during the pandemic of COVID-19 is a new hot issue, but no such evaluation studies, reports, or data are available that evaluate the relationship between loss of water during washing hands. Therefore, this investigation was planned to evaluate the loss of water during handwashing amid the COVID-19 pandemic with an accentuation on the misuse of groundwater from fundamental cleanliness activities at a homegrown scale. Thus, this study deliberates on the indirect effect of COVID-19 outbursts on water losses due to the specified practices of handwashing. Secondly, the main focus of the current study is the post-pandemic responses and environmental changes, which ultimately affected the personnel habits and proceedings after the COVID-19 pandemic so this article will critically address the unpredicted outcomes (i.e., high wastewater production, the wastewater composition, and limited natural reserves of water) along with their management practices from producer to policymakers and end users level.
Impact of adequate Quality Water on the COVID-19 pandemic:
To suppress and quell the spread of pandemics, Covid-19, a standard and continuous supply of satisfactory water quality is indispensable. Despite the fact, that water quality has rapidly deteriorated at the anticipated rate. The reasons behind the excessive contamination of both surface as well as groundwater are industrial wastes discharges, sewerage, agrochemicals, and human wastes. Because of excessive pollution human has lost many valuable freshwater resources most importantly the Nairobi River in Kenya. Studies have revealed that maximum pollution is caused by developing countries due to their high financial growth, industrialization, populace development, and poor wastewater administration system. Climate change also adversely affects water quality in many ways. Besides that, the management of solid wastes is an important issue in developing countries. A study revealed that only 40% to 50% of waste is collected across South Africa (Grau Satorras 2017). The uncontrolled dumping sites and poor management of solid wastes are posing some serious biohazard dangers. These solid wastes hinder the wastewater treatment services and the self-refining capability of freshwater resources. Proper attention should be paid to evaluating the impact of pharmaceutical and other medical wastes on water resources. Lack of access to infrastructure and poor sanitation services negatively affect public well-being. Poor administration and management of sanitation services result in pollution of surface as well as groundwater (Satterthwaite et al. 2019). Similarly, a surge is also highly reported in waterways contamination after the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of patient treatments and safety measures of handwashing practices, which directly changes the nature of water pollution and threatens the biosafety hazards to these waterways. (So, we are attempting to be aware of the main causes and their management through this article).
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Journal Reference: science direct
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