History

A Brief question of history

Early civilizations, whether they are tribes, nomads, clans, villages, towns, or cities all relied on water as an essential tool for survival. The same is true to day, but with modern techniques the availability of water in places where it once could not be found has changed the dynamic of current living spaces on earth. Corporations buying up the rights to water supplies in developing countries, to bottle and cell for a high profit only help to exacerbate water shortages and the promote the use of unsanitary water supplies. The health costs associated with inadequate safe water provisions adds up in the thousands of deaths each year. So when looking at sustaining regions and the world “Adequate provisions depends not only on the technologies involved but on how they are uses[d], in what sort of setting, and by whom”. (State of the World, Our Urban Future 2007, 29)

Early civilizations, whether they are tribes, nomads, clans, villages, towns, or cities all relied on water as an essential tool for survival. The same is true to day, but with modern techniques the availability of water in places where it once could not be found has changed the dynamic of current living spaces on earth. Corporations buying up the rights to water supplies in developing countries, to bottle and cell for a high profit only help to exacerbate water shortages and the promote the use of unsanitary water supplies. The health costs associated with inadequate safe water provisions adds up in the thousands of deaths each year. So when looking at sustaining regions and the world “Adequate provisions depends not only on the technologies involved but on how they are uses[d], in what sort of setting, and by whom”. (State of the World, Our Urban Future 2007, 29)

 

            Industrialization and the sanitary revolution provided cities the ability to install pipe sewer systems that allowed the distribution of safe drinking and cooking water around the world, though with the cost and the inability of third world countries to install adequate systems health concern continued. Even with the “1970s governments and international agencies committed themselves to making safe water and sanitation accessible to al by 1990,”(State…, 27) in today’s world of 2008 t6his goal and dream has not became a reality. This might be explained by the “disappointing international funding levels and the low priority that most funding agencies give to this [idea]. But provision is also poor in many cities that have received substantial international funding,” (State…, 27) the combination of countries working to industrialize, international pressures of the economic free market, with actors such as trans-national organizations and the World Trade Org, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, and poor environmental policies; for what ever reason have lead to the situation that the world is in today. 

 

            The question still remains how are water resources around the world being used, and by whom, what are the practices, and where in the world is water being exploited?  “No one can live without drinking water and defecating, so in a sense 100 percent of the population has some form of access. But what everyone needs is adequate provision—provision that is safe, affordable, and accessible,” (State…,28)

 *photo from No Money? No Water! http://geibview.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-money-no-water.html