The “wall between us and microbes, is beginning to crumble.”
American Academy of MicrobiologyMost of us in developed countries take clean and plentiful water as a given, not just drinking water, but water for many household, yard, and other uses. Yet, says the American Academy of Microbiology, “Microbiologically safe drinking water can no longer be assumed, even in the United States and other developed countries, and the situation will worsen unless measures are taken in the immediate future – the crisis is global.” Treating drinking water to kill pathogens is given much credit for increasing the life span of US citizens, from 47 years at the turn of the twentieth century to 77 years. But the twenty-first century begins with one-fifth of the world's humanity still without clean drinking water. Even poor-quality water is becoming scarcer because ever-increasing numbers of people live in areas of water scarcity in which not only is drinking water a problem, but also water for sanitary needs. Within 10 to 15 years the United Nations estimates that at least 40% of the world's people will live in countries where they cannot get enough water to satisfy basic needs. Wildlife is increasingly deprived of water. Domestic animals may go wanting too. Demand for fresh water increased six-fold in the twentieth century, more than twice the rate of population growth. Reasons for water scarcity include increasing human populations that need and want ever-more water. Industrial use of water has increased too.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.