Chapter 3 - Water pollution in rural areas: Primary sources and associated health issues

Abstract

Water pollution is a serious issue in urban as well as rural areas. Many sources in the rural sector, such as agriculture, small-scale industrial activities, domestic sewage, poor waste management, village dry toilets, livestock farms, etc. have been documented to contribute to the menace of water pollution, agriculture being the chief source. The agricultural non-point source (NPS) inorganic and organic pollutants are primarily due to the fertilization of farmland, ill-defined dumping of day-to-day bio-wastes (livestock excreta, crop straws, rural domestic refuse, and sewage, etc.), excessive livestock and poultry breeding in rural areas. The levels of rural NPS pollution further escalate more significantly due to the backwardness of the agricultural economy as well as the low level of environmental awareness amongst peasants. There is a close connection between water pollution and health effects, as contamination of water renders the water unsafe for consumption, and so is a major public health problem. The consumption of contaminated drinking water has been associated with varied complications like birth defects in newborns, methemoglobinemia, typhoid, dysentery cholera, and infective hepatitis, to name a few.