Climate change is said to affect the world’s water in complex ways. From unpredictable rainfall patterns to rising sea levels, floods and droughts. It is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards.
Reports indicate, that about two billion people worldwide don’t have access to safe drinking water and roughly half of the world’s population is experiencing severe water scarcity. These numbers are expected to increase, exacerbated by climate change and population growth.
In Ghana, even though access to water has improved significantly, one person out of every ten has to spend more than 30 minutes to access an improved source of drinking water. Another 11 per cent of the population, still drink from surface and other unsafe water sources.
How did we get here
According to a UNICEF report, four per cent of households treat water suitably before drinking and 93 per cent of households do not treat water at all. Seventy-six per cent of households, it says , are therefore at risk of drinking water that is contaminated with faecal matter. This has come about as a result of a number of factors which include but not limited to the clearing of vegetation cover to meet the insatiable demand for firewood and charcoal, surface mining of precious stones, indiscriminate solid and liquid waste disposal, and unsustainable farming practices, including inappropriate chemical fertiliser application in Ghana, have left many freshwater resources dried up or heavily polluted. Water quality is also affected by climate change, as higher water temperatures and more frequent floods and droughts are projected to exacerbate many forms of water pollution from sediments to pathogens and pesticides.
This has increasingly led to the resource being polluted at an alarming rate with high nutrient levels, high feocal coliform numbers, low levels of dissolved oxygen, organic and inorganic waste elements thereby compromising their life-supporting qualities leading to scarcity and the expensive treatment of water.
Climate change and increasing water scarcity as the years go by is hoped to put pressure on food supply as most of the freshwater uses,thus about 70 per cent on average is needed for agriculture. This is supported with evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations – FAO that says, it takes between 2000 and 5000 litres of water to produce a person’s daily food.
The Way Out
The call is more urgent now to have a strong political will to strengthen and implement existing water-related policies. Actions such as banning certain grades of plastic materials from the market should be given enough impetus to help reduce plastic waste that eventually finds its way into water bodies.
Revisiting some customary practices is prudent in the fight against environmental pollution and degradation. Again, education on water resource pollution and its consequences should be intensified. This will require strong and continuous collaboration between the media and state agencies such as the Ministry of Information, local governments and the National Commission for Civic Education to entrench sustainable environmental practices as civic responsibilities.
There is also the urgent need to encourage re-use, recycling of waste, especially plastic waste, and waste-to-energy technologies which has to be supported with good and sustainable rubbish collection, disposal, and landfill management practices to make it meaningful and beneficial to support the nation’s sustainable development.
For now, the single most destructive human activity altering the physical, chemical and biological composition of freshwater resources in Ghana is illegal small-scale illegal mining or galamsey. Intentional efforts must be made to strengthen collaboration among stakeholders in the fight against ‘galamsey’.
The earlier this is done the better as the raging issue of climate change and pollution lingers on begging for solution. This is because, pollution of freshwater has impacts on livelihoods, health, transportation services, and potable water for domestic use.
By Confidence Koffie Morklah
The writer of this report is an Author, freelancer, Businessman and a Minister of the Gospel at the Christ Apostolic Church International in Ghana.
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