Book Description

Water is vital to all living organisms, but this valued resource is increasingly being threatened as human populations grow and demand more water of good quality for all domestic purposes and economic activities (commercial cum industrial purposes). Water abstraction for domestic use agricultural production, mining, industrial production, power generation, forestry etc can lead to deterioration in water quality and quantity that impact not only the aquatic ecosystems but also the availability of safe hygienic and potable water for human consumption (United Nations Environment Programme, 2006). A healthy environment is necessary for any organism, since life depends on the continuance of a proper exchange of essential substances and energies between the organisms and its surroundings (Welch 1952). Water has a unique place on planet as it supports life on earth. The entire fabric of life is woven around it. Man uses this important resource collected in depressions on earth or creates depressions by blocking the streams and constructing reservoirs, because of industrial development and unplanned urbanization (Singh et .al. 2002). Water as one of the basic substances of life is called upon to serve many beneficial uses that require a high degree of purity to provide a suitable habitat for life or other uses primarily including drinking which may depend on the most basic physico- chemical properties. Beneficial uses of water supply, industry supply, agricultural stock and wild life propagation of aquatic life, aesthetic enjoyment, depression and assimilation of wastes. Hence water should be free from even material that will settle to form objectionable deposits, floating debris, scum and other comparable matter, substances that produce objectionable colour, odour, taste or turbidity which are toxic or which produce undesirable physiological responses in human beings, fish, other animal life and plants (Dwiwedi & Dwiwedi 2010). Safe drinking water is a human birth right as clean air however much of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water.