Professor Tibaijuka, Administrator of the United Nations Living Environment and Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), said at a news seminar on water policy in Africa held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a few days ago, that UN-Habitat is y concerned about the deteriorating water situation of the population in the African region. Today, he said, more than half of the continent's cities face water shortages, and many poor urban dwellers are forced to pay street vendors exorbitant prices for water, with each liter of water often costing 5-20 times more than the price of urban water in developed countries. For example, residents living in the slums of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, earn less than a dollar a day while paying five times as much for the same quality of water as they would in the United States.
Professor Tibaijuka said, Africa is the world's most strained water supply and public **** sanitation facilities are the most backward region, today more than one-third (about 300 million) of the African population lack of water and public **** sanitation facilities. If effective measures are not taken, by 2020, 400 million African residents will lack access to safe water and 600 million will be without access to sanitation.
Korea, like its fellow developing countries, is still in the early stages of water conservation, and the main practices it is currently adopting are:
(1) reusing properly treated wastewater as non-potable feed water;
(2) reducing leaks in systems and rooms, and reducing unaccounted-for water;
(3) promoting water-saving designs through demonstrations by non-governmental organizations. promote water-saving designs.
Additionally, its strategy for future water conservation development is to
(i) evaluate the potential for water reuse for non-potable uses;
(ii) encourage industrial water conservation efforts;
(iii) change pricing policies in favor of water conservation;
(iv) establish a line of water-saving equipment;
(v) promote social tools of information and education aimed at the public;
(vi) promote the use of water-saving equipment in the community;
(vii) promote the use of water-saving equipment in the community. information and education;
(vi) developing a benefit-cost evaluation methodology that includes both qualitative and quantitative factors for some potential water conservation tools.
People's Daily News, November 12, according to the Cabinet Office of Japan on the 10th released a "public opinion survey on water" report shows that two-thirds of the respondents answered in their daily lives to do "save water"; three-quarters of the people think that in order to effectively utilize water resources, they have to save water. Three-fourths of the respondents believe that they can use rainwater and treated recycled water for effective utilization of water resources.
In this report, 64.9% of the respondents answered that they "pay a lot of attention to water conservation" or "have some awareness of water conservation" in their daily lives. This is a slight increase from the 64.1% surveyed two years ago, but a large increase from the survey conducted 15 years ago (51.2%). With regard to the use of rainwater and miscellaneous water, 75% of the respondents were positively in favor of reuse or thought that it could be used if it was used for flushing toilets. However, only 35.5 percent of those asked if they would accept spending money on equipment to treat rainwater and miscellaneous water said they would.
In terms of reasons for water conservation, the majority (78.1%) of respondents said "water is a limited resource that should be cherished," followed by "using a lot of water will increase household expenses" (43.1%), and "using a lot of water will pollute rivers. "Large amounts of water will pollute rivers" (22.8%). The number of people with these thoughts has increased significantly compared with seven years ago when the survey was conducted.
It is reported that the survey was conducted in July and August of this year with 3,000 male and female citizens over 20 years old nationwide. The questionnaire recovery rate was 70.4 percent. (Chen Jianjun)
(People's Daily Japan / Contributed)