Talk:Drinking water/Archive 2

Daily water intake requirement

This article seems to contradict the Requirement section. I'm not sure if it deserves to be added as a counterpoint. --Elliskev 16:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This:

There is a persistent myth that people should try to drink 8 cups of water per day but there is no evidence to support that.

Seems to be a flat contradiction to

Thus, a person needs to drink approximately 2–3 L of water per day.

...

drinking 2 L of water, along with normal diet will suffice in replenishing fluids.

2 L is just about 8.5 cups, so if there isn't any "evidence to support that" then the second block should probably go. If there is evidence to support those numbers, then the first line should probably go. --Avedomni (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

A recurrent problem with these calculations appears to be that the water ingested with food tends to be left out of the estimate, and this misunderstanding is probably behind the apparent contradiction. Even dry foods contain an estimated 30% of water; fruit and vegetables a much higher proportion. So a very high proportion of the needed water intake is acquired in food - the mistake is in thinking that we need to literally drink the adequate water intake requirement. Interestingly, this error seems to have underpinned the original "8x8" estimate. See this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/22/had-our-fill-of-water for one perspective on this. In general, water intake appears to be quite well regulated by normal feelings of thirst, although this can be undermined in the very young, elderly, or those who have taken drugs. The bottled water industry does not appear particularly anxious to dispel overestimates of water requirements, can't imagine why!Orbitalforam (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC).

Problems when drinking too few or too much water

See following site on extra info on this topic which needs to be added to the article: Water imbalance problems

Thanks, KVDP (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

density etc of real typical drinking water

This article needs much more physical data, density etc of real typical drinking water. Actual concentration levels of various typical dissolved materials. All of the other water articles only have data for pure-theory water, not real water! -69.87.199.87 (talk) 10:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"Water that is not safe for human consumption, but is not harmful for human use"

What? So it is unsafe, but not harmful, so we're taking some risk by drinking it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.226.13.138 (talk) 17:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

You are right, it is a confusing sentence and right there in the introduction. The whole article is in urgent need of revision but I will start at the beginning and try and ensure it makes more sense. Velela (talk) 17:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"Drinking water is water that is of sufficiently high quality that it can be drunk without risk of immediate or long term harm." I would suggest revising this sentence so that it implies that the risk is low rather than absent, since that is clearly not the case. Drinking water standards are developed to minimise risk to populations consuming the water, but technical and economic constraints necessitate some level of acceptable risk being allowed (albeit relatively small in developed countries).Jimjamjak (talk) 10:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Extensive bottled water information unnecessary here

There is no need for this page to deal extensively with bottled water since this is dealt with on another page. I will delete the content added here on this subject.Jimjamjak (talk) 10:38, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Diagrams

There are several hand drawn diagrams on this page which I don't think should be included here. I would suggest that User:KVDP moves these images to pages on Survival skills or similar. I will delete them from these pages unless it is considered appropriate to allow them to remain.Jimjamjak (talk) 10:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

"Indicators"

I don't think that the paragraph under "Indicators of Safe Drinking Water" is particularly clearly written, nor am I too sure what this is attempting to explain. It seems that there is a lot of text here to basically explain that areas with developed drinking water infrastructure are likely to have higher quality drinking water. I think it needs rewriting or deleting.Jimjamjak (talk) 11:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Restructuring of article, particularly relating to disease

The provision of drinking water can be considered a public health measure. At present the way the article deals with the health aspects of drinking water is rather confused. I would suggest that sections should be developed that deal separately with:

1. the nutritional value of water (necessity of consumption, requirements etc.);
2. acute disease (i.e. infectious, water-borne disease); and
3. chronic disease (i.e. environmental disease due to the presence of chemical contamination).

Perhaps mention might also be made of acute disease caused by high levels of chemical contaminants (e.g. Camelford water pollution incident, Arsenicosis in Bangladesh.) Jimjamjak (talk) 11:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Objectives, not plans

"Plans to improve availability of drinking water". This title suggests that the UN has a concrete plan for achieving increased access to water. The Millenium Development Goals actually represent objectives, rather than plans. Member states sign an agreement to meet these objectives - how they do so is to a large extent up to them.Jimjamjak (talk) 15:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

In addition, it might be worth pointing out that this section should be covered elsewhere in the article, for example beneath the heading access to water.Jimjamjak (talk) 15:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Globalize: Drinking water regulation

Could anyone with information about regulatory procedures/entities outside the USA please add information to the Drinking water regulation section. --AD^talk 17:59, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Nonchalence

Perhaps it could be added to the article that in the "developed countries" up to 31% of (potable water-grade) water is simply flushed (for toilet use), only 5% or less is consumed (often by bought, commercial water; not those from the water supply system) and the remaining 64% is used for hygiene and dishes.

This while in some African countries (example of Luanda-Angola's capital) the water is sold in bags and is extremely pricy (5$ is think) and eg the water amount for body hygiene is very small (often washing is done with a cup; eg in most Sahel-countries) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.161.76 (talk) 09:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

DIY Water filters

Water_filter#Homemade_water_filters are also an appropriate water filtering technology. Include in article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.157.124 (talk) 13:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

No. they are a most inappropriate technology and should be actively discouraged. If used, they pose very significant health risk. Velela (talk) 15:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ, it is all in the way how the filter is made. If done correctly, they can be a very good and low cost water purifier. This does not however always mean that they can make the water potable, and may require the putting in sequence of several filters after another. See treatment pond for an example of a filter that can be put in place. Sand filters can be made DIY aswell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.182.166 (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Treatment ponds (as described in the article) do not produce drinking water. No amount of home made filters made from grass charcoal of grass will produce drinking water. Even the reference that you yourself provided only suggests using these methods prior to through boiling. Sand filters only work if they are properly constructed and conditioned Slow sand filters. Suggesting in an encyclopaedic article that drinking water can be produced in the wild using home made filters is wilfully dangerous. Velela (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Indicators of safe drinking water

This edited text was reverted:

Access to sanitary water comes hand in hand with access to improved sanitation facilities for excreta. These facilities include foremost systems based on ecological sanitation (ideally composting toilets), or -if this is not possible- regular toilets connecting to public sewers, or connecting to closed septic systems, or in the worst case drainage-based septic systems, and latrines as the pour-flush latrine and ventilated improved pit latrine. Other unimproved sanitation facilities include public or shared latrine, open pit latrine, or bucket latrine.

Please reformulate and reintroduce or implement guidance on ecological sanitaton somewhere else in article. It makes it sound as if feces and organic waste is something to be disposed off (which is incorrect, it is fertiliser and a valuable resource!), and gives credit to latrines!, which are a major source of the water contamination in the first place as they use drainage (meaning the feces is given free runoff into the soil, under the top layer of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.182.166 (talk) 10:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I reverted your edit because it lacked both relevance and applicability. It might well fit into Sewage treatment as a consideration of alternative options to large scale municipal treatment. In reality, in the developed world, the supply of drinking water and the disposal of sewage have been almost completely distanced from one another because of the great improvements in technology in the treatment of sewage and in the treatment of raw water to provide drinking water. But even here most well treated sewage effluents contain large concentrations of human gut bacteria including many pathogens. High quality raw water treatment ensures that these are prevented from entering the drinking water supply system. In the less developed world, improvements in sanitation would undoubtedly reduce the overall bacterial load in many surface and some ground waters but not to the extent that many disease would be impacted. This only happens when appropriate treatment for raw water is put in place. It is worth bearing in mind that in many areas and especially the tropics, water borne pathogens and parasites, not necessarily of human origin, remain a major risk associated with drinking and bathing waters. No amount of compost toilets will reduce those risks. In summary this article is not about sewage treatment but Sewage treatment is. It might also be helpful if you were to get a user name and a user page so that editors can more readily assess the likely veracity of your edits based on past edits. Even if you decide not to do so, it is a courtesy to sign your edits using four tildes ~~~~ Velela (talk) 20:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Humans vs Animals

Might be interesting to cover the differences in this respect, e.g. how animals can get away with drinking from puddles and other "unclean" sources that would make humans ill. EdX20 (talk) 17:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It might on the other hand be better to cover the topic in Water pollution. Humans contract diseases from untreated waters because so many of them are contaminated by human sewage containing human pathogens. No other animal is either so populous or has developed a sewage disposal infrastructure that disposes of a bacteria and virus rich waste into surface and ground waters. Having said that there is no reason why animal diseases cannot be spread by water and it is probable that some are spread in this way. Brucellosis spread amongst cattle is one obvious example.  Velela  ^{Velela Talk}   09:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Disinfection of water using alternative methods

I see that the alternatives presented are described as suffering "from the same problems as boiling methods." Which problems are these? Does this refer to the problems of storage?Jimjamjak (talk) 22:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Links/images

Perhaps 2 links and or images can be added: 1 of the WaterPyramid/Aqua Aero WaterSystems BV 1 of Hatenboer-Water/TU Delft water-desalination wind turbine, see http://www.drinkingwiththewind.com/ 91.182.202.5 (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

There are far too many images on this page. Several of them are strikingly uninformative e.g. the photograph of mineral water. I will remove a couple unless there are good objections.Jimjamjak (talk) 14:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Totally agree. If you ever have a minute perhaps you could try the same trick on River! I tried once but the images just reproduce like rabbits.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   15:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Disconnecting rivers from seawater mouths

A schematic showing how a freshwater river can be disconnected from a seawater mouth.

It may be useful to implement the info above on how we can increase the water availability to reduce the amount of polluted or insufficient drining water in developing countries. 87.64.62.124 (talk) 09:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Dew harvesters

Dew harvesters are not described at the acess-section. These include nets, aswell as Andrew Parker's new device based on the stenocara beetle; see http://www.rain-barrel.net/water-harvesting-through-biomimicry.html, http://www.prx.org/pieces/20376-african-stenocara-beetle-inspires-technology 91.180.228.95 (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to add this to the article yourself.Jimjamjak (talk) 11:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Diarrhea as a major health effect among children

The lead statement in this section is badly misquoted from its source document. There is a world of difference from saying that "Over 90% of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases in the developing world today occur in children under 5 years old." to saying that "diarrhea causes 90% of deaths of under 5's. As of 2004 pneumonia had passed diarrhea as the primary killer of under-five's at 19% and diarrhea had dropped to 17% (). I believe there an even lower, widely published, more recent estimate as of 2008 at around 14%, but will come back with the source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Konaallan (talk • contribs) 11:49, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. Text has been changed but please feel free to update in the light of more recent evidence..  Velela  ^{Velela Talk}   12:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)