Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Irrigation is covered separately.
Global access to clean water
In 2010, about 87% of the global population (5.9 billion people) had access to piped water supply through house connections or to an improved water source through other means than house, including standpipes, water kiosks, spring supplies and protected wells. However, about 13% (about 900 million people) did not have access to an improved water source and had to use unprotected wells or springs, canals, lakes or rivers for their water needs.
A clean water supply - in particular water that is not polluted with fecal matter from lack of sanitation - is the single most important determinant of public health.[citation needed] Destruction of water supply and/or sanitation infrastructure after major catastrophes (earthquakes, floods, war, etc.) poses the immediate threat of severe epidemics of waterborne diseases, several of which can be life-threatening.
Service quality
Many of the 3.5 billion people having access to piped water receive a poor or very poor quality of service, especially in developing countries where about 80% of the world population lives. Water supply service quality has many dimensions: continuity; water quality; pressure; and the degree of responsiveness of service providers to customer complaints.
Continuity of supply
Continuity of water supply is taken for granted in most developed countries, but is a severe problem in many developing countries, where sometimes water is only provided for a few hours every day or a few days a week. It is estimated that about half of the population of developing countries receives water on an intermittent basis.
Water quality
Drinking water quality has a micro-biological and a physico-chemical dimension. There are thousands of parameters of water quality. In public water supply systems water should, at a minimum, be disinfected—most commonly through the use of chlorination or the use of ultra violet light—or it may need to undergo treatment, especially in the case of surface water. For more details, please see the separate entries on water quality, water treatment and drinking water.
Water treatment
The first documented use of sand filters to purify the water supply dates to 1804, when the owner of a bleachery in Paisley, Scotland, John Gibb, installed an experimental filter, selling his unwanted surplus to the public. The first treated public water supply in the world was installed by engineer James Simpson for the Chelsea Waterworks Company in London in 1829.The practice of water treatment soon became mainstream, and the virtues of the system were made starkly apparent after the investigations of the physician John Snow during the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak demonstrated the role of the water supply in spreading the cholera epidemic.
The Metropolis Water Act introduced regulation of the water supply companies in London, including minimum standards of water quality for the first time. The Act "made provision for securing the supply to the Metropolis of pure and wholesome water", and required that all water be "effectually filtered" from 31 December 1855. This legislation set a worldwide precedent for similar state public health interventions across Europe.
Permanent water chlorination began in 1905, when a faulty slow sand filter and a contaminated water supply led to a serious typhoid fever epidemic in Lincoln, England. Dr. Alexander Cruickshank Houston used chlorination of the water to stem the epidemic. His installation fed a concentrated solution of chloride of lime to the water being treated. The first continuous use of chlorine in the United States for disinfection took place in 1908 at Boonton Reservoir (on the Rockaway River), which served as the supply for Jersey City, New Jersey. Desalination appeared during the late 20th century, and is still limited to a few areas.
The technique of purification of drinking water by use of compressed liquefied chlorine gas was developed by a British officer in the Indian Medical Service, Vincent B. Nesfield, in 1903. U.S. Army Major Carl Rogers Darnall, Professor of Chemistry at the Army Medical School, gave the first practical demonstration of this in 1910. This work became the basis for present day systems of municipal water purification.
Serampore municipality works on water purification & tries to supply purified water to each family of the locality. As water is the easiest medium for germs to be spread, we advise people to have Luke warm water or purify it by boiling in high temperature; this is another process of making water germ free.
We have completed a survey on Pollution of Arsenic in water & its affection on human being.