Literature Review For NAE Grand Challenge Of Clean Water Access
According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are seven components which humans need to be happy and survive: air, sleep, safety, clothing, shelter, food and water. It does not take a genius to realize that the world’s food and water supply is unevenly distributed amongst the population, but by establishing the NAE grand challenges, engineers are on a mission to conquer these global issues. While creating inventions to the solve the problem would seem like the most proactive step, there is one thing that engineers must do before the other steps and that is to collect data.
The AGU journal has discussed the importance of “monitoring Earth's terrestrial water conditions because it is critically important to many hydrological applications such as global food production; assessing water resources sustainability; and flood, drought, and climate change prediction”. By doing utilizing this type of technology, we can collect more information and adjust our technologies based on the “land-atmosphere” relationship changes that are predicted to happen. The more we understand the relations of water and land and how this is affecting the barriers to clean water and food access, the more we can monitor the progress or regress that our inventions are making, while also continuously researching more helpful and crucial information.
According to the Drinkable Book company, 3. 4 million people die every year from different water contaminants in the water, yet many of them do not know that their water is unsafe to drink. One of these examples, closer to home, is the Flint, Michigan water crisis. Eleven- year old, Gitanjali Rao was able to create a safe and cost-effective test to see if water with a portion of lead content was safe or dangerous. Neno Duplan, author of the article ‘Girl’s device uses nanotubes to test lead contamination in water instantly and cheaply, ’ summarizes the process as a nanotube, which measures lead content and sends the results to a smartphone to reveal the toxicity of the water. This invention has allowed engineers to easily, quickly and cheaply identify the water areas which are polluted and cannot be used as a water source.
The Journal of Biological Engineering proposes several ways to fix the water crisis. One of the main reasons that water is unusable in underdeveloped countries is because of the water-borne pathogens. Although the idea of desalination isn’t a new discovery, people are working on trying to make efficient ways of converting salt water into fresh water for the exponential population growth. However, the journal takes in to account the social implications that this could have on the government as someone has to be held accountable for the mechanism to continue running. The problem here is that some governments are so corrupt that they lack the capability of assuming this responsibility. And while this may be crucial for the civilians that lack clean water, engineers must also consider the environmental impact that they would have by releasing these solutions into the world.
The Journal of Water and Health has been doing research on this topic as well. In the article “A study of the use and impacts of LifeStraw™ in a settlement camp in southern Gezira, Sudan”. The LifeStraw is a microbial straw that filters out the pathogens through the walls of the straw. According to the official LifeStraw website, the “LifeStraw products use a two-stage filtration process. In addition to the hollow fiber membrane, a carbon capsule absorbs chemicals like chlorine and pesticides”. This in turn, allows people in Kenya and India (their main sources of consumers) to drink water from anywhere safely and energy efficiently.
After researching additional information on creating a greater access to clean water, I am thoroughly enlightened about the revolutionary technology that has been invented. I hope as an engineer that I will be able to improve and implement this technology on a larger scale for many more people to access. While the grand challenges are some of the most crucial issues that we face to this day, I would consider access to clean water to be the most urgent and also one of the most doable.
