The Analysis of Impact of Irrigation Water Quality on Human Health: a case study in Musi River in Hyderabad, India

Jeena T. Srinivasan and V. Ratna Reddy have conducted this research project in Hyderabad, India. Srinivasan has worked at Research Unit for Livehoods and Natural Resource (RULNER) which is promoted by the Center for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) in Hyderabad, India. Reddy has worked at Livelihoods and Natural Resources Management Institute which is also promoted by CESS. Srinivasan is the corresponding author who leads the whole research. By taking six villages with wastewater for irrigation along with Musi River and one control village with normal quality water (Srinivasan & Reddy, 2009, P.2800), the researchers tried to evaluate the difference of human health risks level between the two groups villagers. Besides, the researchers used the term “Morbidity Rates” associated with cost of illness to explain the different health risks exposing to individual family members in a household. Thus, there is a need for government to take several responsibilities to break the vicious circle which contaminated wastewater discharges from urban users to inflict harm on rural residents, and in turn as crops and meats for urban consumption (P. 2802). On the other hand, the researchers also tried to figure out determinants of morbidity. They classify households into high or low risk groups with four factors: location, the degree of exposure to wastewater, general hygienic and living condition, and socio-economic condition (P. 2803). This can be useful information to be concerned when government takes measures to treat this issue. Increasing scarcity of freshwater resources is changing the irrigation model for agriculture and the structure of food consumption. Hamilton et al. (2007) and WHO (2006a, b) stated that