Abstract
Water is an ineluctable integral ingredient for the survival of all living beings. During the next century, more than a quarter of the world’s population of developing countries is projected to face extreme water scarcity. This paper shows the drinking water shortage and methods to purify contaminated water in Krishnarampur, a village in West Bengal, India. An ethnographic research approach was used for an in-depth study of problem detection. Dumping of generated waste, and activities like washing clothes, washing utensils, and bathing were deduced as the factors responsible for contamination of the local water sources—lakes, ponds, and rivers. Only certain water resources of the village were found to be clean and fit for use, but not drinkable due to dissolved contaminants. This study discusses technological propositions to improve the quality of pond water for the village community.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Live-in-Labs® program and the field implementation was funded by the UN-recognized NGO, MA Math. The study was done as part of the UNESCO chair for Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation and Development. The authors express their immense gratitude to Sri. Mata—Amritanandamayi Devi, Chancellor of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, who has inspired them in performing selfless service to society. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Mr. Gopalaienger Sheshadri for his extensive support in enhancing the quality of the paper within the limited time frame. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the members of the Krishnarampur community for participating in the study and to those who went out of their way to provide extended support during the study in the village: the government officials of the district of Bishnupur I Block/Tehsil of South Twenty Four Parganas district in West Bengal, and staff of the Amrita Self Reliant Villages (Amrita SeRVe) program.
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Yamuna, K. et al. (2022). Addressing Impure Water Quality and Associated Challenges Faced by a Rural Community in West Bengal Through Sustainable Technologies. In: Zhang, YD., Senjyu, T., So-In, C., Joshi, A. (eds) Smart Trends in Computing and Communications. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 286. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4016-2_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4016-2_32
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