Radioactive Water Threatens Middle East

Published on by

The Middle East and North Africa suffer from water shortages and pump millions of liters a day from ancient aquifers. But the water contains high levels of naturally-occurring radioactive contamination. Experts fear this will increase the cancer risk for millions of people.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/contaminated-aquifers-radioactive-water-threatens-middle-east-a-865290.html

3 Answers

  1. Dear Tia, many times I feel that media just write stories emotionally without having done any research on that. I agree that African and middle east countries are pumping aquifer water at higher level but the contamination part is little doubtful for me.

  2. The lake Umm-al-Maa in Libya is shrinking and so are the other lakes too. Water table is reducing as agriculture is pumping the ground water. And now the water is getting contaminated by radioactive contamination, this is a worse situation.

  3. Dear Tia, This is a very unfortunate plight and an issue which stands unaddressed by all the stake holders, including the united nations. All work which has been done till date , revolves around studying the impact and suggesting mechanical moves. There has been no serious move towards refreshing the aquifers. I managed a number of such studies spanning from grondwater to wetland contamination levels and with the radioactive FLAVOURE as well. However, we all will be lacking in taking the right initiatives.