Household members can improve water conservation and consumption in response to poor access to clean water in the country, say experts. Firdaus Ali, University of Indonesia water resource management expert, said the participation of household members in the effort to tackle the water crisis was important. Firdaus said the government could not solve the problem alone.

“It is important to educate household members on how to better use water efficiently,” he said in a discussion Tuesday on how to save clean water. According to research conducted by Surakarta-based Muhammaddiyah University in 2000, almost 50 percent of wastewater in the country was produced from bathing while laundry wastewater came second with 24 percent.

The research also found that 94 percent of 50 million Indonesian families wasted around 1.1 billion cubic meters of clean water per year. Susi Subekti, government-sponsored Family Welfare Program (PKK) chairwoman, said positive change in water-consumption behavior could occur through interaction.   “Women family members can also spread water-efficiency methods around their communities,” she said. The World Health Organization (WHO) recorded that more than 1.1 billion people worldwide had no access to clean water, 4.5 percent are in Indonesia.

The country has been facing groundwater scarcity and limited access to clean water. A water-saving campaign has been considered necessary to assist government efforts in improving infrastructure to manage water resources.   Public Works Ministry data showed that, as of today, the country could only provide potable water to less than 30 percent of its population. The ministry’s data also showed that an estimated 65 percent of Jakartans had potable water services; the rest use ground water.

The massive use of ground water has led to serious problems such as salt and chemical pollutants in the water people consume. The WHO has warned that dirty water causes potentially fatal diseases including diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation in the world, joined 191 other nations when it signed the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) agreement in New York in 2000. Along with 23 participating international organizations, member nations have agreed to achieve the set targets including reducing poverty, improving access to clean water, reducing child mortality rates and fighting disease epidemics by 2015.

The MDG seeks to halve the number of people in the world without access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Source : Hasyim Widhiarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 03/24/2010