Go Natural Education interviews Dr. Ashok Vaseashta of the International Clean Water Institute about water quality, its relationship to soil health, and the challenges that microplastics and nanoplastics pose to human health. Dr. Vaseashta is the author of Water Safety, Security, and Sustainability: Threat Detection and Mitigation.
Watch the video below and read the lightly edited transcript that follows.
GN: Hello everyone. Welcome to this episode of the Go Natural Education podcast. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Dr. Ashok Vaseashta, the CEO and CRO of the International Clean Water Institute. Dr. Ashok Vaseashta is an international expert in clean water technologies and management and he’s served as director of several NATO Advanced Study Institutes. Among his many accomplishments is the publication of 250 works, including about ten books, notable among them the 2021 publication of Water Safety, Security and Sustainability: Threat Detection and Mitigation. The book is published by Springer and you can find it on Amazon.
Dr. Vaseashta, welcome to the podcast.
AV: My pleasure.
GN: Why does climate change get so much more attention than water shortages?
AV: That’s a very good question and I have wondered about that quite a bit. Climate change started as global warming. Now it’s climate change. Along with water scarcity, the two are existential risks. One gets more attention than the other and the why is a valid question. Climate change affects the entire society. And that’s part of the reason we tend to see it more often as compared to water scarcity, which is addressed on an individual basis and, more specifically, because of the fact that it’s sort of localized. It has not gotten so much of our attention.
People are now realizing this from the individual standpoint, especially in Southeast Asia, because of the water shortage. It is becoming more prevalent because of the fact that there’s a strict water shortage. Communities are getting together and there are more megacities. They have a water shortage and they have rotational water availability and so forth. It’s becoming more prominent.
Then there’s the political issue. That’s also part of the reason that one issue gets more attention than the other. So that’s the short response. I guess it’s one we could talk about a whole lot longer but nonetheless, water scarcity is becoming a major issue. I think that as a society we need to address it. We need to make sure that we educate people. That’s the reason I’ve written several books on this topic.
GNE: What is the relationship between soil quality and water quality, and vice versa?
AV: Technically, they are the same; however, it depends on the source of water. Well, let’s say the soil quality is not so good and it’s for agriculture. Then it may not be such a big issue because it’s not noticed as much. For those who have well water like me, soil quality and water quality are very related. Because I have well water, we are very sensitive to adding pesticides or any type of chemicals that are used for fertilizing plants, etc. We are very, very sensitive to that. But if the source of water is far away, people do not care as much. This is one of the topics I have discussed in several of my publications, specifically about West Virginia.
This topic is one people address quite a bit, because of the fact that they are associated. Our health risks are associated with soil quality. So to address your question, they are actually related but it depends on where the source of the water is located.
GNE: Globally, how are chemical fertilizers and pesticides affecting drinking water supplies?
AV: The pesticides, herbicides, and all the chemicals we use are factors. Now it’s also microplastics and nanoplastics that are also impacting water quality quite a bit if they get into the water table. I’ll give you an example of a canal and river in West Virginia. Some are intentionally discharged and some are unintentionally discharged. They get into what becomes essentially the source of water. In that case, it definitely has impacts.
What if the source of water is located far away? Then it may not be as much of an issue, at least for the time being. But going forward I foresee this as a major issue. They’re all related. Any chemical which we add to the water goes into the soil. It gets absorbed and transported to the source of water and eventually, it returns back to us.
We are not able to isolate all chemicals from water. Microplastics and nanoplastics are maybe less than a micron. We are not able to isolate them and, as a result, we are seeing lots of children consuming nanoplastics in water. So this is one of the major issues. It’s because the chemical industry has advanced so rapidly but at the same time, we do not have mitigation or remediation strategies for those chemicals from water. There’s a huge disconnect and this is something I’ve addressed in my books and publications, to make sure that we understand and obviously try to consume as clean water as possible.
GNE: As a follow-up to that question, I’m not familiar with microplastics and nanoplastics. Are these intentionally discharged or accidentally discharged? Are they byproducts of consumer goods? Where are they coming from?
AK: All the single-use plastic. I want to say, unfortunately, that almost 80% of single-use plastic returns back to the landfill. Then they find their way to rivers and sources of water. Over a period of time, they disintegrate from micro to nanoplastics, and because of the fact our filtration mechanism is not geared towards catching plastic. There are types of chemicals called “forever chemicals” and they stay in water.
because of the fact we do not have remediation strategies to isolate them. This is something that we need to work on to make sure that we remove plastics from the sources of water. And that’s the reason there are now lots more regulations on discarding plastics, because of this contamination in water.
GNE: One last question, if I may. What are some sensor technologies for monitoring water quality and can any of these technologies be used in agriculture?
AV: In terms of water-sensing technologies, we still use older technology. These are borehole types of sensors that are used simply for detecting salinity, turbidity, and those types of parameters. Nonetheless, now there are some sensors. They can detect all types of chemical and biological agents but they are not integrated into the daily use of chemicals, which go into the water. Even at the water processing plants, they still have sensors that detect basic chemicals. But there are new and emerging chemicals, including micro and nanoplastics. Sensors exist, but they are not integrated into a platform that detects all types.
It is for that reason I introduced a concept called the Universal Water Quality Index. We have a water quality index that measures basic parameters but we need a Universal Water Quality Index which is applicable globally because of the fact all of us have pretty much similar body classifications. That means we need good water quality. So that’s the reason we need to implement the Universal Water Quality Index, which detects all types of chemical compositions and is able to tell us what is the water quality, and if it’s safe to drink or not. As mentioned, this has been introduced into the literature and it’s catching up. I hope that we are able to implement that sometime in the future.
GNE: I hope so, too. Dr Ashok Vaseashta, thank you so much for being on this episode of Go Natural Education.
AV: Thank you for having me.