Water and sustainability - Essay Example

conomy and population over the past decades has brought tremendous cost to the nation’s environmental sustainability (Liu, Jianguo, and Wu Yang 650). Although both China and the USA are economically developed, the simultaneous effects of the industrialization, agricultural growth, and urbanization coupled with the declining ground and surface water quantity are some of the crucial problems facing water sustainability in China. This paper therefore, explores the comparison of water sustainability between China and USA while taking keen interest on the problems of the water sustainability in China and the solutions.

The USA’S EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is committed to the promotion of the sustainable practices that helps ensuring that the citizens continue enjoying the benefits of the safe and clean water. As a result the tap water in the USA relatively cleaner as compared to that of China. The tap water in U.S is generally good. In the 2006, 89.3% of the nation’s community water system were in total compliance with EPA. Unlike China, most of the water systems in the USA that are out of compliance are the small systems in the small towns and rural areas partly because most of the public water systems are generally small ones.

Another reason for the cleaner tap water in the USA is that the drinking water in the U.S is regulated by the federal and state laws and codes that sets Maximum Contaminant Levels for some of the pollutants and the naturally occurring constituents. The federal and state laws and codes are tasked with the determination of the various operational requirements, public notifications of the standards, provision of guidance to the state primacy agencies and publish the consumer confidence reports (Liu, Jianguo, and Wu Yang 650).

Unlike China, the laws in the US such as Safe Drinking Water Act ensure quality of the drinking water is high. The public water systems in the US must comply with the laws to ensure that the water is safe.