5-2 Final Project Milestone Two: History, Contemporary Viewpoint, and Real-
World Application
1
5-2 Final Project Milestone Two: History, Contemporary Viewpoint,
and Real-World Application
Brynne Nicholas
Southern New Hampshire University
SCI 218: Natural Resources
Professor Asma Wasim
April 2, 2023
5-2 Final Project Milestone Two: History, Contemporary Viewpoint, and Real-
World Application
2
Section One: History and Contemporary Viewpoint
It is crucial to recognize the many ways in which water—or the lack of it—is necessary for
human survival. In fact, one could argue that our civilization as a whole collective is built on
water. Around 50 000 years ago, modern man started to spread throughout the globe and people
were always on the move as they were primarily nomadic. People became sick in several
instances after ingesting microorganisms that were spread and transported by water. The
ubiquitous aversion to consuming water that tastes, smells, or looks bad is thought to have
developed during human evolution (IWA Publications, 2023). Long ago, people began to
establish permanent settlements, which made clean freshwater a necessity. However, the earliest
archaeological and literary sources on water and sanitation date from a comparatively recent
period. Therefore, we must draw on the analogies of later cultures to reconstruct the history of
water and sanitation during this hunter-gatherer period. These analogies draw heavily on modern
anthropological research and indigenous peoples' mythologies that have been preserved, as well
as on observations of primates and other more advanced animals (IWA Publications, 2023).
When humanity transitioned to an agrarian lifestyle about ten-thousand years ago, permanent
settlements were developed. The population started to grow everywhere at a faster rate than ever
