Sustainable Water Resource Management: Issues, Challenges & Solutions

The generation of solid waste has been increasing daily as the population increases. Management of such waste is a great challenge for the urban local bodies. Poor waste management has a serious impact on natural resources. If we consider the specific case of water resources, improper waste disposal leads to the occurrence of different forms of water pollution. The methodology follows desktop searching of existing literature, official documents and other published articles. The desktop search was carried out from December 2024 to March 2025. Many factors influence surface water quality, and one of them is landfills, which are threatening many areas of our environment, particularly in water resources. Solid waste is a source of pathogenic microbial development, and they impact on water, soil and air. As the amount of garbage increases daily, its improper management and disposal system can reach our safer zones, leading to various severe diseases. Illegal, haphazard dumping of waste along water bodies negatively impacts the water quality, and declining water quality endangers aquatic organisms and is unsafe for human consumption and can cause waterborne diseases too. Contaminants, including heavy metals from the leachate of the waste, pollute nearby water bodies. This chapter highlights the major problems of solid waste disposal and its impact on the surface water quality. Improper dumping of solid waste near the water bodies has a negative impact on the water quality. Some findings highlighted the values of pH 5.76 to 8.87, EC ranged from 1252 μS/cm to 1531 μS/cm and turbidity ranged from 1.76 NTU to 6.51 NTU, which are beyond the WHO permissible limit. Frequent waste collection and a proper disposal system can play a huge role in preventing contamination of water bodies.