ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Anthropogenic activities have immensely contributed to the deterioration of our environment. Furthermore, developing countries such as Thailand are still struggling with the management of human population increase which is closely associated with water quality and sanitation problems. Hence, public awareness and attitudes have been identified to be highly related to the improvement of water quality globally. As a result of this, a survey was carried out on some students and teachers in Bangkok, Thailand (n=240). The findings indicated that majority of the respondents (68%) have good attitudes towards discharge of wastewater. Sex and academic qualifications of the respondents were highly not associated with the awareness level of wastewater and its treatment (p=.831 and .162 respectively). Moreover, the participants who previously had wastewater education had better attitude towards wastewater (p=.034). In addition, the findings offered relationship between increased environmental knowledge and positive behavior towards the environment. Interestingly, majority of the respondents opined that environmental education is a very useful tool in solving environmental problems and hence, its teaching should be made compulsory in schools. Therefore, environmental education of wastewater and its treatment has been recommended by the researchers in schools to promote behavioral change in developing countries and consequently to improve water quality.