How Water Pollution Affects The Environment – It is midday and the sun is at its highest point, giving off a humid, uncomfortable heat. You’re excited because you’ve scheduled a time to jump into the lake to cool off with your friends—except for the wait—there’s a sign near the entrance where the trees have been cleared. “No swimming. Contaminated water. Dangerous to enter.” Well, that just ruined your day. But what does that mean for you or around the lake?
According to the Nature Conservancy, half of the world’s largest lakes are polluted or drying up. We rely on freshwater lakes and rivers for drinking water. If they are contaminated, we can’t use them, and if we can’t, we don’t have water. Or we will only have water that will make us sick.
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How Water Pollution Affects The Environment
In the United States, industrial and agricultural practices are regulated to put systems in place to prevent toxic wastewater from entering nearby lakes and rivers, but sometimes the damage has already been done and cleanup procedures should be initiated in addition to preventive strategies.
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The natural flow of toxic runoff, such as rain, into lakes and rivers is more difficult to control. Rainwater from, say, a parking lot can carry oil, debris, bacteria and other harmful substances with it and flow directly into a fresh water source.
Runoff can even run off the farm and remove the topsoil needed for agriculture. If people eat fish from polluted water lakes or rivers, that pollution gets inside us. Isn’t it ironic that the waste we produce comes back to harm us?
To make matters worse, the ecosystems downstream of a polluted lake or river suffer greatly from pollution. Chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers or sewage harm and destroy wildlife and destroy habitats. Ecosystems are fragile and even a small disturbance can affect the entire system. The World Wildlife Federation reports that “more than 20% of the world’s 10,000 freshwater species have become extinct, threatened, or endangered” in the past few decades.
The majority of environmental pollution is caused by human activity, so our mission is to find non-polluting solutions. With a population of over 7 billion, is it impossible to avoid water pollution? National Geographic reports that 2 million tons of human waste are thrown into rivers and other waterways every day. Do people know that this problem is both a human and a planetary problem? Water is one of the basic human needs. We use it to quench thirst, energize the body, wash clothes, dishes and other parts of the house. Without water we die.
Water Related Illnesses
As the population grew over the years, water bodies became polluted. Water pollution occurs when large bodies of water, such as groundwater, oceans, rivers, and lakes, are contaminated with harmful chemicals and bacteria. This is due to the waste that is dumped directly into the water.
Indeed, water pollution is one of the biggest crises facing the world today, affecting millions of people who do not have access to clean drinking water. The government spends time and energy focusing on water pollution and its effects to protect people.
We need water to survive and do this, and we need to take some steps to conserve some of the resources we have today.
So, in this article, we will discuss the causes and effects of water pollution and some solutions that we can start immediately.
Water And Industrial Accidents
Over the years we have seen people move to towns and cities. People started building houses, roads, large industrial enterprises. After that, the physical degradation of the land took place, factories began to pour chemical waste into water bodies.
Large factories dump waste into the water, which is one of the main causes of ocean pollution.
On the other hand, ordinary people also pollute water, not just large factories. Everyone is guilty of pouring chemicals or detergents down the drain or toilet. This toxic pollution can find its way into highway runoff.
Highway traffic is often covered in toxic chemicals such as spilled fuel, chemical additives, brake fluids and exhaust fumes. When it rains, these chemicals are washed into drains and rivers.
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It can kill a school of fish overnight. According to studies, highway runoff is equivalent to an oil tanker spill in one year. Some highway runoff enters sewers and can contaminate groundwater or accumulate on land near the road. So every year it becomes more toxic.
Nowadays, with the increasing world population, the disposal of sewage waste is becoming a big problem. Improper disposal can lead to several water-related diseases that can kill adults and children.
The sewage problem does not go away easily. After you flush the toilet, the waste has to go somewhere, and even with sewage treatment, there is still waste that needs to be disposed of. Thus, sewage waste is dumped into the oceans.
In theory, wastewater contains natural material that is easily degraded by the environment. 90% of wastewater is water. But in practice, sewage contains all the other chemicals that are flushed down the toilet, such as paper, plastic and pharmaceuticals.
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In addition, sick people carry viruses with them. So the sewage they produce carries those viruses and spreads into the ocean. Currently, typhus, hepatitis and cholera can be transmitted from the ocean and river.
Also, farmers use harmful fertilizers to get more crops and to meet the increasing demand of the population. This causes algal blooms in the water. Increased oxygen levels in water can also lead to the extinction of underwater plants and fish.
Detergents are chemicals that are dumped into the ocean. On the other hand, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly toxic substances and trace amounts of them enter the environment today.
Lead is used in gasoline or gasoline, but it is restricted in some counties. Meanwhile, cadmium and mercury are still used in batteries. A chemical called tributyltin (TBT) has also been found in recently contaminated water bodies.
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In 1938, a Japanese factory released a large amount of mercury metal into Minamata Bay. This heavy metal water pollution contaminated the fish stocks and it took almost a decade for the problem to come to the attention of the authorities.
By that time, local residents had already eaten the fish and poisoned about 2,000 people. More than 100 people were maimed and killed.
High concentrations of radioactive waste can cause great concern for the population. This can lead to diseases like cancer, which can eventually lead to death.
The largest sources of radioactive contamination in Europe are Sellafield and Cap La Hague. These companies dump their radioactive waste into the ocean, where currents carry it around the world.
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Norway receives a lot of radioactive contamination from Sellafield, and the government has filed several complaints against the company. The Norwegian and Irish governments have sought to close the plant for several years.
According to research, 12% of oil enters the ocean due to tanker accidents, and 70% of it comes from oil spills on shore and standard shipping.
However, tanker oil spills are deadly because they release a large amount of oil at once. One of the largest oil spills in the United States occurred in 1989 when the tanker Exxon Valdez broke down in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
About 12 million gallons of oil spilled into the ocean during this incident. Between 1,000 and 2,000 sea otters and 250,000 seabirds were affected. In addition, the oil spill will kill billions of salmon and herring eggs.
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Today, plastic is used in almost every object we make, from the clothes we wear to household items and car parts. It is lightweight and floats easily. However, plastics are not biodegradable and can affect the survival of marine life for a very long time.
Some people may say that plastics are not as toxic as other chemicals, but they also pose a threat to fish, seabirds and other marine life.
For example, plastic fishing lines and other debris can suffocate fish. Also, about half of the world’s seabird population has consumed plastic, and experts have found residues in their stomachs.
Water pollution can be caused by alien or invasive species entering a new system where they do not belong. When they are outside their natural environment, they have no natural predators. They can run fast in nature and fill in the usual plants or animals that live in that place.
Types And Effects Of Water Pollution
For example, zebra mussels in the U.S. Great Lakes are carried by sewage washed off ships in Europe. Meanwhile, the Mediterranean Sea is invaded by alien algae and the Black Sea by alien jellyfish.
Some forms of pollution include generated thermal pollution
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