This blog will tell you about Water pollution. At first, it will explain what is Pollution and a Pollutant. Then it will elaborate what is Water Pollution with an Example. At second, it will discuss major causes of Water Pollution on Earth. After that it will explain the potential and important Effects of Water Pollution. At the end it will provide information about the Solutions of Water Pollution on Earth. In this blog we discusses Causes, Effects and Solutions of Water Pollution.
Definition, Causes and Solutions of Water Pollution.
Pollution:
Pollution is a term that can be defined as addition of any harmful or foreign material within an environment that cause adverse changes. This can be in any type of an ecosystem.
Example: If a harmful gas is added into the atmosphere, it will be considered as Air pollution. etc.
Pollutant:
Any harmful substance that cause any type of pollution is called as a pollutant.
Example: NH3 is an air pollutant on earth, because it makes the air polluted, etc.
Definition of Water Pollution:
Similarly, if any foreign or harmful substance or thing is adds into the water and cause bad impacts on the composition, we can call it as water pollution.
Example: If any acidic or any dangerous pollutant is adds into the water, we can call it as water pollution. etc.
Water pollution is a result of industrialization, unauthentic disposing into the water, throwing plastic wastes into the water, disposing of harmful chemicals in the water and much more.
90% of the water pollution is by anthropogenic means. Because in most cases, the industries do not dispose their harmful by-products in an authentic way. But people leave all of their trash openly in water.
This is the major cause of waterborne diseases in humans as well as in animals. These diseases are the cause of death of 25 million people every year.
Water pollution is increasing in every part of the world and the most dangerous role is played by plastic wastes that are disposed in the water and they eventually adds up in the ocean and cause a major problem called Ocean Acidification.
This blog will tell you the causes, effects and Solutions of Water Pollution.
Causes of Water Pollution:
There are many causes of water pollution. Some major causes are given below:
1.Domestic Waste Water Effluents:
Mostly in developing countries, people have no awareness for the disposing of trash properly and no disposing sites are constructed for domestic waste. So people directly dispose the wastes into the water. This waste contains plastic bottles and plastic bags that add harmful chemicals into the water. Along with plastic pollution it also contain food wastes that release smelly gases and makes the water highly unhygienic.
2.Industrial Waste Water Effluents:
Large industries makes a lot of money for manufacturing of the products. But they do not care about the release of harmful industrial effluents such as H2SO4, NH3, NaOH etc. They release all the harmful by-products into the lakes and rivers. Then that water is used by people for drinking, sanitation and irrigation purposes. This is the major cause of water pollution and water borne diseases among the people.
3.Agricultural Runoff:
Agricultural runoff contains harmful fertilizers and pesticides and then water flows into the canals and rivers, it take the chemicals with itself. This can cause high chemical concentrations in the water. Then it can harm the people using that water even for sanitation purposes. The water becomes highly polluted by this phenomenon.
4.Animal Husbandry:
Animal husbandry plays an important role in the surface water pollution so animal wastes rich in nitrogen and phosphorus that adds into the water to pollute it. Excess nutrients may lead to the growth of algae that harshly effects the live of aquatic species. Animals play a great role in polluting the fresh water of human use.
5.Plastic wastes:
Along with all other causes of water pollution, the most important and dominating cause is plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is causing deaths of thousands of aquatic animals in the ocean every year. In past few years, we have seen the clean beaches turning into trash sites because of these pollutants. Some toxic types of plastic adds harmful gases in the ocean with passing time and contributes its major role in the process of ocean acidification.
All of these are major causes of Water Pollution.
Effects of Water Pollution:
Following are few effects of Water Pollution:
Dangerous for Aquatic Life:
Water pollution disturbs the aquatic life in many ways so as It changes the natural compositions of water and sensitive organisms cannot live in it. As we have discussed, Ocean Acidification cause death of many aquatic ecosystems and organisms every year.
Economic Effects:
When water pollution pollutes the major water reservoirs or groundwater resources, it cause a major impact on economy. For example, if there will be no supply of clean drinking water, there will be a need of economic services to establish waste water treatments or other ways to clean water. In the same way water pollution effects industrial activities, so that extra treatment need for the water to make it drinkable.
Health Issues:
The people utilizing polluted water for food or sanitation, will be prone to acute diseases such as cholera, typhoid etc. Animals mostly drink water from the lakes and canals. Polluted water has a bad impact on the health of animals too. That is why, pollution of water is bad for health of all living organisms.
Groundwater Contamination:
Surface water contamination and use of fertilizers and pesticides cause the contamination of groundwater. This makes the crops unhealthy and people consume it for drinking and cooking purposes. Groundwater is very important for the people to live and survive and if it is polluted, people are exposed to many diseases, while plants and animals are also badly effected.
Food Chain Disruption:
Water pollution on extreme levels, can cause disruption of food chains. As we know that, humans and animals consume aquatic species such as fish, prawns etc. If these species are grown in polluted environment, they spread diseases and infections to the people who are consuming them. This is cause of death of many people by severe infections and illnesses due to water contamination.
Contaminated Drinking water:
We know that humans and animals cannot live without water. Water pollution, pollutes most of the fresh water and leave less drinkable water on Earth that people can consume. That is why drinking water is scarce in many countries of the world. This also cause people to consume contaminated water and get diseases and infections that are life threatening.
These were major effects of Water Pollution on environment and humans.
Solutions of Water Pollution:
Following are the solutions against water pollution:
• Waste Water Treatment:
The best solution for water pollution is to treat large amounts of wastewater by latest technologies to make that water reusable for irrigation and domestic purposes. This will help to make most of the water available for use again. This can also help us to fight against the condition of Water scarcity.
• Using authentic ways to release chemicals:
New and authentic strategies applies to release harmful chemicals in the environment or they and then store them safely by their sources. The wastes should not disposed into the fresh water reservoirs.
• Using Barriers for Plastic Pollution:
Most of the developing countries are using efficient barriers to stop plastic wastes from adding to the ocean so these plastic wastes are stopped at the barriers and are collected after a certain period of time. This is helping a lot in reducing the plastic pollution within the ocean.
• Growing Suitable Plants:
Some plants have natural ability to remove variety of pollutants from the water. Some of these are Water hyacinth, duckweed, cattails etc. These plants are grow at the polluted sites and with time they work as purifiers of water. This is a natural process to clean polluted water.
Many other strategies are used to control water pollution.
Conclusion:
We can define Water Pollution as the addition of any harmful or foreign substance into the water environment that cause adverse effects. Water pollution has became a major environmental issue from last two decades because of the industrial era. Industries releases their harmful by-products into the water bodies to pollute water. More harmful substances adds to it by domestic and plastic wastes. In order to control water pollution we should use wastewater treatments, control of plastic wastes, growth of suitable aquatic species and authentic waste disposal so many countries are working for the control of water pollution. Every person can make an impact on the growing environmental pollutions. This blog shines a light on the Causes, Effects and Solutions of Water Pollution.
Effects of Water Pollution
Some blogs on other environmental issues are as follows:
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