Facts About Water Pollution

Water pollution is the contamination of water so that it becomes unfit for usage. We do not have to pay attention to the natural phenomenon like volcanoes, algae blooms, earthquake or other factors which cause the ecological status of water to deplete because primarily nature is intelligent enough to take care of all that and secondly we can not really do anything about it. Aim of writing this article is to create awareness required to stop the suicidal act of contamination of water so that we all can live in harmony with Mother Nature appreciating the gifts it has given to us, humans.

Facts about water pollution About 20% of the world's population lacks access to safe drinking water and about 50% lacks adequate sanitation. In many developing countries, rivers downstream of large cities are little cleaner than open sewers. Levels of suspended solids in Asia's rivers, for example, almost quadrupled since the late 1970s and rivers typically contain four times the world average and 20 times OECD levels. The faecal coliform count in Asia's rivers is 50 times higher than the WHO guidelines. People using such water for washing, bathing or drinking are at high risk. In Latin America as a whole, only about 2 per cent of sewage receives any treatment. Worldwide, polluted water is estimated to affect the health of about 1200 million people and to contribute to the death of about 15 million children under five every year (ICWE 1992).

Eutrophication: Factors that cause increased nutrient concentrations can potentially lead to eutrophication. This kind of pollution is a result of nutrient pollution such as the release of sewage effluent and run-off from lawn fertilizers into natural waters, although it may also occur naturally in situations where nutrients accumulate or where they flow into systems on an ephemeral basis. Eutrophication generally promotes excessive plant growth and decay, and is likely to cause severe reductions in water quality . Eutrophication causes decreased biodiversity, changes in species composition, dominance(algal boom), and toxicity effects. Any factor that causes increased nutrient concentrations can potentially lead to eutrophication.

Hypoxia: Eutrophication leads to hypoxia. This phenomenon of oxygen depletion in which molecular oxygen dissolved in water is reduced in concentration between 1 and 30% is called Hypoxia. To overcome this proble of hypoxia, it is vital to reduce the amount of land-derived nutrients reaching rivers. This can be done by improving sewage treatment and by reducing the amount of fertilizers leaching into the rivers and by restoring natural environments along a river; marshes are particularly effective in reducing the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen (nutrients) in water.

Marine pollution, acidification of ocean, oil spill and thermal pollution are few of the other modes of polluting water. And the price we pay by polluting one of the most important sustenance of life is vast yearly death caused by waterborne diseases. Industrial wastes are significant sources of water pollution, often giving rise to contamination with heavy metals (lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium) and persistent organic compounds. A study of 15 Japanese cities, for example, showed that 30 per cent of all groundwater supplies are contaminated by chlorinated solvents from industry; in some cases, the solvents from spills traveled as far as 10 km from the source of pollution (UNEP 1996b).

Some more water pollution facts: Asian rivers are the most polluted in the world. They have three times as many bacteria from human waste as the global average and 20 times more lead than rivers in industrialized countries. Thirty percent of Ireland's rivers are polluted with sewage or fertilizer. The King River is Australia's most polluted river, suffering from a severe acidic condition related to mining operations.100, 000 marine mammals, 1 million sea birds and other aquatic lives are killed due to plastic waste in water and coastal area. Bangladesh has some of the most polluted groundwater in the world. In this case, the contaminant is arsenic, which occurs naturally in the sediments. Around 85% of the total area of the country has contaminated groundwater, with at least 1.2 million Bangladeshis exposed to arsenic poisoning and with millions more at risk. Pollution of freshwater (drinking water) is a problem for about half of the world's population. Each year there are about 250 million cases of water-related diseases, with roughly 5 to 10 million deaths.

With over 70 percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if these very bodies of water could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. Raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted. Beaches around the world are closed regularly, often because of high amounts of bacteria from sewage disposal, and marine wildlife is beginning to suffer. Water! From drinking a glass of cold water to power generation, water has so much utilitarian value that perhaps it would not be an understatement to say that when God thought about life probably he thought of water first. If we do not pay attention to these facts about water pollution, time is not far when from "blue planet" our earth will become "dirty blue planet."