People who have come a long way in the desert will probably be able to name the price of each drop of water, but most likely these drops will be priceless because human life depends on them. When I was in India, I saw how people in villages washed and stayed in dirty ponds. The water was black with rust wrap on top. My first thought was “after this water they will be dirtier.” After I asked my friend about water quality in their region, he explained that in the water there are a lot of iron and other chemicals. When we visited one family in the village, they invited us to eat with them and they gave us a few glasses of water. The water was orange in color, and we couldn’t give up, because that would mean disrespect to the family. Later when we came back home, we had stomach issues. The reason was the water was polluted. Many countries in the world have a problem with water pollution. Water pollution has causes and effects.
Like all thing on the Earth has reasons, so water pollution has a cause. The first cause is natural pollution that does not depend on people. This type can be attributed to an example of Indian water, where water is polluted with a lot of iron or other chemical elements from the soil. Water that comes from the underground mixes with iron or other chemicals in the soil that makes the water dangerous for health. People can’t influence it or decrease the number of dangerous elements in the soil. People can’t control this cause because it is a natural process.
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Another reason is the agricultural complex. To make more profit from plants, farmers use chemical fertilizers and pesticides that negatively impact the groundwater. “Many studies have shown that agricultural activities are a significant source of surface and groundwater pollution due to long-term and excessive fertilizer use”( Hong). A lot of studies declare that the agricultural complex is the major source of water pollution due to the prolonged and excessive use of fertilizers. Rain and melting show those fertilizers go to rivers and lakes, that killing water plants and fishes. Now almost every river in the USA is polluted by farmers' influence. Rivers can self-cleaning, but if nitrates or chemicals have a big concentration in water, the water ecosystem can’t neutralize it.
The most famous source of water pollution is domestic and municipal wastewater. Urban water consumption is usually estimated on the basis of the average daily water consumption per person, including drinking water, for cooking and personal hygiene, the operation of household plumbing devices, as well as watering lawns and lawns, putting out fires, washing streets, and other urban needs. Also, rain and melt water flowing down the streets into sewers, often with sand or salt, is used to accelerate the melting snow and ice on sidewalks. Almost all of the used water goes to the sewer. Since a huge amount of feces falls into wastewater daily.
Thermal pollution is another cause of water pollution. A serious environmental problem is that the usual way to use water to absorb heat is to directly pump fresh lake or river water through a cooler and then return it to natural waters without pre-cooling The largest thermal pollutant is the production of electricity, where it mainly used for cooling and condensing stream produced by turbines of thermal power plants. After it, water came back to the river, but now it heated, being the main source of additional heat. Under natural conditions, with slow increases or decreases in temperature, fish and other aquatic organisms gradually adapt to changes in ambient temperature. But if as a result of the discharge of hot runoff into rivers and lakes from industrial enterprises, a new temperature regime is quickly established, there is not enough time for acclimatization, and living organisms receive a heat shock and die.
Industries also play a big role in water pollution. During the operation of large plants, industrial wastes are discharged into fresh water, the composition of which abounds in various kinds of heavy metals. Enterprises of coastal cities throw thousands of tons of various, usually untreated, wastes into the sea, including sewage. Contaminated river waters are carried into the seas. Some factories use water from rivers to cool systems, not usually it is safe to water, and sometimes heavy metals from the cooling system come back into the river. Also, factories pollute the atmosphere, metals and other dangerous elements from smoke come into the air and mixed with clouds and it does fain dangerous for the environment. After a rain, those chemicals come to the ground where they pollute rivers and lakes. In one city where I lived in Belarus, I saw one absurd example where on one side of the road was a metal smelter factory, and on another side was Children’s Health Camp. In conclusion, industry polluted water in more than one way.
One more cause is Oil spills in the oceans are one of the global problems on which lies the responsibility for large-scale water pollution. Oil and oil products fall into the water as a result of flushing tanks and containers in which oil is transported. A huge amount of oil enters the ocean and the sea during accidents of tankers, oil pipelines in oil fields, and during the exploration and exploitation of oil fields in the continental shelf zone. During accidents with oil wells, many thousands of tons of oil are thrown into the sea. Thousands of fish and other aquatic creatures die from oil spills. In addition to oil, huge quantities of practically non-decaying waste, like all kinds of plastic products, have also been found in the oceans. The facts of water pollution in the world speak of an impending global world problem.
And finally, the last cause is radioactive pollution. Radioactive fallout into the oceans in three ways: firstly, from the atmosphere as a result of nuclear tests; secondly, during the discharge of radioactive water and radioactive substances from the enterprises of the nuclear industry and nuclear power plants and, finally, as a result of accidents of ships powered by nuclear engines, as well as the dumping of radioactive waste from ship reactors. With the development of the nuclear industry and nuclear energy, radioactive waste is discharged into rivers, lakes, and seas in ever-increasing sizes. Known when for years, the Italian mafia has provided an expensive service for the disposal of radioactive waste - they just dumped them into the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Legambiente organization, about 40 vessels loaded with toxic and radioactive waste disappeared in the waters” (Brainz). Also, accidents at nuclear power plants increase the level of water pollution.
One effect is a human health problem. Every human contains from the water around 70 percent, of water in our body is decreased and we need to drink water to maintain the electrolytic balance of our body. According to “World Health Organization” “Contaminated water can transmit diseases such diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio. Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrheal deaths each year”. (Drinking Water) Almost five hundred thousand people died only from diarrheal and this number will increase if add to it dead from other diseases that result from water pollution. Hindu people use the bank of the river in their ritual of cremation. When the body almost burns out, they dispel the ashes in the river, where downstream people use river water to brush their teeth or wash. One of the places that do it is Pashupatinath in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Water pollution is a huge issue for our planet and it is harmful to people’s health, it can be a reason for many serious diseases, for example, cancer, stomach problem, and other problem with health. Many things that made our life easier are harmful to our ecology and the environment. It has an influence on water, air, and soil quality. In order to provide us with everything necessary for life, we make the environment around us unsuitable for our lives. If we continue to act like now, we will make our planet dangerous for our descendants. We have only one planet and who will protect it from destruction? It is only our responsibility.
Works Cited
- Brainz, “10 Most Radioactive Places on Earth.” TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Jan. 2017, www.transcend.org/tms/2017/01/10-most-radioactive-places-on-earth/. Accessed November 12, 2019
- Drinking-water 14 June 2019 http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water Accessed November 12, 2019
- Hong, et al. “Nitrate Accumulation and Leaching in Surface and Ground Water Based on Simulated Rainfall Experiments.” PLoS ONE, vol. 10, no. 8, Aug. 2015, pp. 1–18. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136274.
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