Water Pollution

Water pollution is a major problem in the global context. It has been suggested that it is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases, and that it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily.

1. Water pollution is any chemical, physical or biological change in the quality of water that has a harmful effect on any living thing that drinks or uses it or lives in it. When humans drink polluted water it often has serious effects on their health.

2. There are several classes of water pollutants. The first are disease-causing agents. These are bacteria, viruses, and parasitic worms that enter sewage systems and untreated waste.

The second category of water pollutants is oxygen-demanding wastes; wastes that can be decomposed by oxygen-requiring bacteria. When large populations of decomposing bacteria are converting these wastes it can deplete oxygen levels in the water. This causes other organisms in the water, such as fish, to die.

The third class of water pollutants is water-soluble inorganic pollutants, such as acids, salts and toxic metals. Large quantities of these compounds will make water unfit to drink and will cause the death of aquatic life.

Another class of water pollutants is nutrients; they are water-soluble nitrates and phosphates that cause excessive growth of algae and other water plants, which deplete the water's oxygen supply. This kills fish and, when found in drinking water, can kill young children.

Water can also be polluted by a number of organic compounds such as oil, plastics and pesticides, which are harmful to humans and all plants and animals in the water.

Finally, water-soluble radioactive compounds can cause cancer, birth defects and genetic damage and are thus very dangerous water pollutants.

3. Water pollution is usually caused by human activities. Different human sources add to the pollution of water. There are two sorts of sources, point and non-point sources. Point sources discharge pollutants at specific locations through pipelines or sewers into the surface water. Non-point sources are sources that cannot be traced to a single site of discharge.

Examples of point sources are: factories, sewage treatment plants, underground mines, oil wells, oil tankers and agriculture.

Examples of non-point sources are: acid deposition from the air, traffic, pollutants that are spread through rivers and pollutants that enter the water through groundwater.

Non-point pollution is hard to control because the perpetrators cannot be traced.

4. Water pollution is detected in laboratories, where small samples of water are analyzed for different contaminants. Living organisms such as fish can also be used for the detection of water pollution. Changes in their behaviour or growth show us, that the water they live in is polluted. Specific properties of these organisms can give information on the sort of pollution in their environment. Laboratories also use computer models to determine what dangers there can be in certain waters.

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