Water Pollution

We are citizens of a very beautiful home called earth, since decades we are using its natural resources, back in time human need and the way of living was very simple and limited. But nowadays human needs and lifestyle that people live become very complex moreover, the increase of population density, that led to put a high pressure on earth natural resources. Unfortunately due to human irresponsible behaviors and activities also the miss use of earth natural resources world become polluted.

One of the most polluted resource in earth is water. There are two major perspective of this issue which are human health and economy.

Water pollution is the contaminate of water resource such as oceans, rivers, lakes, aquifers and groundwater it happens, when pollutants are dumped or unloaded directly or indirectly into these water resources (Wikipedia, 2015). Water pollution is not a recent issue in fact it is older than we thought, it started with the industrial revolution in early 1800’s this revolution brought a massive turnover in production consequently a great amount of harmful factories wastes across the globe such as Sulphur, asbestos, lead, mercury, nitrates, phosphates and oils.

Furthermore, humans wastes and activities such as sewage, waste water, septic tanks, marine dumping, underground storage and tube leakages (Eschooltoday.com, 2015). These kind of irrespirable behaviors and activities played a significant roll in magnifying the problem and resulting to so many types of water pollution classified to eight classes. First, inorganic chemical pollutants; these kind of pollutants can be found in households cleaning chemicals, factories wastes, wastewater, and seepage, which resulting from municipal dumps and landfills.

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Second, organic chemical pollutants; this type contain a wide range of compounds including oil, pesticides, gasoline, and organic solvents. There is a several sources for such pollutants include factories wastes, runoff from farms and urban areas. Third, oxygen depleting wastes; including any natural substance for fertilizing the soil in feedlot and farm runoff, urban sewage, plant debris and factories wastes. Fourth, biological pollutants; like parasitic worms, protozoa and viruses. These infectious medium get into the environment from animal and human wastes. Fifth, plant nutrient pollutants; they are mainly found in wastewater, which is generated from household, runoff water from gardens and farms and urban sewage. These chemicals contains nitrates like phosphates, ammonium and salts frequently can be found in detergents and fertilizers. Sixth, sediments; the deposit of soil from cropland in lakes and other water resources can carry bacteria, pesticides, and other substances that are harmful to aquatic life. Seventh, radioactive materials; such substance are found in nuclear power plant effluents and fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing. These materials can get into the food chain through plants and consequently absorb by humans and animals body tissues. Eighth, thermal pollution; the increase of water temperature caused from industrial discharges into water bodies reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen exceed the range of tolerance of some aquatic species, thus disrupting the local ecosystem. Power generating plant considered as a source of thermal pollutants because of highly warm discharged water (Clihouston.com, 2015).

Such pollution have a serious impact and damages in so many aspects on human health and economy. The human health respective; the pollution of water generated a series of diseases referred to as water pollution diseases, these diseases could have a serious impact on human health and in some cases can lead to death. Some of most known diseases like Typhoid fever, which caused by ingesting contaminated water or food, its symptoms on human descripted by nausea, headaches, loss of appetite, yearly there is about 12 million people are affected by typhoid. Schistosomiasis known as bilharzia it caused by parasitic worms, this worms and their eggs live in certain type of freshwater snails perforate the skin of people through their using of contaminated water like swimming, bathing or washing, bilharzia cause infection, this infection can damage intestines, lungs, liver and bladder, approximately 200 million people infected by bilharzia, about 20 million of whom infected by bilharzia suffer severe consequences. Malaria is a very dangerous disease caused by a parasite carried by certain types of mosquitoes. People get infected, when mosquitoes bit them. Standing water and uncovered water tanks are a major reasons in magnifying this issue and separate this disease, every year there are 300 million to 500 million cases of malaria across the world and about 1 million child deaths. Fluorosis is a dangerous bone disease brought about by high concentrations of fluoride happening in groundwater. Fluorosis is endemic in no less than 25 countries across the globe. The total number of individuals influenced is not known, but an estimate numbers would be in tens of millions. Cholera is an acute bacterial infection attack the intestinal tract, which occur a severe diarrhea that, without treatment, can quickly lead to acute dehydration and death. Cholera is a world-wide problem in 2002, over 120,000 cholera cases were reported worldwide. Arsenicosis it can happens from a long term exposure to low level of concentrations of arsenic in drinking water could causes painful skin keratosis and can be resulted in several type of cancers such as skin cancer, bladder cancer, lungs cancer, and kidney cancer. Millions of people are likely in a serious danger from arsenic poisoning since they depend on water supplies that are polluted with arsenic (mainly from natural sources) and do not have any alternative source of safe water. Diarrhoea is caused by a different kind of micro-organisms including viruses, bacteria and protozoans. It causes a person to lose both of water and electrolytes, which leads to dehydration and in some cases to death (UNICEF, 2015). Moreover, the economy perspective; water pollution has a various of negative effects in lots of economy sectors such as tourism, property values, commercial fishing, recreational businesses and many other sectors that depend on clean water. For example, pollutants like Nitrates and algal blooms in drinking water sources lead to increase the cost of treatment drastically, treating water from nitrate has been raised from 5 to 10 cents per 1000 gallons to over 4 US dollar per 1000 gallons. Billions of dollars spent to clean up polluted water sources. Tourism industry effected also by water pollution, nearly 1 billion US dollar yearly is the losses in United States only, most of these loses come through losses in fishing and booting activates. Commercial fishing and shellfish industries are effected by harmful algal blooms that lead to kill fish and pollute shellfish. Tens of millions of dollars is the annual estimated loses to these industries. Real estate and properties values located nearby waterfront can decline because of algal blooms odor and unpleasant sights, however, clean water can raise the value of a nearby properties by 25 percent (Www2.epa.gov, 2015).

Other form of water pollution impacts can be found in aquamarine life and agriculture. Aquamarine life become unbalanced and afflicted from so many problems represented in failure in the reproductive system, behavioral changes, skin irritation, eye irritation, lung and liver problems, cancer and even death which will lead to extinction risk for some of aquamarine species. Furthermore, it affects the whole food chain consequently people, who consuming contaminated marine animals might suffer health problem like cancer, birth defects and other long terms health problems (Conserve-Energy-Future, 2014). Contaminated water is a serious risk for agriculture, it can potentially spread viruses, parasites and bacteria to crops. There is a several stages in which fresh fruits and vegetables come in contact with water during the production process, contaminated water that has been used during the crop production such as harvesting, and processing can lead to health issues, the people who consume fruits and vegetables that were exposed to contaminated water are at the risk of developing a foodborne illness (Cdc.gov, 2015).

The problem is on global scale and need and solutions to solve it. There is some suggested solution that could help scale down this issue and solve it on the long term for example reducing or preventing pollution at its source, in industry, agriculture, and human settlements is often the most effective, easiest and cheapest way to protect water. Also make a treatment solutions for wastewater that include domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, and agricultural wastewater. The best way to achieve that is by education people and raise awareness of the water quality impacts, engaging the community as a part of the solution in addition, create an international policies, laws, and regulations meant to protect water resources across the globe.

To sum up, water pollute on have a numerous impacts on human health, economy and other essential living aspects, which resulting in miss balancing. And negatively effects every living depend on water, due to this we should be more responsible to clean and protect the water resources.