Is Water Pollution Inevitable?

In recent years, with rapid growth of global population hitting 7 billion in 2011, and expected to rise to 9 billion in the year 2050. With this, comes the increase in demand for food and water resources. The growing population leads to increased agricultural activities to feed the demands of the population. There has since been a controversy on the severity of the increase in agricultural activities, creating concern on freshwater pollution because these activities are inevitable. On one hand, this is an essential detrimental cycle, so it is inevitable. On the other hand, with the advancement of technology and new ways to prevent water pollution , is pollution really inevitable ? “Agricultural activities" refers to the systematic raising of

Within freshwater ecosystems, cyanobacteria is the most important phytoplankton associated with HABs (Paerl 1988). Toxigenic cyanobacteria, such as Anabaena, tend to have a control over nutrient-rich, freshwater resources due to their superior competitive abilities under high nutrient concentrations, low nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios, low light levels, reduced mixing, and high temperatures (Downing et al. 2001; Paerl & Huisman 2009; Paerl and Paul 2012). There have been poisonings of wildlife, domestic animals and even humans by blooms of toxic cyanobacteria have been documented throughout the world and dated back to Francis' (1878) first observation of dead livestock associated with a bloom of cyanobacteria. The state of water pollution proves the intensity and fast rate of food production, as there have had to be a large amount of fertilisers deposited into the lake, causing the lake to be crowded with blue-green

For example, using biomanipulation to improve water quality in nutrient-rich lakes. Biomanipiulation is the alteration of a food web to restore ecosystem health (Shapiro et al. 1975). The basic proposition is that secondary consumers (planktivorous fishes) are removed either through the addition of tertiary consumers (piscivorous fishes) or harvesting, which allows for the dominance of large-bodied, generalist grazers (e.g., Daphnia) to control phytoplankton. When the population of planktivorous fishes increases and there is no predation refuge (e.g., oxygenated hypolimnion) for large-bodied zooplankton, less efficient small-bodied zooplankton grazers (e.g., rotifers and herbivorous copepods) typically dominate zooplankton communities, thus allowing for the overgrowth of phytoplankton. Various previous studies have proven the strong connection in relation to the size structure of zooplankton communities and phytoplankton abundance. Collected data implies that predatory forces serve important roles in aquatic communities and ecosystems. To add on, biomanipulation on water effects normally lasts for a short period of time. (i.e., weeks to months), most obvious in small, easily-managed systems, and impacted by resource availability, namely phosphorus and nitrogen (Benndorf 1990; Carpenter et al. 1995). EviEM (Mistra Council for Evidence-based Environmental Management) review shows