Essay On Thermal Pollution

Thermal pollution is the changing or altering the temperature of a natural body of water by either adding water that has been cooled or heated. The water body may be a river, lake stream, pond or oceanic environment. It may also be defined as the heating or cooling of water from a natural source by industrial or anthropogenic activities which is ejected back to the source. This can cause lowering or depletion of oxygen level and is dangerous to the environment especially marine environments.

Thermal pollution is caused by numerous activities including runoff from paved surfaces, water used as cooling agents in factories, soil erosion deforestation. The major sources however are Nuclear power plants, Coal fired plants, Industrial effluents,

The temperature increase or decrease may raise or lessen the metabolic rate of organisms which includes enzyme activities which control the nutrient and gas uptake of the plant, too much enzyme activity ,means that more than is needed is taken up whilst too little means less than is needed. It may lead to species migration or extinction as the species are sometimes not able to adapt to the changes in their thermal conditions. The impacts of warm water thermal discharges can be reduced through the use of cooling ponds, cooling towers and also the use of the heated water in secondary industrial processes or space heating. For Cold water discharges from reservoir bottoms, the mitigation measures are a bit more complex and can be costly. Seasonal variations in the degree of vertical thermal stratification and the timing of water releases can be carried out to minimize cold water differences in the discharge, provided that these releases are consistent with needs for flood control or power generation. In the summer, for example, there may be extremes in formation of cold water layers at the reservoir bottom; such times would be adverse for cold water release impacts