Introduction:
Water pollution is one of the most irritating problems that are causing nightmares and headaches to scientists around the world. It is commonly known as anything that could affect the water and leads to bad consequences, which prevents society from water benefits. Causes, effects and solutions of water pollution are the main topics that will be covered in this report.
Causes
Industry:
With sufficient thoughts about finding causes for water pollution, it is easy to come up with plenty of causes. However, finding the major causes is more important and these major causes are industry, chemical and municipal. Industrial water pollution is defined as the discharges of the waste material by industrial units, which is known as
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Water pollution can affect many aspects on the earth where seventy percent of it is actually water. These effects can be boiled down into three main categories, on the ocean, the environment and on the health.
Oil spills in the ocean:
Animals living in the water are the species that are mostly affected by oil spills in the ocean. Many of the living species will face extinction on the account of the increase of the oil spills by ingesting them. Every year in the Persian Gulf, oil is annually spilled at a rate of 285 million gallons and 1.3 million barrels per year according to the United Nation Estimates (1, 2). Many species are still fighting for their survival. Sea otters are an example of the animals suffering from oil spills. The otters survive cold weather by having air bubbles in their fur; however, being covered with oil will prevent them from having these air bubbles on their fur, which will eventually lead them to death for not being able to adjust with the weather change. Several reserves are constructed nowadays to save these kinds of species from disappearing permanently (6, 1). Another species that are suffering as well are whales. They use a hole on their top, a blowhole, to help them breath. So by consuming oil, these blowholes are going to get blocked and therefore will stop them from breathing. On the other hand, oil can affect the food of whales. Some fish swim through oil before being fodder to whales, so by swallowing them oil will get into whales’ bodies and harm them badly. Finally, the last most effected species by oil spills are birds. Oil cripples birds’ bodies, which will prevent them from adjusting with the weather change. Also it hinders the flight of them and turns them to an easy target for predators. When birds do peering, cleaning up their feather, they experience altered liver function due
Today otters face other threats. Apart from disease epidemics, otters continue to be threatened by overharvest, interactions with fisheries (e.g. gear entanglements), oil spills and being prey to killer
Fishes don’t swim in oil What happens when you force a fish in oil? it dies. Fishes live in water, not in oil. So as the Lubicon Cree.
In the magazine “The Amazing Penguin Rescue” Lauren Tarshis describes how a normal African penguin experiences the oil spill of June 2000. In the passage the author explains that a cargo ship called “Treasure” hit a reek and the boat split, in result of the wreck 1,300 tons of crude oil spread with in the waters of the African penguin’s largest breeding ground. Impact of the event is immediate effecting all bird, specifically African penguins spreading their feathers allowing the cold ocean waters to take action. The oil did not only affect the feathers of the penguin, the oil pursued to burn eyes and weigh down the penguins from swimming. Thankfully the writing goes on to explain how organizations helped save the penguins, proceeding to clean
Offshore Drilling Every year, in the United States alone, 565 million barrels or oil are extracted as a result of offshore drilling; totaling a startling amount of roughly 1.5 million barrels a day. Consequently, these threatening practices are negatively impacting marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, and fish. Although drilling offshore provides access to expensive resources such as oil, it heavily contributes to the extinction and endangerment of animals, and the disruption of marine ecosystems, thus these practices should be prohibited and viewed as unethical. To begin, new techniques of horizontal drilling allow for even greater amounts of oil to be extracted from a single well, producing problems in infrastructure on land.
The article states that there is a rapid decline in the population of sea otters, the mammals found along the coast of California to Alaska. The article claims that the reason for the declination is because of environmental pollution and provides two reasons of support. However, the speaker refutes that the dwindling is due to predation. First, the reading claims that environmental pollution is the most likely cause because oil rigs found along the coast cause pollution to a greater extent.
Otter populations begin to dwindle every year by the hundreds due to lack of them already. By this time only around 50 otters escaped the slaughtering by moving south to the remote Sur coast. Which they stayed there with populations rising into the thousands and brought down by a poor environment and overhunting to the hundreds once again. But the Monterey Bay Aquarium from 1911 to 2014 is still working on healing the otter population back to the way it was. Southern sea otters were put on the national fur seal treaty for protection and were no longer hunted to the brink of extinction.
Decline in Sea Otter Population During the pacific maritime fur trade in 1969, sea otters were hunted until they were almost extinct. After that incident, sea otter hunting was prohibited by international treaty in 1911, because of this a dozen remnant colonies survived. While the North Pacific Ocean recovered at rates of 17-20% in the first year, the population in California hasn’t grown at more than one-third of that rate and they are currently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Even though the sea otter population in California is declining, the geographic range of the population is expanding to the north as well as the south and its brought sea otters in the south closer to the potential effects of oil and gas development,
Direct conflict with humans,such as shootings and entrapment in fishing traps and nets pase a major threat to marine otters population. The steps to take the Marine Otter off the list are to not have oil spills because a major spill can kill thousands of animals. This recovery plan would take about 9 years. The amount of money it would take would
The oil may be 500 m below the surface, further destroying the environment of wildlife (Tama Muru). In Avatar, companies hire military to extract the unobtanium that lies under the home of the Na’vi, and this procedure would require a similar process as oil sands. As result of these trees being teared down we lose biodiversity. This may not seem like a big issue, but because of animals losing their homes and the cascade effect there will
It can kill and destroy whole ecosystems and kill multiple species of wildlife super fast. Oil leaks could also be very deadly to humans as well. If an oil leak happened in a water stream or supply it could infect our drinking water or have no water for hours or even days. Oil also contaminates food supply like fish and birds. It kills these animals by the animals ingesting or getting covered by oil which leads to organ failure and death.
Water Pollution is a huge environmental problem that has serious effects on marine habitats, animals, and water quality. BP1: The world's marine habitat has been getting worse because of how bad the pollution has gotten. “ Over 80% of marine pollution comes from land based activities “ (source 5 ). This quote explains how most of the water pollution is caused by human activity. “ Plastic litter does not degrade, can be expected to last in the oceans for hundreds of years “ ( source 6 ).
Marine pollution such as presence of organic matter in the ocean can result in the condition known as hypoxia or oxygen depletion and this can have adverse effect on the marine life including plant and animals and fish. Death of these fish can result in loss of millions of US dollars that are generate from the fishing industry. Marine pollution can also result in presence of foul smell resulting from the decomposing sewage being directed to the ocean and this has the effects to hinder recreational activities taking place in the sea as well as cause discomfort and breathing problem to the surrounding population (Laura, 11).marine pollution can also result in danger to human health. The human swimmers and water sport lovers can become endangered by swimming in the polluted marine waters (Laura,
Water pollution is a serious issue as not only is water the most precious natural resource, but all sources of water support life that is very necessary for the survival of the planet. Water pollution destroys life and ecology and such damage is irreparable. Those who are still not serious about water pollution must also remember that the pollutants present in water not only destroy the life in the rivers and oceans, but also affect our food chain. Many people have the wrong notion that since they are not disposing the pollutants in the water they are not to blame. These people forget that 70% of the earth is covered by water, and any activity on the land can wash to the seas and oceans.
LITERATURE REVIEW What is water pollution? As the country is becoming more and more populated, the demands for social services have increased significantly. This has led to an increase of the pollution in many developing towns such as Ga-kgapane. The most disturbing and problematic forms of pollution in Ga-kgapane is the pollution of the natural streams. Water pollution is when there is a build of one or more substances in water to such an extent that it causes problems for animals or plants.
Water is the most important component found on the surface of the earth because it is source of life for living creatures. However, water pollution has become a global concern. Water pollution can have several forms from diverse sources. It is expected that there will be a lack of clean water in next few decades due to pollution. Nile river water in Egypt is the focus of attention of many studies due to many reasons.