WATER POLLUTION:

• • Addition of certain substances such as organic, inorganic, biological and

radiological to the water, which degrades the water quality and makes it unhealthy
for use.
• • Water pollution is not only confined to surface water but also spread to
groundwater, sea and ocean.

Sources
Point sources: These are directly pointed towards the water bodies from the
source of origin of pollution and are thus easy to regulate.
Non-point sources: These sources are related to many diffuse sources and are thus
difficult to regulate.
Some of the sources are:
• • Industrial and community wastewater: Industries like mining, iron and
steel, pharmaceuticals, food processing, soap and detergent and paper and pulp.
• • Agricultural sources, thermal pollution (discharge of hot water by thermal
power plants cause deficiency of dissolved oxygen in water) and underground
water pollution.
• • Marine pollution: river discharge, manmade pollution and oil spills etc.
Note: ‘Eu’ means healthy and ‘trophy’ means nutrition. The improvement of
nutrients in water bodies causes eutrophication (algal bloom) . Domestic waste
discharge, agricultural waste, land drainage and industrial waste in a water body
leads to a rapid increase in nutrients in a water body which initiates early ageing of
water bodies.
Control measures
• • Usage of water should be minimized by changing the techniques involved.
• • Recycling and treatment of water should be used to the maximum extent
possible.
• • The quantity of discharge of wastewater (effluent) can be minimized.
• • Excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers should be avoided.
• • Organic farming and efficient use of animal residues as fertilizers.
Various Sources of Water Pollution
There are various classifications of water pollution, which are
discussed as follows.

Groundwater Pollution
Groundwater is one of our least visible but most critical natural
resources. With rainfall, it becomes groundwater as it seeps deep into
the earth, filling up cracks, crevices, and porous spaces of an aquifer,
which is an underground storehouse of water. Groundwater is then
pumped to the earth’s surface for drinking water.

Groundwater gets polluted when contaminants such as fertilizers,

pesticides, and waste leaching from landfills and septic systems,
making their way into an aquifer.

Once polluted, an aquifer becomes unsafe for humans and remains

unusable for decades, or even thousands of years. Besides,
groundwater can also spread contamination far from the original
polluting source when it seeps into streams, lakes, and oceans.

Making groundwater free of contaminants can be difficult to

impossible, as well as costly.

Surface Water
Surface water covers about 70 percent of the earth, filling our oceans,
lakes, rivers, and including all blue bits on the world map. Surface
water from freshwater sources other than the sea accounts for more
than 60 percent of the water delivered to our homes.
As per the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S., nearly 50%
of our rivers and streams and over one-third of our lakes are polluted
and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking.

Nutrient pollution that includes nitrates and phosphates, which plants

and animals need to grow, causes major pollution in the freshwater
sources due to farm waste and fertilizer runoff. Municipal and
industrial waste discharges and also individuals’ dumping directly into
waterways contribute their fair share of toxins.

Ocean Water
Eighty percent of ocean pollution or marine pollution originates on
land along the coast or far inland. Streams and rivers carry
contaminants such as chemicals, nutrients, and heavy metals that are
carried from farms, factories, and cities into our bays and estuaries,
and from there, they reach the ocean.

Marine debris, particularly plastic, is blown away by the wind or

washed away in storm via drains and sewers. Our seas sometimes get
polluted by big and small oil spills and leaks and are also soaking up
carbon pollution from the air. The ocean absorbs a quarter of human-
made carbon emissions.

Point Source
When contamination occurs from a single source, it’s called point
source pollution. Though this pollution originates from a specific
place, it can affect miles of waterways and ocean.

Point sources include wastewater, which is known as effluent, legally

or illegally discharged from a manufacturing unit, oil refinery, or
wastewater treatment facility.
It can be from leaking septic systems, chemical and oil spills, and also
illegal dumping. The EPA has set limits on what can be discharged by
a facility directly into a body of water to regulate point
source pollution.

Nonpoint Source
Nonpoint source pollution is contamination derived from multiple or
diffused sources. These may include contaminated water traveled after
rains, agricultural or stormwater runoff, or debris blown into
waterways from the land.

Nonpoint source pollution is considered as the leading cause of water

pollution, but it’s challenging to regulate since there’s no identifiable
source to blame.

Transboundary
A boundary line cannot contain water pollution on a map.
Transboundary pollution happened when contaminated water from
one country spilled into other countries’ waters. It can result from a
disaster like an oil spill or the slow, downriver creep of industrial,
agricultural, or municipal discharge.

Various Causes of Water Pollution

1. Industrial Waste
Industries produce a tremendous amount of waste, which contains
toxic chemicals and pollutants, causing air pollution and damage to
our environment and us. They contain harmful chemicals, including
lead, mercury, sulfur, nitrates, asbestos, and many others.
Many industries, not having a proper waste management system, drain
the waste in the freshwater, which goes into canals, rivers, and later
into the sea.

The toxic chemicals may change the color of water, increase the
number of minerals, called eutrophication, change the temperature of
the water, and pose a severe hazard to water organisms.

2. Sewage and Wastewater

The sewage and wastewater that is produced in each household are
treated chemically and released into the sea along with fresh water.
The sewage water carries pathogens, a typical water pollutant, other
harmful bacterias, and chemicals that can cause serious health
problems and thereby diseases.

Microorganisms in water are known to cause some of the very deadly

diseases and become the breeding grounds for creatures that act as
carriers. These carriers inflict these diseases onto an individual via
various forms of contact. A typical example would be Malaria.

3. Mining Activities
Mining is the process of crushing the rock and extracting coal and
other minerals from the underground. These elements, when extracted
in the raw form, contain harmful chemicals and can increase the
number of toxic elements when mixed up with water, which may
result in health problems. Mining activities emit a large amount of
metal waste and sulfides from the rocks, which is harmful to the
water.

4. Marine Dumping
The garbage produced by households in the form of paper, plastic,
food, aluminum, rubber, glass, is collected and dumped into the sea in
some countries. These items take 2 weeks to 200 years to decompose.

When such things enter the sea, they not only cause water pollution
but also harm animals in the sea.

5. Accidental Oil Leakage

Oil spill poses a huge threat to marine life when a large amount of oil
spills into the sea and does not dissolve in water. It causes problems
for local marine wildlife, including fish, birds, and sea otters.

A ship carrying a large quantity of oil may spill oil if met with an
accident. Such an oil spill can cause varying damage to species in the
ocean, depending on the amount of oil spill, the toxicity of pollutants,
and the size of the ocean.

6. The burning of fossil fuels

Fossil fuels like coal and oil, when burnt, produce a substantial
amount of ash in the atmosphere. The particles which contain toxic
chemicals when mixed with water vapor result in acid rain. Also,
carbon dioxide is released from the burning of fossil fuels, which
results in global warming.

7. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides

Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used by farmers to protect
crops from insects and bacterias. They are useful for the plant’s
growth. However, when these chemicals are mixed up with water,
they produce harmful pollutants for plants and animals.
Also, when it rains, the chemicals mix up with rainwater and flow
down into rivers and canals, which pose serious damages for aquatic
animals.

8. Leakage From Sewer Lines

A small leakage from the sewer lines can contaminate the
underground water and make it unfit for the people to drink. Also,
when not repaired on time, the leaking water can come on to the
surface and become a breeding ground for insects and mosquitoes.

9. Global Warming
An increase in the earth’s temperature results in global warming due
to the greenhouse effect. It increases the water temperature and results
in the death of aquatic animals and marine species, which later results
in water pollution.

10. Radioactive Waste

Nuclear energy is produced using nuclear fission or fusion. The
element that is used in the production of nuclear energy is Uranium,
which is a highly toxic chemical.

The nuclear waste that is produced by radioactive material needs to be

disposed of to prevent any nuclear accident. Nuclear waste can have
serious environmental hazards if not disposed of properly. Few major
accidents have already taken place in Russia and Japan.

11. Urban Development

As the population has grown exponentially, so has the demand for
housing, food, and cloth. As more cities and towns are developed, they
have resulted in increasing use of fertilizers to produce more food, soil
erosion due to deforestation, rise in construction activities, inadequate
sewer collection and treatment, landfills as more garbage is produced,
increase in chemicals from industries to produce more materials.

12. Leakage From the Landfills

Landfills are nothing but a massive pile of garbage that produces the
awful smell and can be seen across the city. When it rains, the landfills
may leak, and the leaking landfills can pollute the underground water
with a large variety of contaminants.

13. Animal Waste

The waste produced by animals washed away into the rivers when it
rains. It then gets mixed up with other harmful chemicals and causes
various water-borne diseases like cholera, diarrhea, dysentery,
jaundice, and typhoid.

14. Underground Storage Leakage

Transportation of coal and other petroleum products through
underground pipes is well known. Accidental leakage may happen
anytime and may cause damage to the environment and result in soil
erosion.

15. Eutrophication
The increased level of nutrients in water bodies is known as
Eutrophication. It results in the bloom of algae in the water. It also
depletes the amount of oxygen in the water that negatively affects fish
and other aquatic animal populations.

16. Acid Rain

Acid rain is essentially water pollution caused by air pollution. When
the acidic particles released in the atmosphere by air pollution mix
with water vapor, it results in acid rain.

Effects
• • An excessive amount of methyl mercury in water can cause Minamata
disease in humans and dropsy in fishes;
• Lead in large amount can cause dyslexia (CNS)
• Cadmium poisoning causes Itai – Itai disease etc.
• Arsenic- Black Foot Disease
• • Polluted water has less amount of Dissolved oxygen (DO) 8mg/l content
which is important for sensitive organisms, thereby eliminates sensitive organisms.
• • Excess of nitrate in drinking water (methemoglobinemia/blue baby
syndrome) is dangerous for infants and human health, excess fluoride cause
neuromuscular disorder and teeth deformity, hardening of bones and painful joints.
• • Biological magnification and eutrophication (algal bloom).

What Are the Effects of Water Pollution?

On human health- Read Diseases (water borne and water induced)

On the environment

In order to thrive, healthy ecosystems rely on a complex web of animals, plants,

bacteria, and fungi—all of which interact, directly or indirectly, with each other. Harm
to any of these organisms can create a chain effect, imperiling entire aquatic
environments.

When water pollution causes an algal bloom in a lake or marine environment, the
proliferation of newly introduced nutrients stimulates plant and algae growth, which
in turn reduces oxygen levels in the water. This dearth of oxygen, known
as eutrophication, suffocates plants and animals and can create “dead zones,” where
waters are essentially devoid of life. In certain cases, these harmful algal blooms can
also produce neurotoxins that affect wildlife, from whales to sea turtles.
Chemicals and heavy metals from industrial and municipal wastewater contaminate
waterways as well. These contaminants are toxic to aquatic life—most often reducing
an organism’s life span and ability to reproduce—and make their way up the food
chain as predator eats prey. That’s how tuna and other big fish accumulate high
quantities of toxins, such as mercury.

Marine ecosystems are also threatened by marine debris, which can strangle,
suffocate, and starve animals. Much of this solid debris, such as plastic bags and soda
cans, gets swept into sewers and storm drains and eventually out to sea, turning our
oceans into trash soup and sometimes consolidating to form floating garbage patches.
Discarded fishing gear and other types of debris are responsible for harming more
than 200 different species of marine life.

Meanwhile, ocean acidification is making it tougher for shellfish and coral to survive.
Though they absorb about a quarter of the carbon pollution created each year by
burning fossil fuels, oceans are becoming more acidic. This process makes it harder
for shellfish and other species to build shells and may impact the nervous systems of
sharks, clownfish, and other marine life.