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Nonpoint source

Nonpoint source pollution is the leading cause of water pollution in the U.S., stemming from diffuse sources like agricultural runoff, making it difficult to regulate. Water pollution also crosses borders, with transboundary pollution affecting international waters, and it can impact both groundwater and surface water, which are essential for drinking and ecosystem health. The effects of water pollution on human health are severe, causing millions of illnesses and deaths, particularly affecting low-income communities near polluting industries.

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6 views

Nonpoint source

Nonpoint source pollution is the leading cause of water pollution in the U.S., stemming from diffuse sources like agricultural runoff, making it difficult to regulate. Water pollution also crosses borders, with transboundary pollution affecting international waters, and it can impact both groundwater and surface water, which are essential for drinking and ecosystem health. The effects of water pollution on human health are severe, causing millions of illnesses and deaths, particularly affecting low-income communities near polluting industries.

Uploaded by

akgroupislamabad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Nonpoint source

Nonpoint source pollution is contamination derived from diffuse sources.


These may include agricultural or stormwater runoff or debris blown into
waterways from land. Nonpoint source pollution is the leading cause of
water pollution in U.S. waters, but it’s difficult to regulate, since there’s no
single, identifiable culprit.

Transboundary

It goes without saying that water pollution can’t be contained by a line on a


map. Transboundary pollution is the result of contaminated water from one
country spilling into the waters of another. Contamination can result from a
disaster—like an oil spill—or the slow, downriver creep of industrial,
agricultural, or municipal discharge.

What type of water is being impacted?


Groundwater pollution

When rain falls and seeps deep into the earth, filling the cracks, crevices,
and porous spaces of an aquifer (basically an underground storehouse of
water), it becomes groundwater—one of our least visible but most
important natural resources. Nearly 40 percent of Americans rely on
groundwater, pumped to the earth’s surface, for drinking water. For some
folks in rural areas, it’s their only freshwater source. Groundwater gets
polluted when contaminants—from pesticides and fertilizers to waste
leached from landfills and septic systems—make their way into an aquifer,
rendering it unsafe for human use. Ridding groundwater of contaminants
can be difficult to impossible, as well as costly. Once polluted, an aquifer
may be unusable for decades, or even thousands of years. Groundwater
can also spread contamination far from the original polluting source as it
seeps into streams, lakes, and oceans.

Surface water pollution

Covering about 70 percent of the earth, surface water is what fills our
oceans, lakes, rivers, and all those other blue bits on the world map.
Surface water from freshwater sources (that is, from sources other than the
ocean) accounts for more than 60 percent of the water delivered to
American homes. But a significant pool of that water is in peril. According
to the most recent surveys on national water quality from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, nearly half of our rivers and streams and
more than one-third of our lakes are polluted and unfit for swimming,
fishing, and drinking. Nutrient pollution, which includes nitrates and
phosphates, is the leading type of contamination in these freshwater
sources. While plants and animals need these nutrients to grow, they have
become a major pollutant due to farm waste and fertilizer runoff. Municipal
and industrial waste discharges contribute their fair share of toxins as well.
There’s also all the random junk that industry and individuals dump directly
into waterways.

Ocean water pollution

Eighty percent of ocean pollution (also called marine pollution) originates


on land—whether along the coast or far inland. Contaminants such as
chemicals, nutrients, and heavy metals are carried from farms, factories,
and cities by streams and rivers into our bays and estuaries; from there they
travel out to sea. Meanwhile, marine debris—particularly plastic—is blown in
by the wind or washed in via storm drains and sewers. Our seas are also
sometimes spoiled by oil spills and leaks—big and small—and are
consistently soaking up carbon pollution from the air. The ocean absorbs as
much as a quarter of man-made carbon emissions.

What are the effects of water pollution?


On human health

To put it bluntly: Water pollution kills. In fact, it caused 1.8 million deaths in
2015, according to a study published in The Lancet. Contaminated water
can also make you ill. Every year, unsafe water sickens about 1 billion
people. And low-income communities are disproportionately at risk
because their homes are often closest to the most polluting industries.

Waterborne pathogens, in the form of disease-causing bacteria and viruses


from human and animal waste, are a major cause of illness
from contaminated drinking water. Diseases spread by unsafe water
include cholera, giardia, and typhoid. Even in wealthy nations, accidental or
illegal releases from sewage treatment facilities, as well as runoff from
farms and urban areas, contribute harmful pathogens to waterways.
Thousands of people across the United States are sickened every year by
Legionnaires’ disease (a severe form of pneumonia contracted from water
sources like cooling towers and piped water), with cases cropping up from
California’s Disneyland to Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

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