The biggest concern for humankind lies with the pollution in the form of water, soil, and air. The garbage from home, leftover fertilizer, and crops from agriculture, raw materials used by industries are significant forms of water pollution. Water pollution includes rivers, the ocean where industries and human by-products are releases at a massive scale. Water pollution affects the quality of life from planting a tree to the reproduction system in females. The following are major water pollution causes and effects.
Human development relational to water deficit:
Construction of home, buildings, hotels, restaurants, and commercial shopping are significant reasons for water pollution. Higher demand for water in industrial society impacts the quality of water. Due to this, many people look forward to a shorter and quicker way of getting water. Many companies and illegal contractors tend to distribute unfiltered water for higher profits. It is practically impossible to monitor each pipeline due to which much outside dirt and chemicals get mixed in the water while transporting from source to destination.
Nuclear accidents:
April 1986, the world witnessed the most dangerous nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, where two atomic reactors accidentally exploded. Such accidents led to the contamination of radioactive particles in the air, soil, and water. Thousands of people died, and many were permanently injured or physically handicapped later from the aftermath of the catastrophe. Contamination of nuclear radioactive chemicals is the most detrimental effect of water pollution, and it cannot be repaired or filtered.
Diseases due to abundant contaminated water:
Dengue, diarrhea, malaria, jaundice are common disease occurs due to unclean water. There are drugs and medicines are available. However, these lethal diseases get detects at the final stage. Final stage detections causing deaths — contaminated disease significant effects of water pollution in the world.
Detrimental Deforestation:
Construction development leads to cutting big trees and a higher application for minerals. Many parts in developing nations like India and Brazil rely heavily on coal for energy needs in industrial and non-urban areas. Higher demand for the house in highly dense cities like Mumbai requires deforesting large size of the area to address the housing needs of the citizens. Vegetation is strip across lands and results in floods.
Artificial Dams for famine areas:
Although artificial dams help to store water, however, a lot of heavy chemical residue from the rain gets precipitated at the bottom of the dam. Since dams are filled only during Monsoon and wet seasons, these chemicals rust the surface bed and disturb the balance of good bacteria present in the water.
Energy needs and water insufficiency:
Africa requires over 1000 Gigawatts of energy and cannot fill with a single power source. Coal, gas, oil, and many forms of energy source are necessary to fulfill the daily demand for energy. The aforementioned lead to regular cleaning work and requires water in various chemical types. A multitude of chemicals is mixed with water to maintain equipment, and eventually, it leads to pollution of water.
Natural disasters leading to undersupply of water:
Hurricanes, Tsunami, Floods, Tornadoes are significant disasters that bring billions of gallons of water inside the land, completely swamping the whole coastal lifeline. It required a colossal amount of collaborative efforts and an excessive amount of cost to clean the affected areas.
Marine pollution due to Shipping Vessels and Fishing:
Large shipping vessels and Ocean fish striping, Oil tanker spillage release a lot of oil into the ocean. It makes a substantial impact on sea life; most of the time, the entire sea area is wiped off.
Water pollution due to various accidents:
Every year we encounter some air accidents happen over oceans. Passenger bags and cargo materials containing huge shipments spill into seas. These are items that are difficult to trace and track baggage.
Acid rains and sparse freshwater:
The industries release any chemicals into the air when making production. This air contains tiny harmful chemical particles that are light in weight, and they get mixed into the rain. China is a major affected country of acid rain where over 1 million people get affected due to acid rain every year.
Drought because of Plastic Pollution:
The standard type of plastic that we use in our day to day life is not recyclable. It is cheap and available very quickly, despite many government rules and policies. They choke up the inlet and outlet of rivers, ocean, and lake when released into the water. Plastic pollution is a significant cause of water pollution.
The crunch of Water due to Human Waste:
The countries in Africa and Asia regions lack basic amenities like toilets and lavatories. People in such areas are not comfortable with bathrooms, and they like to potty on open ground majorly across shallow river edges. Uncleaned toilets increase dengue, malaria, which are the primary reasons for mortality due to diseases across the world.
Poverty due to Lack of programs and Education:
There is a need to make awareness of the implication of water pollution causes and effects. Unfortunately, in some countries, very little priority is given to water problems. The unstable government also makes it challenging to manage and track the water issues on priority. To make a water pollution-free world, we need systematic identification, prevention, and management of water.
Freshwater shortage due to Air pollution and Greenhouse gases:
The primary greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. They are lightweight due to which they do not fall on the ground but rather go up into the atmosphere. These gases then absorb the sunlight and emit the radiated energy. This energy is harmful to human life and the ecosystem. Australia has the biggest ozone layer hole in the world, where there are the highest number of cancer patients across the globe majorly skin cancer cases.
Water Scarce Agriculture:
A large number of agriculture crops die due to polluted water. Cattle are an integral part of agriculture-based countries. In Monsoon, many animals are affected by foot diseases due to unclean water, which leads to inevitable deaths if not cured immediately. Pure rainwater is a must for the harvesting of crops, and it is challenging to install cost-effective water purification monitoring and systems at every village and town.
Newborn babies and Pregnant mothers: Newborn babies need mother’s milk for an initial six months. However, if mothers are drinking safe water, then it impacts the health of babies as well. If not cured on time, then cases of physical deformity, malnutrition, and even death in some cases have been seen in many places.
Water dearth from Illegal Immigration:
The migration of people from a war zone or disaster-affected country has much demand for water daily, almost 20 liters per day per person. Addressing this need is a challenge, but also to maintain the quality issues are a bigger problem for NGOs. Maintaining sanity across refugee camps requires tremendous human efforts, and such colonies are susceptible to water containing now and then.
Water shortage due to Lack of technology and Testing labs:
The countries like the United States of America have the latest technology equipped instruments where water contamination is detected quickly. However, developing nations like Indonesia still lack the newest technology to filter water at the desired level. We observe the outbreak of diseases in such regions due to the lack of the latest technology and tools.
Water Stress Due To Fertilizers:
A lot of fertilizer residue gets dissolved in water and then absorbed into soil. This contaminated water gets precipitated in the underground aquifers. Fertilizer affects the water aquifers, which are a natural supply of underground water use for agriculture purposes.
Water deficient due to Pesticides:
The pesticide is used to control the rapid growth of unwanted bugs and insects in town, urban, and forest areas. They are randomly sprinkled over trees, plants, and places like gutters and gardens and pollutes water resources. There is no cost-effective wat to identify such contamination on a large scale.
Aquaculture:
Aquaculture pollution is a particular type of water pollution. Aquaculture is expanding at an exponential rate in many developed and developing countries — an abundant amount of fish food and seeds releases into rivers, artificial lakes, and never clean. As a result of this, it gets saturated at the bottom of the surface.
Glacier and Ice melting:
A lot of lethal chemicals release into the air due to which it affected the ozone layer of the earth. Chemicals lead to the melting of ice at the glaciers of the arctic and Antarctica circle. As per NASA’s estimates, around 10 trillion tons of ice has melted in the last decades. NASA estimates that it will continuously melt at an exponential level leading to flooding and other natural disasters. Calamities can be controlled only by adopting renewable energy sources and the following climate change policies.
Water contamination and pollution is a severe issue. It needs collaborative work efforts across the globe. The world leaders need to make policies and programs to avoid conflict between the accessibility of water and engage in a multitude of ways to systematically build systems and applications to prevent water pollution. Citizens have to understand that regardless of living space, they should follow clean hygiene standards. When they are traveling, living abroad, or doing casual works, water contamination prevention is a must.