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Free Water Pollution PPT Template and Google slides

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Today one of the most pressing environmental concerns is water pollution. Download this water pollution ppt template and outline your thoughts on water pollution and what can you do to prevent it.

Today water pollution, Air Pollution is becoming a serious concern. Our Free Water Pollution PowerPoint Template features a thoughtfully crafted blend of eye-catching visuals, data-driven charts, and easy-to-read text. With a color scheme that evokes the tranquillity of clean waters and the urgency to protect them, this template sets the stage for impactful storytelling.

Key Features of this free Water Pollution Presentation template:

• Stunning Visuals: From polluted water bodies to images of eco-friendly practices, this PPT on water pollutions provides you wide range of high-quality visuals to support your message.
• Clear and Concise Text: The template’s text sections are formatted for maximum readability, making it easy to create informative content without overwhelming your audience.
• Environmental Icons: Included icons help in reinforcing environmental themes and are easily customizable.
• Section Breaks: Well-structured section breaks allows you to organize your presentation seamlessly, ensuring your content flows naturally.
• Editable and Customizable: The template is fully customizable, so you can tailor it to your specific needs, whether you’re a student, researcher, educator, or environmental advocate.

According to recent research conducted by Environment Protection Agency (EPA), water in many nations’ rivers and lakes and the reservoir is far from pure. Plus, the quality of the water tested is far from pure.

Water pollution is a massive global problem. Every year, millions of pollutants are dumped into our oceans, lakes, and rivers. This contamination can cause serious health problems for both people and wildlife. Thankfully, there are ways to help prevent water pollution from happening. With this water pollution PowerPoint presentation slide , educate your audience and make them understand the causes and essential steps to be taken to reduce the impact.

Water pollution can have a devastating impact on aquatic life and the environment. But together we can protect our waters and preserve our planet! So, what you are waiting for is to get this presentation on water pollution and create awareness in society for preserving the environment.

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What is water pollution?

What are the causes of water pollution, categories of water pollution, what are the effects of water pollution, what can you do to prevent water pollution.

Water pollution occurs when harmful substances—often chemicals or microorganisms—contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water, degrading water quality and rendering it toxic to humans or the environment.

This widespread problem of water pollution is jeopardizing our health. Unsafe water kills more people each year than war and all other forms of violence combined. Meanwhile, our drinkable water sources are finite: Less than 1 percent of the earth’s freshwater is actually accessible to us. Without action, the challenges will only increase by 2050, when global demand for freshwater is expected to be one-third greater than it is now.

Water is uniquely vulnerable to pollution. Known as a “universal solvent,” water is able to dissolve more substances than any other liquid on earth. It’s the reason we have Kool-Aid and brilliant blue waterfalls. It’s also why water is so easily polluted. Toxic substances from farms, towns, and factories readily dissolve into and mix with it, causing water pollution.

Here are some of the major sources of water pollution worldwide:

Agricultural

Toxic green algae in Copco Reservoir, northern California

Aurora Photos/Alamy

Not only is the agricultural sector the biggest consumer of global freshwater resources, with farming and livestock production using about 70 percent of the earth’s surface water supplies , but it’s also a serious water polluter. Around the world, agriculture is the leading cause of water degradation. In the United States, agricultural pollution is the top source of contamination in rivers and streams, the second-biggest source in wetlands, and the third main source in lakes. It’s also a major contributor of contamination to estuaries and groundwater. Every time it rains, fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste from farms and livestock operations wash nutrients and pathogens—such bacteria and viruses—into our waterways. Nutrient pollution , caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in water or air, is the number-one threat to water quality worldwide and can cause algal blooms , a toxic soup of blue-green algae that can be harmful to people and wildlife.

Sewage and wastewater

Used water is wastewater. It comes from our sinks, showers, and toilets (think sewage) and from commercial, industrial, and agricultural activities (think metals, solvents, and toxic sludge). The term also includes stormwater runoff , which occurs when rainfall carries road salts, oil, grease, chemicals, and debris from impermeable surfaces into our waterways

More than 80 percent of the world’s wastewater flows back into the environment without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations; in some least-developed countries, the figure tops 95 percent. In the United States, wastewater treatment facilities process about 34 billion gallons of wastewater per day . These facilities reduce the amount of pollutants such as pathogens, phosphorus, and nitrogen in sewage, as well as heavy metals and toxic chemicals in industrial waste, before discharging the treated waters back into waterways. That’s when all goes well. But according to EPA estimates, our nation’s aging and easily overwhelmed sewage treatment systems also release more than 850 billion gallons of untreated wastewater each year.

Oil pollution

Big spills may dominate headlines, but consumers account for the vast majority of oil pollution in our seas, including oil and gasoline that drips from millions of cars and trucks every day. Moreover, nearly half of the estimated 1 million tons of oil that makes its way into marine environments each year comes not from tanker spills but from land-based sources such as factories, farms, and cities. At sea, tanker spills account for about 10 percent of the oil in waters around the world, while regular operations of the shipping industry—through both legal and illegal discharges—contribute about one-third. Oil is also naturally released from under the ocean floor through fractures known as seeps.

Radioactive substances

Radioactive waste is any pollution that emits radiation beyond what is naturally released by the environment. It’s generated by uranium mining, nuclear power plants, and the production and testing of military weapons, as well as by universities and hospitals that use radioactive materials for research and medicine. Radioactive waste can persist in the environment for thousands of years, making disposal a major challenge. Consider the decommissioned Hanford nuclear weapons production site in Washington, where the cleanup of 56 million gallons of radioactive waste is expected to cost more than $100 billion and last through 2060. Accidentally released or improperly disposed of contaminants threaten groundwater, surface water, and marine resources.

To address pollution and protect water we need to understand where the pollution is coming from (point source or nonpoint source) and the type of water body its impacting (groundwater, surface water, or ocean water).

Where is the pollution coming from?

Point source pollution.

When contamination originates from a single source, it’s called point source pollution. Examples include wastewater (also called effluent) discharged legally or illegally by a manufacturer, oil refinery, or wastewater treatment facility, as well as contamination from leaking septic systems, chemical and oil spills, and illegal dumping. The EPA regulates point source pollution by establishing limits on what can be discharged by a facility directly into a body of water. While point source pollution originates from a specific place, it can affect miles of waterways and ocean.

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 .

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.

A woman using bottled water to wash her three-week-old son at their home in Flint, Michigan

Todd McInturf/The Detroit News/AP

Meanwhile, the plight of residents in Flint, Michigan —where cost-cutting measures and aging water infrastructure created a lead contamination crisis—offers a stark look at how dangerous chemical and other industrial pollutants in our water can be. The problem goes far beyond Flint and involves much more than lead, as a wide range of chemical pollutants—from heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury to pesticides and nitrate fertilizers —are getting into our water supplies. Once they’re ingested, these toxins can cause a host of health issues, from cancer to hormone disruption to altered brain function. Children and pregnant women are particularly at risk.

Even swimming can pose a risk. Every year, 3.5 million Americans contract health issues such as skin rashes, pinkeye, respiratory infections, and hepatitis from sewage-laden coastal waters, according to EPA estimates.

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.

With your actions

We’re all accountable to some degree for today’s water pollution problem. Fortunately, there are some simple ways you can prevent water contamination or at least limit your contribution to it:

• Learn about the unique qualities of water where you live . Where does your water come from? Is the wastewater from your home treated? Where does stormwater flow to? Is your area in a drought? Start building a picture of the situation so you can discover where your actions will have the most impact—and see if your neighbors would be interested in joining in!
• Reduce your plastic consumption and reuse or recycle plastic when you can.
• Properly dispose of chemical cleaners, oils, and nonbiodegradable items to keep them from going down the drain.
• Maintain your car so it doesn’t leak oil, antifreeze, or coolant.
• If you have a yard, consider landscaping that reduces runoff and avoid applying pesticides and herbicides .
• Don’t flush your old medications! Dispose of them in the trash to prevent them from entering local waterways.
• Be mindful of anything you pour into storm sewers, since that waste often won’t be treated before being released into local waterways. If you notice a storm sewer blocked by litter, clean it up to keep that trash out of the water. (You’ll also help prevent troublesome street floods in a heavy storm.)
• If you have a pup, be sure to pick up its poop .

With your voice

One of the most effective ways to stand up for our waters is to speak out in support of the Clean Water Act, which has helped hold polluters accountable for five decades—despite attempts by destructive industries to gut its authority. But we also need regulations that keep pace with modern-day challenges, including microplastics, PFAS , pharmaceuticals, and other contaminants our wastewater treatment plants weren’t built to handle, not to mention polluted water that’s dumped untreated.

Tell the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and your local elected officials that you support water protections and investments in infrastructure, like wastewater treatment, lead-pipe removal programs, and stormwater-abating green infrastructure. Also, learn how you and those around you can get involved in the policymaking process . Our public waterways serve every one of us. We should all have a say in how they’re protected.

This story was originally published on May 14, 2018, and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

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Water pollution: an introduction

by Chris Woodford . Last updated: October 1, 2023.

O ver two thirds of Earth's surface is covered by water ; less than a third is taken up by land. As Earth's population continues to grow, people are putting ever-increasing pressure on the planet's water resources. In a sense, our oceans, rivers , and other inland waters are being "squeezed" by human activities—not so they take up less room, but so their quality is reduced. Poorer water quality means water pollution .

We know that pollution is a human problem because it is a relatively recent development in the planet's history: before the 19th century Industrial Revolution, people lived more in harmony with their immediate environment. As industrialization has spread around the globe, so the problem of pollution has spread with it. When Earth's population was much smaller, no one believed pollution would ever present a serious problem. It was once popularly believed that the oceans were far too big to pollute. Today, with around 7 billion people on the planet, it has become apparent that there are limits. Pollution is one of the signs that humans have exceeded those limits.

Photo: Stormwater pollution entering a river from a drain. Photo by Peter C Van Metre courtesy of US Geological Survey .

What is water pollution?

Water pollution can be defined in many ways. Usually, it means one or more substances have built up in water to such an extent that they cause problems for animals or people. Oceans, lakes, rivers, and other inland waters can naturally clean up a certain amount of pollution by dispersing it harmlessly. If you poured a cup of black ink into a river, the ink would quickly disappear into the river's much larger volume of clean water. The ink would still be there in the river, but in such a low concentration that you would not be able to see it. At such low levels, the chemicals in the ink probably would not present any real problem. However, if you poured gallons of ink into a river every few seconds through a pipe, the river would quickly turn black. The chemicals in the ink could very quickly have an effect on the quality of the water. This, in turn, could affect the health of all the plants, animals, and humans whose lives depend on the river.

Photo: Pollution means adding substances to the environment that don't belong there—like the air pollution from this smokestack. Pollution is not always as obvious as this, however.

Thus, water pollution is all about quantities : how much of a polluting substance is released and how big a volume of water it is released into. A small quantity of a toxic chemical may have little impact if it is spilled into the ocean from a ship. But the same amount of the same chemical can have a much bigger impact pumped into a lake or river, where there is less clean water to disperse it.

"The introduction by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the marine environment (including estuaries) resulting in such deleterious effects as harm to living resources, hazards to human health, hindrance to marine activities, including fishing, impairment of quality for use of sea water and reduction of amenities." [1]

What are the main types of water pollution?

When we think of Earth's water resources, we think of huge oceans, lakes, and rivers. Water resources like these are called surface waters . The most obvious type of water pollution affects surface waters. For example, a spill from an oil tanker creates an oil slick that can affect a vast area of the ocean.

Photo: Detergent pollution entering a river—an example of surface water pollution. Photo courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife Service Photo Library.

Not all of Earth's water sits on its surface, however. A great deal of water is held in underground rock structures known as aquifers, which we cannot see and seldom think about. Water stored underground in aquifers is known as groundwater . Aquifers feed our rivers and supply much of our drinking water. They too can become polluted, for example, when weed killers used in people's gardens drain into the ground. Groundwater pollution is much less obvious than surface-water pollution, but is no less of a problem. In 1996, a study in Iowa in the United States found that over half the state's groundwater wells were contaminated with weed killers. You might think things would have improved since then, but, two decades on, all that's really changed is the name of the chemicals we're using. Today, numerous scientific studies are still finding weed killers in groundwater in worrying quantities: a 2012 study discovered glyphosate in 41 percent of 140 groundwater samples from Catalonia, Spain; scientific opinion differs on whether this is safe or not. [2]

Surface waters and groundwater are the two types of water resources that pollution affects. There are also two different ways in which pollution can occur. If pollution comes from a single location, such as a discharge pipe attached to a factory, it is known as point-source pollution . Other examples of point source pollution include an oil spill from a tanker, a discharge from a smoke stack (factory chimney), or someone pouring oil from their car down a drain. A great deal of water pollution happens not from one single source but from many different scattered sources. This is called nonpoint-source pollution .

When point-source pollution enters the environment, the place most affected is usually the area immediately around the source. For example, when a tanker accident occurs, the oil slick is concentrated around the tanker itself and, in the right ocean conditions, the pollution disperses the further away from the tanker you go. This is less likely to happen with nonpoint source pollution which, by definition, enters the environment from many different places at once.

Sometimes pollution that enters the environment in one place has an effect hundreds or even thousands of miles away. This is known as transboundary pollution . One example is the way radioactive waste travels through the oceans from nuclear reprocessing plants in England and France to nearby countries such as Ireland and Norway.

How do we know when water is polluted?

Some forms of water pollution are very obvious: everyone has seen TV news footage of oil slicks filmed from helicopters flying overhead. Water pollution is usually less obvious and much harder to detect than this. But how can we measure water pollution when we cannot see it? How do we even know it's there?

There are two main ways of measuring the quality of water. One is to take samples of the water and measure the concentrations of different chemicals that it contains. If the chemicals are dangerous or the concentrations are too great, we can regard the water as polluted. Measurements like this are known as chemical indicators of water quality. Another way to measure water quality involves examining the fish, insects, and other invertebrates that the water will support. If many different types of creatures can live in a river, the quality is likely to be very good; if the river supports no fish life at all, the quality is obviously much poorer. Measurements like this are called biological indicators of water quality.

What are the causes of water pollution?

Most water pollution doesn't begin in the water itself. Take the oceans: around 80 percent of ocean pollution enters our seas from the land. [16] Virtually any human activity can have an effect on the quality of our water environment. When farmers fertilize the fields, the chemicals they use are gradually washed by rain into the groundwater or surface waters nearby. Sometimes the causes of water pollution are quite surprising. Chemicals released by smokestacks (chimneys) can enter the atmosphere and then fall back to earth as rain, entering seas, rivers, and lakes and causing water pollution. That's called atmospheric deposition . Water pollution has many different causes and this is one of the reasons why it is such a difficult problem to solve.

With billions of people on the planet, disposing of sewage waste is a major problem. According to 2017 figures from the World Health Organization, some 2 billion people (about a quarter of the world's population) don't have access to safe drinking water or the most basic sanitation, 3.4 billion (60 people of the population) lack "safely managed" sanitation (unshared, with waste properly treated). Although there have been great improvements in securing access to clean water, relatively little, genuine progress has been made on improving global sanitation in the last decade. [20] Sewage disposal affects people's immediate environments and leads to water-related illnesses such as diarrhea that kills 525,000 children under five each year. [3] (Back in 2002, the World Health Organization estimated that water-related diseases could kill as many as 135 million people by 2020; in 2019, the WHO was still estimating the annual death toll from poor water and sanitation at over 800,000 people a year.) In developed countries, most people have flush toilets that take sewage waste quickly and hygienically away from their homes.

Yet the problem of sewage disposal does not end there. When you flush the toilet, the waste has to go somewhere and, even after it leaves the sewage treatment works, there is still waste to dispose of. Sometimes sewage waste is pumped untreated into the sea. Until the early 1990s, around 5 million tons of sewage was dumped by barge from New York City each year. [4] According to 2002 figures from the UK government's Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the sewers of Britain collect around 11 billion liters of waste water every day; there are still 31,000 sewage overflow pipes through which, in certain circumstances, such as heavy storms, raw sewage is pumped untreated into the sea. [5] The New River that crosses the border from Mexico into California once carried with it 20–25 million gallons (76–95 million liters) of raw sewage each day; a new waste water plant on the US-Mexico border, completed in 2007, substantially solved that problem. [6] Unfortunately, even in some of the richest nations, the practice of dumping sewage into the sea continues. In early 2012, it was reported that the tiny island of Guernsey (between Britain and France) has decided to continue dumping 16,000 tons of raw sewage into the sea each day.

In theory, sewage is a completely natural substance that should be broken down harmlessly in the environment: 90 percent of sewage is water. [7] In practice, sewage contains all kinds of other chemicals, from the pharmaceutical drugs people take to the paper , plastic , and other wastes they flush down their toilets. When people are sick with viruses, the sewage they produce carries those viruses into the environment. It is possible to catch illnesses such as hepatitis, typhoid, and cholera from river and sea water.

Photo: Nutrients make crops grow, but cause pollution when they seep into rivers and other watercourses. Photo courtesy of US Department of Agriculture (Flickr) .

Suitably treated and used in moderate quantities, sewage can be a fertilizer: it returns important nutrients to the environment, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which plants and animals need for growth. The trouble is, sewage is often released in much greater quantities than the natural environment can cope with. Chemical fertilizers used by farmers also add nutrients to the soil, which drain into rivers and seas and add to the fertilizing effect of the sewage. Together, sewage and fertilizers can cause a massive increase in the growth of algae or plankton that overwhelms huge areas of oceans, lakes, or rivers. This is known as a harmful algal bloom (also known as an HAB or red tide, because it can turn the water red). It is harmful because it removes oxygen from the water that kills other forms of life, leading to what is known as a dead zone . The Gulf of Mexico has one of the world's most spectacular dead zones. Each summer, according to studies by the NOAA , it typically grows to an area of around 5500–6500 square miles (14,000–16,800 square kilometers), which is about the same size as the state of Connecticut. [21]

Waste water

A few statistics illustrate the scale of the problem that waste water (chemicals washed down drains and discharged from factories) can cause. Around half of all ocean pollution is caused by sewage and waste water. Each year, the world generates perhaps 5–10 billion tons of industrial waste, much of which is pumped untreated into rivers, oceans, and other waterways. [8] In the United States alone, around 400,000 factories take clean water from rivers, and many pump polluted waters back in their place. However, there have been major improvements in waste water treatment recently. Since 1970, in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invested about $70 billion in improving water treatment plants that, as of 2021, serve around 90 percent of the US population (compared to just 69 percent in 1972). However, another $271 billion is still needed to update and upgrade the system. [15]

Factories are point sources of water pollution, but quite a lot of water is polluted by ordinary people from nonpoint sources; this is how ordinary water becomes waste water in the first place. Virtually everyone pours chemicals of one sort or another down their drains or toilets. Even detergents used in washing machines and dishwashers eventually end up in our rivers and oceans. So do the pesticides we use on our gardens. A lot of toxic pollution also enters waste water from highway runoff . Highways are typically covered with a cocktail of toxic chemicals—everything from spilled fuel and brake fluids to bits of worn tires (themselves made from chemical additives) and exhaust emissions. When it rains, these chemicals wash into drains and rivers. It is not unusual for heavy summer rainstorms to wash toxic chemicals into rivers in such concentrations that they kill large numbers of fish overnight. It has been estimated that, in one year, the highway runoff from a single large city leaks as much oil into our water environment as a typical tanker spill. Some highway runoff runs away into drains; others can pollute groundwater or accumulate in the land next to a road, making it increasingly toxic as the years go by.

Chemical waste

Detergents are relatively mild substances. At the opposite end of the spectrum are highly toxic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) . They were once widely used to manufacture electronic circuit boards , but their harmful effects have now been recognized and their use is highly restricted in many countries. Nevertheless, an estimated half million tons of PCBs were discharged into the environment during the 20th century. [9] In a classic example of transboundary pollution, traces of PCBs have even been found in birds and fish in the Arctic. They were carried there through the oceans, thousands of miles from where they originally entered the environment. Although PCBs are widely banned, their effects will be felt for many decades because they last a long time in the environment without breaking down.

Another kind of toxic pollution comes from heavy metals , such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. Lead was once commonly used in gasoline (petrol), though its use is now restricted in some countries. Mercury and cadmium are still used in batteries (though some brands now use other metals instead). Until recently, a highly toxic chemical called tributyltin (TBT) was used in paints to protect boats from the ravaging effects of the oceans. Ironically, however, TBT was gradually recognized as a pollutant: boats painted with it were doing as much damage to the oceans as the oceans were doing to the boats.

The best known example of heavy metal pollution in the oceans took place in 1938 when a Japanese factory discharged a significant amount of mercury metal into Minamata Bay, contaminating the fish stocks there. It took a decade for the problem to come to light. By that time, many local people had eaten the fish and around 2000 were poisoned. Hundreds of people were left dead or disabled. [10]

Radioactive waste

People view radioactive waste with great alarm—and for good reason. At high enough concentrations it can kill; in lower concentrations it can cause cancers and other illnesses. The biggest sources of radioactive pollution in Europe are two factories that reprocess waste fuel from nuclear power plants : Sellafield on the north-west coast of Britain and Cap La Hague on the north coast of France. Both discharge radioactive waste water into the sea, which ocean currents then carry around the world. Countries such as Norway, which lie downstream from Britain, receive significant doses of radioactive pollution from Sellafield. [19] The Norwegian government has repeatedly complained that Sellafield has increased radiation levels along its coast by 6–10 times. Both the Irish and Norwegian governments continue to press for the plant's closure. [11]

Oil pollution

Photo: Oil-tanker spills are the most spectacular forms of pollution and the ones that catch public attention, but only a fraction of all water pollution happens this way. Photo by Lamar Gore courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife Service Photo Library and US National Archive .

When we think of ocean pollution, huge black oil slicks often spring to mind, yet these spectacular accidents represent only a tiny fraction of all the pollution entering our oceans. Even considering oil by itself, tanker spills are not as significant as they might seem: only 12 percent of the oil that enters the oceans comes from tanker accidents; over 70 percent of oil pollution at sea comes from routine shipping and from the oil people pour down drains on land. [12] However, what makes tanker spills so destructive is the sheer quantity of oil they release at once — in other words, the concentration of oil they produce in one very localized part of the marine environment. The biggest oil spill in recent years (and the biggest ever spill in US waters) occurred when the tanker Exxon Valdez broke up in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989. Around 12 million gallons (44 million liters) of oil were released into the pristine wilderness—enough to fill your living room 800 times over! Estimates of the marine animals killed in the spill vary from approximately 1000 sea otters and 34,000 birds to as many as 2800 sea otters and 250,000 sea birds. Several billion salmon and herring eggs are also believed to have been destroyed. [13]

If you've ever taken part in a community beach clean, you'll know that plastic is far and away the most common substance that washes up with the waves. There are three reasons for this: plastic is one of the most common materials, used for making virtually every kind of manufactured object from clothing to automobile parts; plastic is light and floats easily so it can travel enormous distances across the oceans; most plastics are not biodegradable (they do not break down naturally in the environment), which means that things like plastic bottle tops can survive in the marine environment for a long time. (A plastic bottle can survive an estimated 450 years in the ocean and plastic fishing line can last up to 600 years.)

While plastics are not toxic in quite the same way as poisonous chemicals, they nevertheless present a major hazard to seabirds, fish, and other marine creatures. For example, plastic fishing lines and other debris can strangle or choke fish. (This is sometimes called ghost fishing .) About half of all the world's seabird species are known to have eaten plastic residues. In one study of 450 shearwaters in the North Pacific, over 80 percent of the birds were found to contain plastic residues in their stomachs. In the early 1990s, marine scientist Tim Benton collected debris from a 2km (1.5 mile) length of beach in the remote Pitcairn islands in the South Pacific. His study recorded approximately a thousand pieces of garbage including 268 pieces of plastic, 71 plastic bottles, and two dolls heads. [14]

Alien species

Most people's idea of water pollution involves things like sewage, toxic metals, or oil slicks, but pollution can be biological as well as chemical. In some parts of the world, alien species are a major problem. Alien species (sometimes known as invasive species ) are animals or plants from one region that have been introduced into a different ecosystem where they do not belong. Outside their normal environment, they have no natural predators, so they rapidly run wild, crowding out the usual animals or plants that thrive there. Common examples of alien species include zebra mussels in the Great Lakes of the USA, which were carried there from Europe by ballast water (waste water flushed from ships ). The Mediterranean Sea has been invaded by a kind of alien algae called Caulerpa taxifolia . In the Black Sea, an alien jellyfish called Mnemiopsis leidyi reduced fish stocks by 90 percent after arriving in ballast water. In San Francisco Bay, Asian clams called Potamocorbula amurensis, also introduced by ballast water, have dramatically altered the ecosystem. In 1999, Cornell University's David Pimentel estimated that alien invaders like this cost the US economy $123 billion a year; in 2014, the European Commission put the cost to Europe at €12 billion a year and "growing all the time. [18]

Other forms of pollution

These are the most common forms of pollution—but by no means the only ones. Heat or thermal pollution from factories and power plants also causes problems in rivers. By raising the temperature, it reduces the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water, thus also reducing the level of aquatic life that the river can support. Another type of pollution involves the disruption of sediments (fine-grained powders) that flow from rivers into the sea. Dams built for hydroelectric power or water reservoirs can reduce the sediment flow. This reduces the formation of beaches, increases coastal erosion (the natural destruction of cliffs by the sea), and reduces the flow of nutrients from rivers into seas (potentially reducing coastal fish stocks). Increased sediments can also present a problem. During construction work, soil, rock, and other fine powders sometimes enters nearby rivers in large quantities, causing it to become turbid (muddy or silted). The extra sediment can block the gills of fish, effectively suffocating them. Construction firms often now take precautions to prevent this kind of pollution from happening.

What are the effects of water pollution?

Some people believe pollution is an inescapable result of human activity: they argue that if we want to have factories, cities, ships, cars, oil, and coastal resorts, some degree of pollution is almost certain to result. In other words, pollution is a necessary evil that people must put up with if they want to make progress. Fortunately, not everyone agrees with this view. One reason people have woken up to the problem of pollution is that it brings costs of its own that undermine any economic benefits that come about by polluting.

Take oil spills, for example. They can happen if tankers are too poorly built to survive accidents at sea. But the economic benefit of compromising on tanker quality brings an economic cost when an oil spill occurs. The oil can wash up on nearby beaches, devastate the ecosystem, and severely affect tourism. The main problem is that the people who bear the cost of the spill (typically a small coastal community) are not the people who caused the problem in the first place (the people who operate the tanker). Yet, arguably, everyone who puts gasoline (petrol) into their car—or uses almost any kind of petroleum-fueled transport—contributes to the problem in some way. So oil spills are a problem for everyone, not just people who live by the coast and tanker operates.

Sewage is another good example of how pollution can affect us all. Sewage discharged into coastal waters can wash up on beaches and cause a health hazard. People who bathe or surf in the water can fall ill if they swallow polluted water—yet sewage can have other harmful effects too: it can poison shellfish (such as cockles and mussels) that grow near the shore. People who eat poisoned shellfish risk suffering from an acute—and sometimes fatal—illness called paralytic shellfish poisoning. Shellfish is no longer caught along many shores because it is simply too polluted with sewage or toxic chemical wastes that have discharged from the land nearby.

Pollution matters because it harms the environment on which people depend. The environment is not something distant and separate from our lives. It's not a pretty shoreline hundreds of miles from our homes or a wilderness landscape that we see only on TV. The environment is everything that surrounds us that gives us life and health. Destroying the environment ultimately reduces the quality of our own lives—and that, most selfishly, is why pollution should matter to all of us.

How can we stop water pollution?

There is no easy way to solve water pollution; if there were, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Broadly speaking, there are three different things that can help to tackle the problem—education, laws, and economics—and they work together as a team.

Making people aware of the problem is the first step to solving it. In the early 1990s, when surfers in Britain grew tired of catching illnesses from water polluted with sewage, they formed a group called Surfers Against Sewage to force governments and water companies to clean up their act. People who've grown tired of walking the world's polluted beaches often band together to organize community beach-cleaning sessions. Anglers who no longer catch so many fish have campaigned for tougher penalties against factories that pour pollution into our rivers. Greater public awareness can make a positive difference.

One of the biggest problems with water pollution is its transboundary nature. Many rivers cross countries, while seas span whole continents. Pollution discharged by factories in one country with poor environmental standards can cause problems in neighboring nations, even when they have tougher laws and higher standards. Environmental laws can make it tougher for people to pollute, but to be really effective they have to operate across national and international borders. This is why we have international laws governing the oceans, such as the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (signed by over 120 nations), the 1972 London (Dumping) Convention , the 1978 MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships , and the 1998 OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic . The European Union has water-protection laws (known as directives) that apply to all of its member states. They include the 1976 Bathing Water Directive (updated 2006), which seeks to ensure the quality of the waters that people use for recreation. Most countries also have their own water pollution laws. In the United States, for example, there is the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act .

Most environmental experts agree that the best way to tackle pollution is through something called the polluter pays principle . This means that whoever causes pollution should have to pay to clean it up, one way or another. Polluter pays can operate in all kinds of ways. It could mean that tanker owners should have to take out insurance that covers the cost of oil spill cleanups, for example. It could also mean that shoppers should have to pay for their plastic grocery bags, as is now common in Ireland, to encourage recycling and minimize waste. Or it could mean that factories that use rivers must have their water inlet pipes downstream of their effluent outflow pipes, so if they cause pollution they themselves are the first people to suffer. Ultimately, the polluter pays principle is designed to deter people from polluting by making it less expensive for them to behave in an environmentally responsible way.

Our clean future

Life is ultimately about choices—and so is pollution. We can live with sewage-strewn beaches, dead rivers, and fish that are too poisonous to eat. Or we can work together to keep the environment clean so the plants, animals, and people who depend on it remain healthy. We can take individual action to help reduce water pollution, for example, by using environmentally friendly detergents , not pouring oil down drains, reducing pesticides, and so on. We can take community action too, by helping out on beach cleans or litter picks to keep our rivers and seas that little bit cleaner. And we can take action as countries and continents to pass laws that will make pollution harder and the world less polluted. Working together, we can make pollution less of a problem—and the world a better place.

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Water is one of the inevitable elements in our daily life. One of the studies conducted in Archiv Fur Kriminologie concluded like this. Humans will not be able to live more than 8 to 21 days without water. This conclusion points out the necessity of saving and conserving water. As we all know, almost 71 percent of the earth’s surface is water-covered. But in this, only 1 percent is freshwater which is accessible to us. This reality again emphasizes the importance of saving water and preventing water pollution.

“Water is Precious. Save Water”

Here we are focusing on the causes of water pollution and its remedies. In addition, we will discuss things that we can do to prevent water pollution. First, let’s look into what is water pollution?

What is Water Pollution?

In simple words, it is the contamination of usable water by harmful substances like chemicals or microorganisms by any means. On the other hand, activities reducing the quality of water are called water pollution.

Freshwater sources like rivers, lakes, and ponds are getting polluted in the name of industrialization. For instance, domestic wastes, food processing wastes, livestock operations can leads to the contamination of freshwater sources. Apart from all these, we humans pollute freshwater sources like ponds, rivers, and water streams by throwing household wastes and scraps into them.

How does the water get polluted?

Without any doubt, we can say that freshwater sources around us are getting polluted every day. Industrialization is one of the reasons for water pollution. The majority of the factories are dumping wastes, garbages, and sewages into nearby rivers, ponds, or lakes. The minority reprocess and resues the wastewater and substandard water.

Corporate industries are not worried about the surroundings and people living nearby. The ignorance and irresponsibility of the municipality and responsible people make the situation even worse.

In some places, the household sewage is connected to the rivers since they do not have proper sanitation and septic tank facility. It leads to one of the worst water pollutions where we knowingly pollute usable water. Earlier, urban areas were ahead in water pollution when comparing to rural areas. But now, things have changed a lot. The rate of water pollution has increased by 5x in both urban and rural areas. One of the reasons for this massive increase in pollution is the emergence of industries and factories in urban areas.

One of the practices seen in villages is washing clothes and feeding animals in the small rivers and ponds. At the same time, they wash these cattle and animals in the pond. It can directly harm the water sources when activities like this happen in a massive volume. And the other, people throw wastes into the rivers and ponds. In rural areas and villages, people even food wastes into water streams. Whatsoever, water is getting polluted every day. Here are some of the popular ways of water pollution around the world. Let’s look at some of the common causes of water pollution. Here are they.

Wastewater from factories & industries

Industries and factories use water for many purposes. Without water, manufacturing and production can’t exist. They use water for cleaning, cooling, washing, dyeing, and treatments for manufacturing and production processes. Water pollution is happening behind all industrial activities. In that, textile industries are the biggest polluters on the planet. Studies say that one-fifth of the world’s industrial water pollution comes from textile mills. For example, in China, 25% of water pollution happens through textile dyeing and treatments. Almost more than 25000 types of chemicals are mixed and used in the dyeing process of fabrics. These mixed chemicals are thrown away from the facility to any of the flowing water bodies.

The reason behind not building proper recycling and reusing units is because of high maintenance costs and implementing costs. If the companies and factories do the right thing, the pollution will come down to half. None of the government authorities check these requirements while approving the factories to operate.

Some factories produce mixed water as a byproduct of the chemical reactions that happened from their day-to-day industrial activities. This water contains chemicals substances that can be dangerous to us.

Oil leaks & spills

It is common knowledge that oil and water never dissolve completely. But it can be together like that for a long time. Oil act as a cover when it spilled on water. It can remain as long they want and thereby making it polluted. Oil spills and leakages happen very often in oceans. Sometimes from the ships that transport oil or from drilling and mining operations held underwater or seashores. These are also some of the main causes of water pollution.

Use of chemicals & pesticides in agriculture.

It is rare but happens often. When it comes to the massive use of pesticides and chemicals in agricultural lands. It becomes one of the causes of water pollution. The chemicals and pesticides dissolve in the soil after a couple of weeks. Through this, the loam gets saturated with chemicals and pesticides. When the monsoon comes, these chemicals and pesticides come out with rainwater and flows to any of the water resources like wells, ponds, rivers, and sea. It causes one of the dangerous water pollutions if we consume this water.

Why do we need to save water?

Humans cannot survive without drinking water. So it is our duty and responsibility to save and protect water from being polluted. Without drinking water, humans and animals will die. What will happen if we do not do anything? Well, right now we might have enough water resources and backups. But in the coming future, there will be a scarcity of drinking water even if we have hundreds of water purification or processing plants. So it is better to save water resources and water right now when we can.

Do you think we can survive on the earth without water? No, we cannot. It is an essential factor that holds our life. Even animals will die if the freshwater sources are over. There will be no animals and living organisms left if the water pollution rises on a huge scale. So, it is our responsibility to protect freshwater sources from being polluted.

As said earlier, the volume of fresh water on the earth is decreasing every single day. It is better to save water being wasted and polluted whenever we can. For instance, think about you are walking on a road and see a broken public water pipeline and leaks water leaks heavily. As a man who understands the value of water, we should call the respective authorities and inform them. Because they may not know about the broken pipe and water is being wasted.

How can we prevent water pollution?

By implementing proper waste management facilities, we can reduce water pollution to a considerable amount. The cause of the continuous increase in water pollution is the indigent waste management systems in factories, companies, and homes. As well as a brainy human being, stop throwing wastes mainly into water sources like ponds and rivers.

As a single human being, we have limited control over the rate of water pollution. But as a group of human beings, we can control the rate of water pollution to a substantial amount. So what we need can do is, we can aware people around us about water pollution and its future outcomes.

What each one of us can do?

It is our duty to conserve water from pollution. The fun fact is, nobody is even thinking about saving or protecting it for the coming generation. There might be plenty of water resources right now. But if its keeps getting polluted at a rapid rate, it is sure that these water streams would not last much in the future.

It is effortless to say that save water and prevent water pollution. But when it comes to daily practicality, none of us think about protecting water. We all do things that pollute our precious water sources. For instance, we all throw household garbages and plastic wastes into nearby rivers and ponds. Sometimes, we throw garbages into lands where it somehow reaches the water bodies through rain or water flow after a couple of months or years. In short, each one of us is responsible for water pollution in some ways with or without knowledge.

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Solid waste, toxic waste, thermal pollution, petroleum (oil) pollution, effects of water pollution on groundwater and oceans, water quality standards.

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• Table Of Contents

What is water pollution?

Water pollution is the release of substances into bodies of water that makes water unsafe for human use and disrupts aquatic ecosystems. Water pollution can be caused by a plethora of different contaminants, including toxic waste , petroleum , and disease-causing microorganisms .

What human activities cause water pollution?

Human activities that generate domestic sewage and toxic waste cause water pollution by contaminating water with disease-causing microorganisms and poisonous substances. Oil spills are another source of water pollution that have devastating impacts on surrounding ecosystems.

Sewage can promote algae growth, which can eventually result in eutrophic “dead zones” where aquatic life cannot survive because of a lack of oxygen. Microplastics are often found in marine wildlife and can become concentrated in humans who consume seafood because of biomagnification . Oil spills, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, strand and kill many different marine species.

While some studies point to human activity as a catalyst for red tide, scientists are unsure about its cause. Red tide is a common term for harmful algal blooms that often poison or kill wildlife and humans who consume contaminated seafood. Red tides can severely impact ecosystems and local economies.

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water pollution , the release of substances into subsurface groundwater or into lakes , streams, rivers , estuaries , and oceans to the point that the substances interfere with beneficial use of the water or with the natural functioning of ecosystems . In addition to the release of substances, such as chemicals , trash, or microorganisms, water pollution may include the release of energy , in the form of radioactivity or heat , into bodies of water.

Types and sources of water pollutants

Water bodies can be polluted by a wide variety of substances, including pathogenic microorganisms, putrescible organic waste, fertilizers and plant nutrients , toxic chemicals, sediments, heat , petroleum (oil), and radioactive substances . Several types of water pollutants are considered below. (For a discussion of the handling of sewage and other forms of waste produced by human activities, see waste disposal and solid-waste management .)

Water pollutants come from either point sources or dispersed sources. A point source is a pipe or channel, such as those used for discharge from an industrial facility or a city sewerage system . A dispersed (or nonpoint) source is a very broad unconfined area from which a variety of pollutants enter the water body, such as the runoff from an agricultural area. Point sources of water pollution are easier to control than dispersed sources, because the contaminated water has been collected and conveyed to one single point where it can be treated. Pollution from dispersed sources is difficult to control, and, despite much progress in the building of modern sewage-treatment plants, dispersed sources continue to cause a large fraction of water pollution problems.

Domestic sewage is the primary source of pathogens ( disease -causing microorganisms) and putrescible organic substances. Because pathogens are excreted in feces , all sewage from cities and towns is likely to contain pathogens of some type, potentially presenting a direct threat to public health . Putrescible organic matter presents a different sort of threat to water quality. As organics are decomposed naturally in the sewage by bacteria and other microorganisms, the dissolved oxygen content of the water is depleted. This endangers the quality of lakes and streams, where high levels of oxygen are required for fish and other aquatic organisms to survive. In addition, domestic sewage commonly contains active pharmaceutical ingredients, which can harm aquatic organisms and may facilitate antibiotic resistance . Sewage-treatment processes reduce the levels of pathogens and organics in wastewater, but they do not eliminate them completely ( see also wastewater treatment ).

Domestic sewage is also a major source of plant nutrients , mainly nitrates and phosphates . Excess nitrates and phosphates in water promote the growth of algae , sometimes causing unusually dense and rapid growths known as algal blooms . When the algae die, oxygen dissolved in the water declines because microorganisms use oxygen to digest algae during the process of decomposition ( see also biochemical oxygen demand ). Anaerobic organisms (organisms that do not require oxygen to live) then metabolize the organic wastes, releasing gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide , which are harmful to the aerobic (oxygen-requiring) forms of life. The process by which a lake changes from a clean, clear condition—with a relatively low concentration of dissolved nutrients and a balanced aquatic community —to a nutrient-rich, algae-filled state and thence to an oxygen-deficient, waste-filled condition is called eutrophication . Eutrophication is a naturally occurring, slow, and inevitable process. However, when it is accelerated by human activity and water pollution (a phenomenon called cultural eutrophication ), it can lead to the premature aging and death of a body of water.

The improper disposal of solid waste is a major source of water pollution. Solid waste includes garbage, rubbish, electronic waste , trash, and construction and demolition waste, all of which are generated by individual, residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial activities. The problem is especially acute in developing countries that may lack infrastructure to properly dispose of solid waste or that may have inadequate resources or regulation to limit improper disposal. In some places solid waste is intentionally dumped into bodies of water. Land pollution can also become water pollution if the trash or other debris is carried by animals, wind, or rainfall to bodies of water. Significant amounts of solid waste pollution in inland bodies of water can also eventually make their way to the ocean. Solid waste pollution is unsightly and damaging to the health of aquatic ecosystems and can harm wildlife directly. Many solid wastes, such as plastics and electronic waste, break down and leach harmful chemicals into the water, making them a source of toxic or hazardous waste.

Of growing concern for aquatic environments is plastic pollution . Since the ocean is downstream from nearly every terrestrial location, it is the receiving body for much of the plastic waste generated on land. Several million tons of debris end up in the world’s oceans every year, and much of it is improperly discarded plastic litter. Plastic pollution can be broken down by waves and ultraviolet radiation into smaller pieces known as microplastics , which are less than 5 mm (0.2 inch) in length and are not biodegradable. Primary microplastics, such as microbeads in personal care products and plastic fibers in synthetic textiles (e.g., nylon ), also enter the environment directly, through any of various channels—for example, from wastewater treatment systems , from household laundry, or from unintentional spills during manufacturing or transport. Alarmingly, a number of studies of both freshwater and marine locations have found microplastics in every aquatic organism tested. These tiny plastics are suspected of working their way up the marine food chains , from zooplankton and small fish to large marine predators, and have been found in seafood. Microplastics have also been detected in drinking water. Their health effects are unknown.

Waste is considered toxic if it is poisonous , radioactive , explosive , carcinogenic (causing cancer ), mutagenic (causing damage to chromosomes ), teratogenic (causing birth defects), or bioaccumulative (that is, increasing in concentration at the higher ends of food chains). Sources of toxic chemicals include improperly disposed wastewater from industrial plants and chemical process facilities ( lead , mercury , chromium ) as well as surface runoff containing pesticides used on agricultural areas and suburban lawns ( chlordane , dieldrin , heptachlor). (For a more-detailed treatment of toxic chemicals, see poison and toxic waste .)

Sediment (e.g., silt ) resulting from soil erosion or construction activity can be carried into water bodies by surface runoff . Suspended sediment interferes with the penetration of sunlight and upsets the ecological balance of a body of water. Also, it can disrupt the reproductive cycles of fish and other forms of life , and when it settles out of suspension it can smother bottom-dwelling organisms.

Heat is considered to be a water pollutant because it decreases the capacity of water to hold dissolved oxygen in solution, and it increases the rate of metabolism of fish. Valuable species of game fish (e.g., trout ) cannot survive in water with very low levels of dissolved oxygen . A major source of heat is the practice of discharging cooling water from power plants into rivers; the discharged water may be as much as 15 °C (27 °F) warmer than the naturally occurring water. The rise in water temperatures because of global warming can also be considered a form of thermal pollution.

Petroleum ( oil ) pollution occurs when oil from roads and parking lots is carried in surface runoff into water bodies. Accidental oil spills are also a source of oil pollution—as in the devastating spills from the tanker Exxon Valdez (which released more than 260,000 barrels in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989) and from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (which released more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010). Oil slicks eventually move toward shore, harming aquatic life and damaging recreation areas.

Groundwater —water contained in underground geologic formations called aquifers —is a source of drinking water for many people. For example, about half the people in the United States depend on groundwater for their domestic water supply . Although groundwater may appear crystal clear (due to the natural filtration that occurs as it flows slowly through layers of soil ), it may still be polluted by dissolved chemicals and by bacteria and viruses . Sources of chemical contaminants include poorly designed or poorly maintained subsurface sewage-disposal systems (e.g., septic tanks ), industrial wastes disposed of in improperly lined or unlined landfills or lagoons , leachates from unlined municipal refuse landfills, mining and petroleum production, and leaking underground storage tanks below gasoline service stations. In coastal areas, increasing withdrawal of groundwater (due to urbanization and industrialization) can cause saltwater intrusion: as the water table drops, seawater is drawn into wells.

Although estuaries and oceans contain vast volumes of water, their natural capacity to absorb pollutants is limited. Contamination from sewage outfall pipes, from dumping of sludge or other wastes, and from oil spills can harm marine life, especially microscopic phytoplankton that serve as food for larger aquatic organisms. Sometimes, unsightly and dangerous waste materials can be washed back to shore, littering beaches with hazardous debris. In oceans alone, annual pollution from all types of plastics was estimated to be between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tonnes (between 5.3 million and 14 million tons) in the early 21st century, and floating plastic waste had accumulated in Earth’s five subtropical gyres, which cover 40 percent of the world’s oceans.

Another ocean pollution problem is the seasonal formation of “ dead zones” (i.e., hypoxic areas, where dissolved oxygen levels drop so low that most higher forms of aquatic life vanish) in certain coastal areas. The cause is nutrient enrichment from dispersed agricultural runoff and concomitant algal blooms. Dead zones occur worldwide; one of the largest of these (sometimes as large as 22,730 square km [8,776 square miles]) forms annually in the Gulf of Mexico , beginning at the Mississippi River delta.

Although pure water is rarely found in nature (because of the strong tendency of water to dissolve other substances), the characterization of water quality (i.e., clean or polluted) is a function of the intended use of the water. For example, water that is clean enough for swimming and fishing may not be clean enough for drinking and cooking. Water quality standards (limits on the amount of impurities allowed in water intended for a particular use) provide a legal framework for the prevention of water pollution of all types.

There are several types of water quality standards. Stream standards are those that classify streams, rivers , and lakes on the basis of their maximum beneficial use; they set allowable levels of specific substances or qualities (e.g., dissolved oxygen , turbidity, pH) allowed in those bodies of water, based on their given classification. Effluent (water outflow) standards set specific limits on the levels of contaminants (e.g., biochemical oxygen demand , suspended solids, nitrogen ) allowed in the final discharges from wastewater-treatment plants. Drinking-water standards include limits on the levels of specific contaminants allowed in potable water delivered to homes for domestic use. In the United States , the Clean Water Act and its amendments regulate water quality and set minimum standards for waste discharges for each industry as well as regulations for specific problems such as toxic chemicals and oil spills . In the European Union , water quality is governed by the Water Framework Directive, the Drinking Water Directive, and other laws . ( See also wastewater treatment .)

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Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides and Online Environmental Resources for Educators: Water

Find an array of environmental and science based lesson plans, activities and ideas below from EPA, other federal agencies and external organizations.  ​ Encontrar recursos para estudiantes y maestros.

Topics: Air | Climate Change | Ecosystems | Energy | Health | Waste | Water

Acid Rain: A teacher's guide for grades 6 through 8  (PDF 56 pp, 4.6 MB) A lesson plan and activities from EPA for teachers on acid rain. Grades: 6-8 Type of Resource: Lesson plan

Acid Rain Educational Resources Experiments and activities, a review of basic acid rain concepts, factsheets, and things you can do about acid rain. Grades: K-12 Type of Resource: Lesson plans and experiments

Darby Duck and the Aquatic Crusaders Find seven experiments from EPA to learn about the characteristics of water. Grades: K-5 Type of Resource: Lesson plan and experiments

Drinking Water & Ground Water Kids' Stuff Games, activities, and art projects from EPA about the water cycle and water treatment. Grades: K-12 Type of Resource: Lesson plans

EnviroAtlas: Exploring Your Watershed This interactive lesson-plan module encourages students to explore their local watershed through a hands-on lab, an outdoor exploratory session with maps, and an EnviroAtlas web-mapping session that can be completed with or without internet. Grades: K-6 Type of Resource: Lesson Plans

Ground Water Contamination   (PDF 10 pp, 0.2MB)  Find a general review of groundwater contamination and where it occurs. Grades: 9-12 Type of Resource: Factsheet

How's My Waterway? This tool answers questions about the health of waters in supporting swimming, the eating of fish, drinking water protection and delivery, the health of aquatic communities, and the restoration and protection of waterways. Grades: K-12, College, Adult Learners Type of Resource: Website/tool and lesson plan

How People Get Their Water - Reservoirs: "Holding Tanks" for Drinking Water   Let your students "Ride the Water Cycle" with this activity from EPA. Help them understand the role of reservoirs in maintaining a reliable supply of drinking water. Grades: 4-8 Type of Resource: Lesson plan

Magnificent Ground Water Connection This ground-water activity guide is applicable to a wide range of subject matter and the topics include basic concepts on the water cycle, water distribution, treatment, and stewardship. This page includes five sample lesson activity plans. Grades: K-12 Type of Resource: Curriculum guide and lesson plans

Mercury Messes with the Environment (pdf) (10.6 MB) A children’s activity booklet describing the effects of mercury contamination on humans and the environment. Grades: 6-8 Type of Resource: Activity book

On Your Mark, Set, Evaporate (PDF 4.73 MB, 398 pp) This EPA lesson plan covers transpiration as part of the hydrologic cycle. Grades: 6-8 Type of resource: Lesson plan

Drinking Water Activities for Students and Teachers These resources provide a basic understanding of drinking water terms and where water comes from. Grades: K-12 Type of Resource: Website, Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities

Thirstin's Groundwater Movement Activity (PDF 332 KB, 2 pp) This class activity demonstrates that ground water must be able to move through underground materials. The students will act as molecules of water and the underground materials. Grades: K-5 Type of resource: Lesson plan

Tracking Pollution - A Hazardous Whodunit A Thirstin lesson plan to teach students to make a topographic map, use it to predict ground water flow and investigate the most likely source of ground water contamination. Grades: 9-12 Type of resource: Lesson plan

Water Sense Resources Resources for educating students about "Fix a Leak Week," EPA's WaterSense Partnership program and water efficiency. Grades: K-8 Type of resource: Lesson plan

Watershed Academy The Watershed Academy is a focal point in EPA's Office of Water for providing training and information on watershed management. The Academy's self-paced training modules and webcast seminars provide current information from national experts across a broad range of watershed topics. Grades: 9-12, College, Adult Learners Type of Resource: Self paced online modules

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National Wetlands Research Center This site from the U.S. Geologic Survey explores the many factors that affect wetland health, and provides resources for teachers on preserving our wetlands. Grades: 9-12

NOAA's Education Resources Website Explore this site to find the information you need to teach students about weather, climate change, and oceans. You'll find activities, background information, and much more! Grades: 6-12

National Ocean Service Education Find case studies, tutorials, games, and more from NOAA's National Ocean Service. Grades: K-12 Type of Resource: Website

Stormwater Pollution Solutions Challenge In these materials, students will read text and diagrams about the elements of watersheds and learn how stormwater pollution influences children’s health. Then they will develop their own environmental solutions to combat stormwater pollution in a local watershed! Grades: 6-8 Type of Resource: Lesson Plan

Water Science for Schools This site provides extensive background information on a wide variety of water topics. It also includes on-line activities, data tables, maps, and a glossary of terms. Grades: 6-12

EPA Publications

EPA has many publications on every environmental subject that you can download or order. See our predefined searches below on specific search terms to help you view our publication offerings from the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP).

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Water Pollution Causes and Effects

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Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention Infographics

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Welcome to this comprehensive collection of infographics focused on the vital topic of water pollution prevention! In a world where water is our most precious resource, understanding the causes, effects, and preventive measures is crucial. These infographics are thoughtfully designed to provide you with clear insights into the sources of water pollution, its impact on ecosystems, and actionable steps we can take to preserve and protect our waters for generations to come. And what’s more, they integrate seamlessly into our “Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention” presentation! Download and join in the fight against water pollution.

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• lower kissimmee basin stormwater treatment area project

Lower Kissimmee Basin Stormwater Treatment Area Project

The project will use wetland systems to capture and clean water from priority areas of the Lake Okeechobee watershed prior to it flowing into Lake Okeechobee. When completed, it will be one of the largest water quality projects north of Lake Okeechobee and will significantly reduce nutrient pollution loads into the lake.  

The 4,800-acre project is located along the Kissimmee River approximately three miles upstream from Lake Okeechobee and will improve water quality from areas that consistently have some of the highest phosphorus concentrations and loads in the Lake Okeechobee watershed. 

To learn more about BMAP’s click here .

To learn more about Lake Okeechobee water quality, click here .

Project Background

Lake Okeechobee and its watershed have been subjected to hydrologic, land use, and other modifications over the past century that have degraded its water quality. To help address the lake's nutrient pollution, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) adopted a total maximum daily load (TMDL) to reduce total phosphorus (TP) from reaching the lake. 

The LKBSTA Project will use traditional stormwater treatment cells with aquatic vegetation to remove nutrient pollution from the water to provide regional water quality benefits. 

Project Maps

Project Timeline

• September 2019: District and FDEP begin a public exploration of a project to address Lake Okeechobee pollution.
• January 2020: A conceptual project is placed in the Lake Okeechobee BMAP update to address the S-154 and S-154C basins.
• October 2020: Grant funding from FDEP is made available for the project.
• March 2021: District solicits proposals to design, construct, and operate the Lower Kissimmee Stormwater Treatment Project to address high phosphorus loading rates.
• April 2021: 2 proposals are received from qualified respondents: Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP) and Resource Environmental Solutions (RES).
• May 2021: The EIP proposal is selected and receives Governing Board authorization to enter into negotiations.  
• December 2021: EIP and the District enter into a contract to further develop the project with planning and preliminary design.  
• September 2022: District receives Reconnaissance Study deliverable.  
• February 2023: District receives Design Documentation Report deliverable.
• April 2023: Additional parcel becomes available to add to the project footprint.
• May 2024: Project receives Governing Board approval to expand the project footprint.

Future Activities

Upcoming Engagements and Meetings

When: Wednesday, August 28, 2024 Time: Session 1: 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Session 2: 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Location: Indian River State College  Williamson Conference Center, Building C 2229 N.W. 9th Ave.  Okeechobee, FL 34972 Meeting Format: In-Person; Conceptual plans and project information will be available for public viewing. No formal presentation will take place during this meeting.

Past Engagements and Meetings

• SFWMD Governing Board Meeting Thursday, May 13, 2021, at 9 a.m. South Florida Water Management District 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33406  Presentation Recording
• SFWMD Governing Board Meeting Thursday, December 9, 2021, at 9 a.m. South Florida Water Management District 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33406 Presentation Recording
• County Coalition for the Responsible Management of Lake Okeechobee, St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries and Lake Worth Lagoon Friday, September 23, 2022, at 9 a.m. Historic Courthouse 304 NW 2nd Street Okeechobee, FL 34972 Presentation
• SFWMD Governing Board Meeting Thursday, May 11, 2023, at 9 a.m. South Florida Water Management District 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33406 Presentation Recording
• Presentation at Okeechobee County BOCC (SFWMD and EIP) Thursday, August 10, 2023, at 9 a.m. Historic Courthouse 304 NW 2nd Street Okeechobee, FL 34972 Presentation
• Community Outreach Meeting Tuesday, August 29, 2023 Session 1: 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Session 2: 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Okeechobee County Civic Center 1750 Highway 98 North Okeechobee, FL 34972
• SFWMD Governing Board Meeting (Okeechobee County presentation to Governing Board) Thursday, December 14, 2023, at 9 a.m. South Florida Water Management District 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33406 Agenda Recording
• Lower Kissimmee Basin STA Project Update Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 1 p.m., Virtual Presentation Recording  
• SFWMD Governing Board Meeting Thursday, May 9, 2024, 9am Indian River State College Chastain Campus Building C, Susan H. Johnson Auditorium 2400 SW Salerno Road Stuart, FL 34997 Presentation Recording

Related Documents

• Chapter 8B: Lake Okeechobee Watershed Protection Plan Annual Progress Report (sfwmd.gov)
• Appendix 8B-1: Water Year 2023 Lake Okeechobee Watershed Upstream Monitoring (sfwmd.gov)
• Appendix 8B-2: Results from Water Year 2023 Expanded Lake Okeechobee Phytoplankton and Water Quality Monitoring Program (sfwmd.gov)
• Lake Okeechobee Watershed Construction Projects poster
• Lake Okeechobee Watershed Upstream Monitoring poster
• Lake Okeechobee Hydrology, Water Quality and the Ecological Envelope poster

EIP Website

• LowerKissimmeeSTA.com

Contact Information


 SFWMD Project Manager: Jenna Bobsein, Lead Engineer
 Email: [email protected]

‘Ground Water Pollution’

Sep 14, 2014

420 likes | 1.03k Views

17 th January, 2011. ‘Ground Water Pollution’. This presentation is dedicated to people who have been killed in fight over drinking water…. Water Resources. BCM. Groundwater as Water Resource. 55% of agricultural need 85% of domestic use in rural areas 50% of Urban and industrial use.

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Presentation Transcript

17th January, 2011 ‘Ground Water Pollution’

This presentation is dedicated to people who have been killed in fight over drinking water…

Water Resources BCM

Groundwater as Water Resource • 55% of agricultural need • 85% of domestic use in rural areas • 50% of Urban and industrial use

Water Quality Scenario • Water quality is a major emerging concern throughout the India. • Drinking water sources are threatened from contamination. • Groundwater is emerging as an essential and vital component of our life support system. • There is growing concern on deterioration of ground water quality due to geogenic and anthropogenic activities.

Groundwater Quality Scenario Increase in overall salinity of the groundwater, Presence of high concentrations of fluoride, nitrate, iron, arsenic, total hardness and few toxic metal ions, Like surface water pollution, groundwater is also susceptible to contamination from various natural and man-made sources.

Groundwater Quality Monitoring CGWB has been assessing ground water quality of the country through twenty two parameters. These parameters include six important ones as follows; I. Electrical Conductivity in Groundwater II. Chloride in Ground Water III. Fluoride in Ground Water IV. Iron in Ground Water V. Arsenic in Ground Water VI. Nitrate in Ground Water

Sources of Groundwater Pollution Due to contamination by microbes, chemicals, hazardous substances and other foreign particles. Industries which produce toxic effluent. Agricultural run off. Sewage

What is Missing… • Trace Metals • Pesticide

Trace Metals

‘Sustainable Development of Groundwater’

Role of MoWR • As per the “Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules”, the subject ‘Water Quality Assessment’ is allocate to MoWR. • Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board under MoWR are premier organisation in the country for dealing with all matters related to surface water and ground water respectively. • National Water Policy indicated planning for water resources development and management duly incorporate quality aspects.

Role of MoWR, contd... • As per the “Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules”, the subject ‘Water Quality Assessment’ is allocate to MoWR. • Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board under MoWR are premier organisation in the country for dealing with all matters related to surface water and ground water respectively. • National Water Policy indicated planning for water resources development and management duly incorporate quality aspects.

SECRETARIATWATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT AUTHORITY (WQAA)(Ministry of Water Resources)

Preamble • Water quality monitoring, surveillance and remediation have attained significant global importance in view of environment & health concerns. Also a key component of Millennium Development Goals & enshrined in NWP & NEP. • About 2.17 Lakh rural population affected with water quality problems. • Developmental activities also have contributed significant pollution load in freshwater systems.

WQAA • Constituted by MoEF in 2001under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 • Chaired by Secretary, MoEF • Addl. Secretary(WR), Member(RM), CWC and Chairman, CGWA are among members • Jt. Secretary(A) is Member-Secretary • Secretariat support provided by MoWR (Water Quality Div., Adm.Wing)

Functions of WQAA • To issue direction and for taking measures • for investigations and research; • establishment or recognition of environmental laboratories and institutes; • collection and dissemination of information: and • preparation of manuals, codes or guides relating to the prevention, control and abatement of water pollution • Also to issues directions on various other aspects related to water quality assessment and management in the country

Institutional Setup

Initiative by WQAA • Review of water quality monitoring programmes of concerned central and state agencies for ensuring uniformity in monitoring systems; for generation of reliable and reproducible data; and to draw coordinated action plan for protecting the quality of national water resources by Expert Group under the Chairmanship of Shri Arunoday Bhattacharjya, Retd. Chairman, CPCB, • Study by a Task Force under the Chairmanship of Chairman, CPCB for drawing measures for optimum water quality observation network and coordinated data collection and dissemination system

Initiative by WQAA • Constitution of Water Quality Monitoring Committee under the Chairmanship of Addl. Secretary (MoE&F) to assist the WQAA in performing its functions. • Study by a Working Group under the Chairmanship of Member(RM), CWC to formulate methodology for assessment of the minimum flows in the rivers to conserve the eco-system. • Constitution of Standing Groups to deliberate and initiate actions on the functions of WQAA. • Constitution of State Level Water Quality Review Committees to coordinate the activities related to water quality assessment and management at State Level.

Achievement of WQAA • Organisation of various workshops and seminars on issues related to water quality assessment and management • "Uniform Protocol on Water Quality Monitoring Order 2005" was issued for observance of uniform protocol on water quality monitoring by all organisations, agencies and any other body monitoring surface and ground water quality. • Guidelines for preparation of Water Quality Management Plan were finalised.

Issues in Monitoring • The network of monitoring stations is not dense. • Water quality analysis excludes critical parameters. • There is virtually no agency taking up the matter of pollution by radioactive contaminants. • Lack of Institutions. • Monitoring does not cover “non-point” pollution from agriculture. • Problems with institutional design. • Groundwater contamination most often occurs due to geo-hydro chemical processes activated by pumping.

Challenges Ahead • Urgent need of research in this area for developing low cost technology. • Public Private Partnership (PPP) with viability gap funding model. • Civil society/institutions need to be strengthened. • Knowledge and awareness about ill-effects of drinking contaminated/polluted water.

Policy Inferences and Governance Issues • The network of monitoring stations is not dense. • Water quality analysis excludes critical parameters. • There is virtually no agency taking up the matter of pollution by radioactive contaminants. • Lack of Institutions. • Monitoring does not cover “non-point” pollution from agriculture. • Problems with institutional design. • Groundwater contamination most often occurs due to geo-hydro chemical processes activated by pumping.

Pollution Control Framework • The task of controlling pollution today is not easy. The tremendous amount of types and sources of water pollution, in addition to its complex nature, calls for conducting much study and research into pollution problems. The most effective means of controlling pollution results from cooperation between scientists, legislators, citizens and industry.

SCIENTISTS • Identify sources and types of pollution • Determine amount and concentration of pollution • Study the effects of pollution • Recommend safe pollution levels • Study and design pollution control methods • Develop pollution remediation and clean-up plans control programs • Monitor effectiveness of clean-up efforts • Research new treatment technologies

Support research/education • Enact laws that limit pollution levels • Levy fines and penalties against polluters • Coordinate state pollution control efforts • Create environmental protection plans • Provide mechanism to monitor pollution LEGISLATORS

CITIZENGROUPS • Lobby for beneficial laws • Educate public of pollution dangers • Identify sources of pollution and notify authorities and public • Encourage consumer conservation and recycling • Volunteer to cleanup polluted areas • Participate in citizen volunteer water quality monitoring programs • Provide public information

Support education programs, wildlife preserves, etc. • Establish quality control to limit pollution • Develop recycling programs • Find commercial uses for wastes and byproducts • Research and use better production methods • Monitor water quality of discharges • Work with the general public to protect natural resources INDUSTRIES

Way forward • Technical & financial support for water quality assessment programmes including, strengthening of water quality monitoring networks & surveillance systems, capacity building, R & D need promoting participatory water quality monitoring systems. • Upgradation & benchmarking of laboratories, development and evaluation of technologies, tools and guidelines for water quality assessment and management. • Managing water quality database / information systems etc and strengthening of mechanism for knowledge sharing amongst various stakeholders in the water quality management system • Technical assistance and investment support for eco-restoration of rivers with a view to ensure minimum flow in rivers.

While we watched this presentation and discussed the way forward… Much water flowed down to the sea making it unusable…

Let us make water everybody’s concern… …Thank You

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Victoria's new 'clean air' project could help end the COVID pandemic and boost productivity

Hand sanitiser. After several Australian water polo players tested positive for COVID in Paris last week, Olympics officials were pressed for details on how they would be mitigating viral transmission at the summer games. 

Athletes who have respiratory symptoms should wear a mask around other people, a Paris 2024 spokesperson said , and wash their hands regularly with soap and water or hand sanitiser. "Hand sanitiser stations can be found at all the residential areas and also the restaurant of the Olympic Village."

More than four years since the pandemic hit it was another sign that old habits — and bad science — dies hard. 

For much of 2020 health authorities urged the public to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection by washing hands, wiping surfaces and coughing into elbows. It soon became clear that it was a major misdirection or, as one headline put it bluntly, a scientific screw-up that helped COVID kill . Why? Because the virus is airborne. It wafts through the air in tiny particles called aerosols that can linger indoors for hours, like smoke, and infect anyone who inhales them.

The solution, then, is not hand sanitiser — though hand hygiene is still important — but strategies to filter or clean the air. We don't worry about whether the tap water we drink is going to make us sick, because it's tested and sanitised to meet strict standards. So why aren't we thinking similarly about indoor air quality, especially given most Australians spend 90 per of our time inside?

The Pathway to Clean Indoor Air

That crucial insight sits at the heart of an ambitious new project aiming to figure out how to clean the air in public spaces in Victoria, reducing the impacts of respiratory viruses and other airborne hazards on our health and the economy. A collaboration between the Burnet Institute, the Victorian Government and several other research partners, the Pathway to Clean Indoor Air in Victoria will also lay the groundwork for indoor air quality standards — recommended limits on pollutants that don't just make us sick, but stop us thinking clearly and working productively.

The $9.9 million project is significant not just because it could speed up the end of the current pandemic and help us prepare for the next one. It is also a major deal because of the hurdles the push for clean indoor air is facing globally: in the form of stubborn misinformation and confusion about how viruses like COVID spread, and resistance — including from within the scientific community — to the idea that improving the quality of the air we breathe can bring substantial health and economic benefits.

"Had we had clean air solutions when COVID first came along, had we been able to walk into a room with the same confidence that we turn on a tap to drink water, we probably wouldn't have had a pandemic, and we definitely would have been able to manage it much easier," said Professor Brendan Crabb, director and chief executive of the Burnet Institute.

"So the Pathway to Clean Indoor Air is a big part, if not the biggest part of our way out of the pandemic … and in my view this is the most powerful thing we can do for readiness for the next pandemic."

The benefits are broader than COVID

Cleaning the air is not just about trying to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses like COVID, though it remains an important mission: 227 people died as a result of COVID in the most recent 28-day reporting period in Victoria alone. Poor indoor air quality can cause a disturbing range of health problems including cancer, stroke, heart disease and chronic conditions like asthma, with an estimated 3.2 million people dying prematurely each year from illnesses caused by indoor air pollution in homes. 

Mounting research has also shown poor indoor air quality impairs adults' ability to think clearly and creatively and children's performance in maths , reading and comprehension tests — a threat not just to individual productivity but businesses and governments concerned about the economy.

Some scientists estimate improving ventilation in workplaces can add 10 per cent to a business's bottom line by reducing employee absenteeism and lifting productivity. 

Public health economist Richard Bruns last year estimated the cost-benefit ratio of investing in ventilation and filtration in American buildings was 1:10 — just from reducing the risks of COVID infection alone. Dr Bruns calculated it would cost US$4 billion to improve indoor air quality in all buildings for 16 weeks over winter each year, when respiratory virus transmission is high, delivering a benefit of about $40 billion.

But the Pathway to Clean Indoor Air isn't about the science of whether we need clean indoor air, Professor Crabb said, or even what tools will help achieve it. Those tools, of course, are well-known and widely used already because they work: devices like C0₂ monitors , ventilation and filtration technologies like air conditioning systems and portable air purifiers , and germicidal ultraviolet light .

Instead, it will build evidence for what kinds of strategies work in different settings — what Professor Crabb calls "the science of implementation". Does every school classroom need an air purifier, even if the building has a modern ventilation system? Are people not using purifiers because they're noisy, or because they're forgetting to switch them on? What's the most cost-effective way to improve the air quality in an office-based workplace compared to, say, a healthcare service? How does improving indoor air quality affect rates of sickness, absenteeism and productivity?

Who's responsible for indoor air quality?

For Minister for Medical Research Ben Carroll, the most compelling part of the two-year project is the goal to develop a "policy framework" for indoor air quality regulations and legislation. "I think potentially changing the standards in the building codes will be the real game-changer," Mr Carroll said. 

"If that's where the recommendations go, this will change the way we establish buildings and how we treat indoor air quality. And it will essentially stop people getting ill in the first place. It's about prevention."

Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawksa, a renowned atmospheric physicist at Queensland University of Technology and one of the Pathway to Clean Indoor Air's research partners, said improving indoor air quality needn't be an expensive exercise . Newer buildings in Australia are often equipped with modern ventilation systems that "take care of most of the risk", she said, and older buildings can generally be retrofitted with cost-effective solutions.

But a critical first step, she said, is installing monitoring devices. These little metres measure problematic particles and gases like fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from smoke and vehicle exhaust, and carbon dioxide, which is exhaled when we breathe and is also a proxy for COVID infection risk . "So just like we have smoke alarms in every room we need to have air [quality] monitoring in every room as well," Professor Morawska said.

In a paper published in the journal Science in March , Professor Morawska and her co-authors argued that indoor air quality standards should be mandatory in public spaces, while homes should be designed so they can meet those standards. Though people in urban locations spend 90 per cent of their time inside, she said, most countries don't have legislated indoor air quality standards, and most building codes don't address airborne disease transmission.

"The biggest obstacle in most countries is where this [issue] sits in the regulatory system," Professor Morawksa told ABC News — who is responsible for clean indoor air. "When we're talking about outdoor air quality, it's very clear, there's usually one organisation. In Australia, it's the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in different states. But who is responsible for buildings? Well, it depends on what buildings." 

For that reason, she said, the Victorian Government's leadership here is "an extremely important step forward, setting a model for the rest of the country and for the world".

Climate change will up the ante

Another obstacle may be the reluctance of some scientists to recognise the consequences of poor indoor air quality, and the nature of aerosol transmission of viruses — perhaps because doing so would require substantive action, not hectolitres of hand sanitiser.

In a lecture at the Australian National University in 2022, for instance, infectious diseases physician Professor Peter Collignon said he thought COVID spread not through aerosols but "close contacts with larger particles" — droplets. "The reason I guess I want to believe that is because we can do something about that; it means face shields work, it means eye protection works, it means surgical masks give you reasonable protection," he said. "While if it's aerosols, you think, well, how can you ever let people on public transport again? How can you ever have a building reopen with people all there? How can you even go to a supermarket?"

The importance of clean indoor air will only become more urgent, scientists have warned, as the effects of climate change bite harder. In Australia, spending time outside and opening windows to improve ventilation won't be possible during periods of extreme heat, say, or catastrophic bushfire seasons that leave cities blanketed in thick smoke for weeks on end.

"So as climate and environmental change … take hold, you're not going to be outdoors with those asthma thunderstorms, with bushfire smoke … with the wild weather that is going to happen more and more frequently," Professor Crabb said. "You're going to be indoors, and the dream is to have indoor spaces be a true safe haven from those direct threats, and the indirect threat of having lots of people gathering inside."

When it comes to the Pathway to Clean Indoor Air, though, perhaps what excites him most is the idea that other governments in Australia and around the world will take notice and follow Victoria's lead. "In the end, in my view, the biggest impact of this investment is going to be dragging others along," Professor Crabb said. "That's why I say it's trailblazing, it's leading-edge. In a few years time, clean indoor air will be the norm. Everyone will be doing it, as they should."

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WATERPLUS Technik GmbH Unveils New Patent in the Fight Against PFAS Pollution

Regional Television Oberbayern Reports on Groundbreaking Developments

Rosenheim, Germany--(Newsfile Corp. - August 1, 2024) - A recently introduced patent by Robert Färber, a leading expert at WATERPLUS Technik GmbH, could represent a breakthrough in the fight against PFAS pollution. The innovative process promises an effective and sustainable solution for cleaning drinking water and soils contaminated with PFAS.

Patent Presentation on PFAS at Dyneon (3M)

Since 2017, Regional television network Oberbayern (RFO) has been covering the environmental pollution caused by per- and polyfluorinated alkyl acids (PFAS) in the Altötting district. The contamination of soils and groundwater, as well as initial cleanup attempts using activated carbon filters, have been focal points.

Despite improvements in measurement values, the closure of the Dyneon company in the region was planned, though led to protests by employees and unions. The Bavarian Prime Minister and the Minister of Economic Affairs visited the site to assess the situation. Recent developments from Berlin could potentially offer a solution to the situation.

"Our mission at WATERPLUS Technik GmbH is to provide sustainable solutions through advanced technologies and extensive knowledge in the field of drinking water. Robert Färber's new patent is a significant step in this direction and could have far-reaching positive effects on the environment and human health," said Robert Färber, CEO of WATERPLUS Technik GmbH.

The developments surrounding the Dyneon plant and efforts to preserve the site have garnered significant attention in the region. Many view the possibility that the new patent from WATERPLUS Technik GmbH could play a decisive role as a beacon of hope.

For more information on the latest developments and the patent from WATERPLUS Technik GmbH, visit:

Waterplus Technik New Patent on PFAS

Chancellery Wants to Preserve Dyneon Site

Johanna Freilinger | Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry, University of Innsbruck

About WATERPLUS Technik GmbH

WATERPLUS Technik GmbH is a leader in providing innovative solutions for drinking water safety and quality. Specializing in advanced water treatment technologies, the company bridges the gap between operators, users, installers, and clients. With expertise in addressing Legionella and bacterial contamination, WATERPLUS Technik GmbH offers rapid testing and effective filtration systems for residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, nursing homes, and hospitals. Their commitment to sustainable and efficient water management ensures safe drinking water, protecting public health and the environment.

Press inquiries

WATERPLUS Technik GmbH

https://www.waterplus-technik.de/

Tim Rautenberg

[email protected]

+4915201780974

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/218572

Extreme weather hits Paris, highlighting Olympics’ vulnerability to climate change

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The thermometer read 95 degrees but down on the beach volleyball court, with all that gleaming white sand, it felt like 102. The players used a short break to towel off and guzzle water.

“It was really, really hot,” Carolina Solberg Salgado said. “I was trying not to think of how [uncomfortable] I was.”

2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games

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As she and her Brazilian teammate resumed their match against a Lithuanian duo, cheering erupted in a corner of the Eiffel Tower Stadium — a venue worker had stretched a rubber hose into the stands and was spraying the fans.

“It was great,” said Sean McKinnon of Toronto. “He hit full-pressure in the face of the poor girl next to us, but I think she appreciated it.”

Weather has been a challenge during the first week of these 2024 Summer Olympics , with conditions veering from one extreme to another.

A storm blew in for the opening ceremony, drenching the city with an inch of rain and hanging around long enough to postpone skateboarding the next day. Then came the heat.

Researchers worry that Paris represents the latest in an Olympic trend that has winter athletes scrambling to find enough snow and their summertime counterparts facing health risks — cramping, vomiting, heat stroke — caused by peak temperatures.

“We are in a race against time,” Sebastian Coe , a former Olympian and head of the international track federation, wrote in a report last month. “Whilst global temperatures continue to rise, climate change should increasingly be viewed as an existential threat to sport.”

How have athletes described the conditions in France so far?

“A bit of a disaster,” Irish golfer Shane Lowry said of carrying his team’s flag in the soggy opening.

After a qualifying round in men’s skateboarding, with the evening final still to come, American star Jagger Eaton said he thought to himself, “Wow, I’m smoked.” U.S. cyclist Hannah Roberts had a similar experience at the BMX venue.

“I was baking hot,” she said. “I felt like a little potato.”

Olympians might not be experts in climatology or conversant in all the relevant political arguments surrounding weather trends, but they have a ground-level view.

Skiers and snowboarders have seen firsthand the changes that, according to a 2022 Canadian study, could render all but one of the previous 21 Winter Olympics cities too warm to reliably host downhill races, biathlons and halfpipe competitions by the end of the century. The list includes Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley) in California.

“We’ve gone to sites, and normally we would have snow, but … we were jumping on snow in the pouring rain,” U.S. aerial skier Winter Vinecki said before the 2022 Beijing Games.

2024 Paris Olympics

How climate change is threatening the future of the Winter Olympics

As global warming continues to take its toll, the number of training cities gets smaller and cities able to host the Winter Olympics are fewer.

Air-conditioned arenas shield gymnasts and some other Summer Games athletes and spectators from the elements. But outdoor events remain vulnerable to average temperatures that, over the past century, have risen about 5 degrees during Olympic months, according to “ Rings of Fire ,” a report published in June by the British Assn. for Sustainable Sport and an Australian organization called FrontRunners.

The issue began drawing attention three years ago at the Tokyo Games, which experts say ranked as the warmest in history with daytime highs in the mid-90s and humidity reaching nearly 70%.

The women’s marathon was rescheduled for 6 a.m. to take advantage of cooler morning temperatures, and athletes running shorter distances adjusted their warmups to leave time for cooling down before races. At the tennis venue, Paula Badosa of Spain left the quarterfinals in a wheelchair and Daniil Medvedev of Russia needed two medical timeouts, telling the chair umpire: “I can finish the match, but I can die.”

Since then, the report stated, “notable cases of extreme heat undermining the health and enjoyment of sporting spectacles have only increased.”

Weather has been a frequent topic of discussion in Paris, as athletes fretted over rain delays early in the competition. When sunny skies returned, the Olympic skate park — made of concrete and shaped like a bowl — became a giant frying pan.

1. A child walks through a mister at Roland Garros in Paris on Wednesday. 2. Spectators use fans to stay cool while watching Olympic tennis at Roland Garros. 3. A spectator attending the Olympic tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris on Wednesday tries to stay cool. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Even water sports can be affected.

Rowers say they fatigue more quickly in the heat and sailors fight to stay hydrated while spending as many as five hours in their boats. Marathon swimmers must arise in the middle of the night to prepare for open-water contests shifted to early mornings.

Many athletes said they spent a week or more training in hot weather to prepare.

“Paris weather is quite unpredictable,” Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic said after a sweltering match at Roland-Garros Stadium. “I was getting myself acclimatized possibly for different scenarios.”

When Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, officials moved the international soccer tournament from summertime to November through December. Experts say there are other, less-drastic options. Events can be held earlier in the day, and rules can be changed to shorten matches or include more water breaks.

British tennis player Jack Draper, for one, said French organizers could do more to help athletes stay hydrated.

“It was pretty poor the way they give [water] bottles to the players,” Draper said after losing to Taylor Fritz of the U.S. in men’s singles. “The bottles don’t stay cool. We were drinking hot water out there.”

Another tennis player, American Coco Gauff , mentioned taking an ice bath after her match. Eaton, the skateboarder who won silver, revealed that his strategy involved keeping two towels at hand and “just pounding” drinks.

The weather has been just as tough for spectators.

On Friday night, they huddled in the rain for hours during the opening ceremony. By Tuesday afternoon at the beach volleyball stadium, they were crowding around misters or laying in the grass behind the grandstands.

“I watched one match, then sat in the shade for one match,” said Randi Fentress of Fort Worth. “Now I’ll go back in there.”

The scattered clouds that drifted in a few hours later made Roland-Garros feel like a sauna. An electrical storm soon followed, flickering over the Paris skyline. The forecast called for a change, more rain on the way.

More to Read

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Aug. 4, 2024

Surprise! Olympians in Paris finally swim and compete in the Seine

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Olympics once again buzzing with fans and crowds after COVID-era ebb

July 30, 2024

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David Wharton has filled an array of roles – covering the courts, entertainment, sports and the second Persian Gulf War – since starting as a Los Angeles Times intern in 1982. His work has been honored by organizations such as the Society for Features Journalism and Associated Press Sports Editors and has been anthologized in “Best American Sports Writing.” He has also been nominated for an Emmy and has written two books, including “Conquest,” an inside look at USC football during the Pete Carroll era.

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