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Domestic sewage

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

How does water pollution affect aquatic wildlife?

Is red tide caused by water pollution.

water pollution

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• National Geographic - What Is Water Pollution?
• Frontiers - Effects of Water Pollution on Human Health and Disease Heterogeneity: A Review
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health - Water Pollution
• Environmental Pollution Centers - What Is Water Pollution?
• National Resources Defense Council - Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know
• Chemistry LibreTexts - Water Pollution
• water pollution - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• 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.

Recent News

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 .)

Lisa Hupp/USFWS

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Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know

Our rivers, reservoirs, lakes, and seas are drowning in chemicals, waste, plastic, and other pollutants. Here’s why—and what you can do to help.

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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 Pollution And Its Control

Water is one of the most vital natural resources on earth and has been around for a long time. In fact, the same water which we drink has been around in one form or the other since the time of the dinosaurs.

The earth has more than two-thirds of its surface covered with water. This translates to just over 1 octillion litres (1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres) of water distributed in the oceans, rivers, lakes and streams.

That is a lot of water, however, less than 0.3% is accessible for human consumption. As commercialization and industrialization have progressed, that number continues to dwindle down. Furthermore, inefficient and outdated practices, lack of awareness and a plethora of other circumstances have led to water pollution.

Also Read: How Can We Conserve Water?

• Water pollution
• Modern Epidemic

Minamata Incident

• Ganges River

What is Water Pollution?

Water pollution can be defined as the contamination of water bodies. Water pollution is caused when water bodies such as rivers, lakes, oceans, groundwater and aquifers get contaminated with industrial and agricultural effluents.

When water gets polluted, it adversely affects all lifeforms that directly or indirectly depend on this source. The effects of water contamination can be felt for years to come.

Also Refer:  Types of Pollution

Sources Of Water Pollution

The key causative of water pollution in India are:

• Urbanization.
• Deforestation.
• Industrial effluents.
• Social and Religious Practices.
• Use of Detergents and Fertilizers.
• Agricultural run-offs- Use of insecticides and pesticides.

Water Pollution – A Modern Epidemic

One of the primary causes of water pollution is the contamination of water bodies by toxic chemicals. As seen in the example mentioned above, the dumped plastic bottles, tins, water cans and other wastes pollute the water bodies. These result in water pollution, which harms not just humans, but the whole ecosystem. Toxins drained from these pollutants, travel up to the food chain and eventually affect humans. In most cases, the outcome is destructive to only the local population and species, but it can have an impact on a global scale too.

Nearly 6 billion kilograms of garbage is dumped every year in the oceans. Apart from industrial effluents and untreated sewage, other forms of unwanted materials are dumped into various water bodies. These can range from nuclear waste to oil spills – the latter of which can render vast areas uninhabitable.

Effects Of Water Pollution

The effect of water pollution depends upon the type of pollutants and their concentration. Also, the location of water bodies is an important factor to determine the levels of pollution.

• Water bodies in the vicinity of urban areas are extremely polluted. This is the result of dumping garbage and toxic chemicals by industrial and commercial establishments.
• Water pollution drastically affects aquatic life. It affects their metabolism, and behaviour, and causes illness and eventual death. Dioxin is a chemical that causes a lot of problems from reproduction to uncontrolled cell growth or cancer. This chemical is bioaccumulated in fish, chicken and meat. Chemicals such as this travel up the food chain before entering the human body.
• The effect of water pollution can have a huge impact on the food chain. It disrupts the food chain. Cadmium and lead are some toxic substances, these pollutants upon entering the food chain through animals (fish when consumed by animals, humans) can continue to disrupt at higher levels.
• Humans are affected by pollution and can contract diseases such as hepatitis through faecal matter in water sources. Poor drinking water treatment and unfit water can always cause an outbreak of infectious diseases such as cholera, etc.
• The ecosystem can be critically affected, modified and destructured because of water pollution.

The Minamata Incident marked one of the worst cases of water pollution

In 1932, a factory in Minamata City, Japan began dumping its industrial effluent – Methylmercury, into the surrounding bay and the sea. Methylmercury is incredibly toxic to humans and animals alike, causing a wide range of neurological disorders.

Its ill effects were not immediately noticeable. However, this all changed as methylmercury started to bioaccumulate inside shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay. These affected organisms were then caught and consumed by the local population. Soon, the ill effects of methylmercury were becoming apparent.

Initially, animals such as cats and dogs were affected by this. The city’s cats would often convulse and make strange noises before dying – hence, the term “dancing cat disease” was coined. Soon, the same symptoms were observed in people, though the cause was not apparent at the time.

Other affected people showed symptoms of acute mercury poisoning such as ataxia, muscle weakness, loss of motor coordination, damage to speech and hearing etc. In severe cases, paralysis occurred, which was followed by coma and death.  These diseases and deaths continued for almost 36 years before they could be officially acknowledged by the government and the organisation.

Since then, various control measures for water pollution have been adopted by the government of Japan to curb such environmental disasters in the future.

Pollution of the Ganges

Some rivers, lakes, and groundwater are rendered unfit for usage. In India, the River Ganges is the sixth most polluted river in the world. This is unsurprising as hundreds of industries nearby release their effluents into the river. Furthermore, religious activities such as burials and cremations near the shore contribute to pollution. Apart from the ecological implications, this river poses a serious health risks as it can cause diseases like typhoid and cholera.

Pollution of the Ganges is also driving some of the distinct fauna to extinction. The Ganges River shark is a critically endangered species that belong to the order Carcharhiniformes. The Ganges River dolphin is another  endangered species of dolphin that is found in the tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.

As per a survey, by the end of 2026, around 4 billion people will face a shortage of water. Presently, around 1.2 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean, potable water and proper sanitation. It is also projected that nearly 1000 children die every year in India due to water-related issues. Groundwater is an important source of water, but unfortunately, even that is susceptible to pollution. Hence, water pollution is quite an important social issue that needs to be addressed promptly.

Control Measures of Water Pollution

Water pollution, to a larger extent, can be controlled by a variety of methods. Rather than releasing sewage waste into water bodies, it is better to treat them before discharge. Practising this can reduce the initial toxicity and the remaining substances can be degraded and rendered harmless by the water body itself. If the secondary treatment of water has been carried out, then this can be reused in sanitary systems and agricultural fields.

A very special plant, the Water Hyacinth can absorb dissolved toxic chemicals such as cadmium and other such elements. Establishing these in regions prone to such kinds of pollutants will reduce the adverse effects to a large extent.

Some chemical methods that help in the control of water pollution are precipitation, the ion exchange process, reverse osmosis , and coagulation. As an individual, reusing, reducing, and recycling wherever possible will advance a long way in overcoming the effects of water pollution.

Further Reading:

Frequently Asked Questions

What is sewage treatment.

Wastewater treatment or sewage treatment generally refers to the process of cleaning or removing all pollutants, treating wastewater and making it safe and suitable for drinking before releasing it into the environment.

What are the main steps in sewage treatment?

There are four main stages of the wastewater treatment process, namely:

• Stage 1: Screening
• Stage 2: Primary treatment
• Stage 3: Secondary treatment
• Stage 4: Final treatment

What are the main causes of water pollution?

The main causes of water pollution are attributed to

• Industrial activities
• Urbanization
• Religious and social practices
• Agricultural runoff
• Accidents (such as oil spills, nuclear fallouts etc)

What are the effects of water pollution?

Water pollution can have disastrous consequences on the ecosystem. Furthermore, toxic chemicals can travel through the food chain and get into our bodies, causing diseases and death.

To learn more about water pollution, causes, effects, preventive measures and other important environmental concerns (such as eutrophication), visit us at BYJU’S Biology.

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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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Human health risks due to exposure to water pollution: a review.

1. Introduction

2. data collection, 2.1. anthropogenic factors, 2.2. microplastics, 2.3. geogenic factors, 2.4. pharmaceuticals, 2.5. heavy metals, 3. remedies and mitigations.

• Natural Bioremediation: A passive or inherent type of remediation that uses natural processes to remove contaminants from groundwater. Additionally, this mechanism changes the pollutant. The pollutant is changed through advection, disintegration, co-metabolism, adsorption, diffusion, and dispersion [ 58 ]. Natural in situ biological remediation has the advantage of using native microorganisms. It is, therefore, less expensive than developed bioremediation since there is no need for modification, and the microorganisms modify to their natural surroundings until oxygen and levels of nutrients reach their limiting levels [ 59 ].
• Engineered bioremediation: Utilizes constructed systems that deliver nutrients, attract electrons, and/or other proliferation-stimulating elements. It is a method of remediation that boosts the development and degradative activity of microorganisms. Biostimulation, bioaugmentation, bioventing, biological permeable reactive barrier (PRB), and phytoremediation are some of the procedures used in this method. (a) Bioaugmentation: A technique that uses immobilized, genetically stable, or free microorganisms to function as a culture, destroying pollutants and forcing them to endure unfavorable conditions. To increase their functional capability, these specialized bacteria may move. The result of this process is heavily reliant on how local microorganism groups respond to the presence of these genetically modified microorganisms (GMM) or nonindigenous species since they are encapsulated in the groundwater plume that must be repaired. This is because the nutrients they contain are crucial to this process [ 60 ]; (b) Biosimulation: A technique for accelerating the rate of bioremediation. By changing the groundwater’s chemical and physical characteristics, bioremediation is sped up in this procedure. To boost the biological absorption of electron donors, several nutrient sources are added to the polluted groundwater, including biogas, dung, slurry, and other organic material. When it comes to eliminating hydrocarbon petroleum, comparative research found that biostimulation performs better than bioaugmentation, but when they are combined, they produce the best results in the quickest length of time; (c) Bioventing: The process involves oxidative-biological remediation and soil venting to remove light and moderate distillate hydrocarbons from the groundwater’s vadose zone [ 61 ]; (d) Bioslurping: The adaption and use of vacuum-enhanced dewatering methods to rehabilitate hydrocarbon-contaminated locations. To address two different pollutant media, it makes use of components of both biological ventilation and free product recovery; (e) Permeable reactive barrier (PRB): A zone of in situ treatment that passively traps a plume of pollutants, removes or degrades the contaminants, and releases uncontaminated water. Swelling and precipitation, chemical reactions, and biological mechanism-based reactions are the three main techniques for elimination; (f) Phytoremediation: A technique that uses interactions between plants and pollutants to lessen the hazardous effects of toxins in polluted groundwater. Numerous processes, including filtering, accumulation, decomposition, volatilization, and stabilization, are involved in this process [ 62 ].
• To increase the amount and quality of groundwater in the study region, the best rainfall recharge solutions for an urban context must be put into practice;
• To stop future contamination, regulate wastewater outflow, and improve mining waste management;
• To lessen groundwater contamination, septic tanks and sewage systems must undergo routine maintenance;
• Reusing residential wastewater will benefit from the building of biological treatment facilities;
• To prevent the production of leachate, reusable solid wastes ought to be treated separately, and municipal solid waste disposal yards should be constructed with suitable lining,
• Rigid management of environmental effect regulations and improvised government regulations.

4. Conclusions

Author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Babuji, P.; Thirumalaisamy, S.; Duraisamy, K.; Periyasamy, G. Human Health Risks due to Exposure to Water Pollution: A Review. Water 2023 , 15 , 2532. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15142532

Babuji P, Thirumalaisamy S, Duraisamy K, Periyasamy G. Human Health Risks due to Exposure to Water Pollution: A Review. Water . 2023; 15(14):2532. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15142532

Babuji, Preethi, Subramani Thirumalaisamy, Karunanidhi Duraisamy, and Gopinathan Periyasamy. 2023. "Human Health Risks due to Exposure to Water Pollution: A Review" Water 15, no. 14: 2532. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15142532

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102 Water Pollution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Water pollution essays are an excellent way to demonstrate your awareness of the topic and your position on the solutions to the issue. To help you ease the writing process, we prepared some tips, essay topics, and research questions about water pollution.

🌎 Air and Water pollution: Essay Writing Tips

🏆 best water pollution essay topics & examples, 📌 remarkable air and water pollution research topics, 👍 good research topics about water pollution, ❓ research questions about water pollution.

Water’s ready availability in many locations makes it an easy choice for a variety of purposes, from cleaning to manufacturing to nuclear reactor cooling. However, many companies will then dump water, now mixed with waste, back into rivers or lakes without adequate cleaning, leading to significant environmental pollution.

However, there are other types of harm, such as noise pollution, which are less obvious but also dangerous to sea life. It is critical that you understand what you should and should not do during your writing process.

The stance that big manufacturing industries are the sole culprits of the damage done to the world’s rivers and oceans is a popular one. However, do not neglect the effects of other water pollution essay topics such as microorganisms.

Microbes can spread dangerous illnesses, making them a danger for both water inhabitants and the people who then use that water. Furthermore, they can eat up oxygen if left unchecked, starving fish and other water organisms and eventually making them die out.

Such situations usually result from agricultural practices, which can lead to powerful nutrients entering the water and enabling algae and other microorganisms to grow excessively. An overly lively environment can be as harmful as one where everything is threatened.

With that said, industrial manufacturers deserve much of the attention and blame they receive from various communities. Construction of dedicated waste-cleaning facilities is usually possible, but companies avoid doing so because the process will increase their costs.

You should advocate for green practices, but be mindful of the potential impact of a significant price increase on the global economy. Also, be sure to mention more exotic pollution variations in your types of water pollution essay.

Provide examples of noise pollution or suspended matter pollution to expand on the topic of the complexity of the harm humanity causes to the ecosphere.

You should show your understanding that there are many causes, and we should work on addressing all of them, a notion you should repeat in your water pollution essay conclusions.

However, you should try to avoid being sidetracked too much and focus on the titles of pollution and its immediate causes.

If you stretch far enough, you may connect the matter to topics such as the status of a woman in Islam. However, doing so contributes little to nothing to your point and deviates from the topic of ecology into social and religious studies.

Leave the search for connections to dedicated researchers and concentrate on discussing the major causes that are known nowadays. By doing this, you will be able to create an excellent and powerful work that will demonstrate your understanding of the topic.

Here are some tips for your writing:

• Be sure to discuss the different types of pollution that is caused by the same source separately. Surface and groundwater pollution are different in their effects and deserve separate discussions.
• Focus on the issues and not on solutions, as an essay does not provide enough space to discuss the latter in detail.
• Be sure to discuss the effects of pollution on people and other land inhabitants as well as on water creatures.

Check IvyPanda to get more water pollution essay titles, paper ideas, and other useful samples!

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• Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions This is why clean water is required in all the places to make sure the people and all the living creatures in the planet live a good and healthy life.
• Water Pollution: Causes, Effects, and Prevention Farmers should be encouraged to embrace this kind of farming which ensures that the manure used is biodegradable and do not end up accumulating in the water bodies once they are washed off by floods.
• Water Pollution in the Philippines: Metropolitan Manila Area In this brief economic analysis of water pollution in Metro Manila, it is proposed to look at the industrial use of waters and the household use to understand the impact that the population growth and […]
• Coca-Cola India and Water Pollution Issues The first difficulty that the representatives of the Coca-Cola Company happened to face due to their campaign in the territory of India was caused by the concerns of the local government.
• Water Pollution in a Community: Mitigation Plan Though for the fact that planet earth is abundant with water and almost two-thirds of the planet is made up of water still it is viewed that in future years, a shortage of water may […]
• Water Pollution and Management in the UAE The groundwater in UAE meets the needs of 51% of users in terms of quantity mainly for irrigation. Surface water is the source of groundwater and plays a major role in groundwater renewal.
• Mud Lick Creek Project – Fresh Water Pollution This potential source of pollutants poses significant risks to the quality of water at the creek in terms altering the temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and the turbidity of the water.
• Causes of Water Pollution and the Present Environmental Solution Prolonged pollution of water has even caused some plants to grow in the water, which pose danger to the living entities that have their inhabitants in the water.
• Cashion Water Quality: Spatial Distribution of Water Pollution Incidents This essay discusses the quality of water as per the report of 2021 obtained from the municipality, the quality issue and the source of pollution, and how the pollution impacts human health and the environment […]
• Water Pollution as a Crime Against the Environment In particular, water pollution is a widespread crime against the environment, even though it is a severe felony that can result in harm to many people and vast territories.
• Importance of Mercury Water Pollution Problem Solutions The severity of the mercury contamination consequences depends on the age of the person exposed to the contamination, the way of contamination, the health condition, and many other factors.
• Newark Water Crisis: Water Pollution Problem The main problem was rooted in the fact that lead levels in the drinking water were highly elevated, which is dangerous and detrimental to the population’s health.
• Water Pollution: OIL Spills Aspects The effects of the oil spill on a species of ducks called the Harlequin ducks were formulated and the author attempted to trace out the immediate and residual effects of the oil on the birds.
• Food Distribution and Water Pollution Therefore, food distribution is one of the central reasons for water pollution. According to Greenpeace, one of the ways to improve the ecology of the planet is by creating healthy food markets.
• Water Pollution and Associated Health Risks The results of plenty of studies indicate the existence of the relation between the contamination of water by hazardous chemicals and the development of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, asthma, allergies, as well as reproductive […]
• Lake Erie Water Pollution There are worries among the members of the community that the lake could be facing another episode of high toxicity, and they have called for the authorities to investigate the main causes of the pollution […]
• Water Pollution in the US: Causes and Control Although water pollution can hardly be ceased entirely, the current rates of water pollution can be reduced by resorting to the sustainable principle of water use in both the industrial area and the realm of […]
• Water Pollution and Its Challenges Water pollution refers to a situation where impurities find way into water bodies such as rivers, lakes, and ground water. This is a form of pollution where impurities enter water bodies through distinct sources such […]
• Water Pollution Sources, Effects and Control Unfortunately, not all the users of water are responsible to ensure that proper disposal or treatment of the used water is done before the water is returned to the water bodies.
• Water in Crisis: Public Health Concerns in Africa In the 21st century, the world faces a crisis of contaminated water, which is the result of industrialization and is a major problem in developing countries.
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Types of Water Pollution – Causes and Effects

Water makes 70% of the surface of Earth and more than 60% of the human body. Although a major portion of the Earth’s surface, as well as our body, consisting of water, yet we continue to pollute the various sources of water. With the increase in population, the pollution level in India is increasing at a dangerous rate. Industrial effluents and chemicals, sewage and other wastage are the main sources of water pollution. Here, we will discuss the causes, effects and different ways to prevent water pollution.

What is Water Pollution?

Water pollution is the contamination of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, aquifers, and groundwater. This is usually caused due to human activities. Water pollution scientifically changes in the physical, chemical or biological properties of water that will have a detrimental consequence of any living organism.

Drinking water is the water that is considered safe enough for human and animal consumption. This water is generally used for drinking, cooking, washing, crop irrigation, etc. But, these days chemicals, bacteria, and other pollutants are even affecting our drinking water.

Types of Water Pollution

Surface Water Pollution

Hazardous substances when coming into contact with different sources of water, leads to surface water pollution. The harmful contaminants from various sources mix or dissolve with lakes, lagoons, oceans and lead to surface water pollution.

Ground Water Pollution

Pesticides and chemicals applied to crops and soil are washed deep into the ground during the rain. The pesticides mix with groundwater and lead to its pollution.

Suspended Matter Pollution

In this pollution, the pollutants enter into water and don’t mix with the water molecules. Therefore, the suspended particles in water form silt on the waterbed. Due to this nutrient from water were removed and making it polluted.

Microbial Pollution

Microorganisms cause this type of water pollution. Although most of the microorganisms are harmless, some bacteria and viruses may cause serious health problems.

Chemical Water Pollution

Many industries and farmers use chemicals for their various purposes. It causes water pollution. Pollutants used to control weeds, insects and pests leech into the water and spreading the pollution. Also, metals and solvents from industries also lead to water pollution.

Causes of Water Pollution:

Disposing of sewage in water is one of the major reasons for water pollution. Sewage disposed into the sea from households as well as factories can cause water pollution. Sewage disposal leads to a number of water-related illnesses such as diarrhea which is a leading cause of death among children.

Industrial Waste

Many factories pour industrial waste like toxic chemicals into the water bodies before treatment. It leads to polluting the water. Due to dumping toxic chemicals, the oxygen levels in water decreases leading to pollution.

Dumping of Solid Waste

Another major reason for water pollution is littering by humans. Dumping solid waste such as plastics, cardboards, Styrofoam contaminates water and make water unsuitable for consumption. Mass dumping of solid waste clogs the water bodies and leads to water pollution.

Radioactive Wastes

Discharging of radioactive wastes into the sea is also one of the main water pollution cause in today’s world.

Effects of Water Pollution

Groundwater contamination

Pesticides and fertilizers used for the cultivation of crops are contaminating the groundwater as well as our ecosystem. If this groundwater is supplied to our home directly through bore-wells or tube-wells, it will lead to a number of health problems.

Affects Aquatic Life

Solid wastes that we throw in the river or lakes or in the sea can have a harmful impact on the aquatic animals. Also, this disrupts the eco-system as many species of aquatic animals are in danger. People consuming seafood are also at a risk of facing health issues.

High TDS in water

Water is the best solvent that easily dissolves a variety of substances. The TDS level in drinking water needs to be less than 500 mg/liter. The presence of a high amount of TDS in water can lead to many health problems in human beings.

Questions on Water Pollution

Q: What are some major Preventive Measures to Control the water pollution?

Ans: Some main such measure is as follows:

• Stop directly dispatching of wastes into the water body.
• Impose a penalty on the industries that dispose of wastes into natural water.
• Always follow proper methods to protect the rivers, lakes, and seas
• Spread the awareness to ensure that they understand the adverse impact of water pollution.
• Educate the people about creating a culture of responsibility to minimize the disposal of wastes.

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Your environment. your health., safe water and your health, what is niehs doing, further reading, introduction.

Water is essential for life. People depend on safe water for their health and livelihood. But contaminated water leads to millions of deaths and even more illnesses every year. 1

Water pollution is any contamination of water with chemicals or other hazardous substances that are detrimental to human, animal, or plant health.

Possible sources of water contamination are:

• Corroded water pipes that leach harmful chemicals, such as lead
• Hazardous waste sites and industrial discharges
• Pesticides and fertilizers from agricultural operations
• Naturally occurring hazardous chemicals, such as arsenic
• Sewage and food processing waste

Drinking Water

Drinking water in the U.S. comes from a variety of sources, including public water systems, private wells, or bottled water. Worldwide, nearly 2 billion people drink contaminated water that could be harmful to their health. 2  Though more of a concern in developing countries, safe drinking water is a U.S. public health priority.

Health Effects

Examples follow of potential drinking water contaminants and reported health effects, which can range from subtle to severe depending on the chemical and total exposure.

• Arsenic – a known human carcinogen associated with skin, lung, bladder, kidney, and liver cancer 3
• Lead – behavioral and developmental effects in children; and cardiovascular and kidney problems 4
• Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) chemicals – damage to the immune 5  and reproductive systems 6
• Pesticides – neurodevelopmental effects and Parkinson’s disease 7

Waterborne Disease From All Water Sources

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the burden and direct healthcare cost of infectious waterborne disease in the U.S. When drinking, recreational, and environmental water sources were considered together, they found more than 7 million cases of 17 different waterborne illnesses occur annually. New waterborne disease challenges are emerging due to factors such as aging infrastructure, chlorine-tolerant and biofilm-related pathogens, and increased recreational water use.

• Landrigan P et al. 2018. The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. Feb 3;391(10119):462-512 [ Abstract Landrigan P et al. 2018. The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. Feb 3;391(10119):462-512 ]
• Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WHO). (Last accessed March 23, 2020) [ Full Text Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WHO). (Last accessed March 23, 2020) ]
• NTP. 2016. Report on Carcinogens, Fourteenth Edition.; Research Triangle Park, NC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. [ Abstract NTP. 2016. Report on Carcinogens, Fourteenth Edition.; Research Triangle Park, NC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. ]
• Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 2007. Toxicological profile for Lead. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. [ Full Text Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 2007. Toxicological profile for Lead. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. ]
• Boule LA, et al. 2018. Developmental exposure to a mixture of 23 chemicals associated with unconventional oil and gas operations alters the immune system of mice. Toxicol Sci; doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfy066 [Online 01 May 2018]. [ Abstract Boule LA, et al. 2018. Developmental exposure to a mixture of 23 chemicals associated with unconventional oil and gas operations alters the immune system of mice. Toxicol Sci; doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfy066 [Online 01 May 2018]. ]
• Sapouckey SA, et al. 2018. Prenatal exposure to unconventional oil and gas operation chemical mixtures altered mammary gland development in adult female mice. Endocrinology 159(3):1277–1289. [ Abstract Sapouckey SA, et al. 2018. Prenatal exposure to unconventional oil and gas operation chemical mixtures altered mammary gland development in adult female mice. Endocrinology 159(3):1277–1289. ]
• Pesticides (NIEHS). (Last accessed March 23, 2020) [ Full Text Pesticides (NIEHS). (Last accessed March 23, 2020) ]

NIEHS research examines potential health effects of contaminants in water and explores ways to protect the public from contact with unsafe water.

The GuLF STUDY (Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study), funded by NIEHS and the National Institutes of Health Common Fund, studies the health of people who helped with the oil spill response and clean-up, took training, signed up to work, or were sent to the Gulf of Mexico to help in some way after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. NIEHS is leading this research effort with the support of many community groups. Nearly 33,000 people joined the study, making it the largest study ever conducted on the health effects of an oil spill. The study has tracked numerous health issues reported by cleanup workers, including skin rashes, wheezing and difficulty breathing, headaches, nausea, depression and anxiety, and heart attacks. However, the most recent publication to emerge from the research suggests that some health effects associated with the spill may resolve over time.

NIEHS and the National Science Foundation jointly fund research on marine-related health issues through the Centers for Oceans and Human Health . Grantees, for example, develop techniques for more accurate and earlier detection of harmful algal blooms with the goal of preventing and reducing exposure. They also study the health effects of eating seafood containing toxins produced by harmful algal blooms. Contaminants of emerging concern, such as microplastics, are also studied.

NIEHS offers time-sensitive grants that enable researchers to launch studies quickly in response to natural disasters, industrial accidents, or policy changes that affect water quality. In addition, the National Toxicology Program, located at NIEHS, reviews available toxicology studies and conducts short- and long-term studies to help public health officials respond to threats to the safety of drinking water. For example:

• Researchers measured PFAS exposures in residents near Colorado Springs whose water was contaminated with the PFAS perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), as well as contamination of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina by the PFAS GenX.
• Scientists were able to address the concerns of residents of Flint, Michigan about their exposure to lead, giving them rapid information on how great the risk was and ways they might limit the exposure.

NTP is evaluating individual PFAS  (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which is a group of widely produced industrial-use chemicals that are found in some waterways. NTP studies seek to understand the effects of certain PFAS on metabolism, biological activity in cell-based systems, and health effects related to cancer and the immune system.

The NIEHS Superfund Research Program funds grants to study the health effects of potentially hazardous substances and to investigate effective and sustainable ways to clean up those substances at hazardous waste sites, which may include waterways.

The program’s grant recipients have developed online tools to inform local communities about potential environmental health risks.

• Scientists at University of California, Berkeley launched the Drinking Water Tool , an interactive website that helps California residents identify areas where water quality may be of concern.
• SRP-funded researchers developed therapeutic sorbents that can bind to hazardous chemicals in water, potentially reducing health problems following natural disasters, chemical spills, and other emergencies. Sorbents are insoluble materials that may be used to bind and remove contaminants from water or food. In the form of enterosorbents, they can be safely consumed by people as a way to remove certain harmful substances from the gut.

NIEHS supports the NIH Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program . This program includes ready-to-go data collection tools, research protocols, and a network of trained responders. These tools assist timely gathering of environmental and toxicological data that compliments health information collected during disaster responses. Many disasters can affect water safety.

Stories from the Environmental Factor (NIEHS Newsletter)

• Well Water Test History Must Now Be Shared With Home Buyers (July 2024)
• Microplastics’ Knowns, Unknowns Discussed by a Physician-Scientist (May 2024)
• Ask the Expert: How Does NIEHS Research on PFAS Affect Me? (May 2024)
• Oceans Research Gets New Funding (May 2024)
• Grantee Shines New Light on Cause of Ciguatera Seafood Poisoning (April 2024)
• Water Contaminants Identified, Addressed in Marginalized Communities (October 2023)
• Stricter Drinking Water Standards for Arsenic Benefit Highly Exposed Populations (September 2023)
• Microplastics Research: Sum of Our Exposures Studied by Grantee (July 2023)
• Geospatial Analysis Shows Disproportionate Exposure to Arsenic and Uranium Across the U.S. (February 2023)
• PFAS Water Filter Developed Through NIEHS Funding (April 2022)
• Eight Substances Added to 15th Report on Carcinogens (January 2022)
• Water Contaminant NDMA Linked to Cancer Cluster in Massachusetts (May 2021)

Printable Fact Sheets

Fact sheets.

Arsenic and Your Health

Climate Change and Human Health

Drinking Water and Your Health

Endocrine Disruptors and Your Health

Press releases.

• Microplastics, Algal Blooms, Seafood Safety Are Public Health Concerns Addressed by New Oceans and Human Health Centers (April 16, 2024) - NIEHS and the National Science Foundation jointly fund research centers to better understand how ocean-related exposures affect people’s health.
• Reducing Exposure to Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water (2023) – Before drinking water reaches a home, it is treated with chlorine to kill bacteria, viruses, and germs that can cause disease. Although this disinfection step keeps people safe from waterborne illnesses, it also has the potential to create byproducts that can harm health. These compounds – called disinfection byproducts – are formed when chlorine combines with organic matter naturally present in water. NIEHS-funded researchers work with residents in eastern Kentucky who are concerned about high levels of disinfection byproducts detected in their drinking water.
• Community Science Aids Harmful Algal Blooms Research (2022) – A NIEHS-funded community science program engages charter boat captains and U.S. Coast Guard personnel to collect water samples and other data on Lake Erie. This data allows researchers to monitor, predict, and mitigate harmful algal blooms. This community science effort, the center also increases public awareness.
• Microplastic Pollution and Human Health (2020) – Microplastics present potential health risks because they can be composed of harmful chemicals, and they accumulate additional persistent organic pollutants as they float in oceans. As microplastics become increasingly prevalent in the food chain, scientists and health professionals are giving more attention to the potential health risks for people.

Additional Resources

• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Collection – In the U.S., safe piped water is responsible for improving public health. Yet billions of people globally—including some residents of high-income countries—lack access to safely managed drinking water services. This collection of research papers published in Environmental Health Perspectives is related to WASH topics.
• Medline Plus: Drinking Water – Consumer information from Medline Plus, a service of the National Library of Medicine.
• CDC: Drinking Water – Public health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Ground Water and Drinking Water – Information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative – This solutions-focused research initiative aims to reduce the health consequences associated with extreme weather events and evolving climate conditions. NIH has a strong history of creating innovative tools, technologies, and data-driven solutions to address global environmental problems.
• Reducing PFAS in Drinking Water (1MB) – In the Cincinnati area, NIEHS-funded researchers discovered high levels of a specific PFAS chemical, called perfluorooctanoate (PFOA), in young girls. This research translation story shows how they worked with local water departments to implement water filtering techniques that resulted in a 40-60% reduction in PFOA levels in the girls and other residents.
• Report on Carcinogens – This congressionally mandated, science-based, public health document is prepared by NTP for the HHS Secretary. The current report lists 248 agents, substances, mixtures, and exposure circumstances that are known or reasonably anticipated to cause cancer in humans.

Related Health Topics

• Algal Blooms
• Flame Retardants
• Hexavalent Chromium
• Nutrition, Health, and Your Environment
• Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

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• Water Pollution Essay

Water Pollution and How it Harms the Environment

Global pollution is a problem. Pollution can spread to remote areas where no one lives, despite the fact that urban areas are typically more polluted than the countryside. Air pollution, water pollution, and land pollution are the three main categories of pollution. Some contaminated water has a terrible smell, a muddy appearance, and floating trash. Some contaminated water appears clean, but it contains dangerous substances that you can't see or smell.

Together, developed and developing nations must fight to conserve the environment for present and future generations. Today, we dig deep into the subject of Water Pollution. This article can be an introduction to water pollution for kids as we will read many things such as the causes of water pollution further in the article.

What is Water Pollution?

Water contamination occurs when pollutants pollute water sources and make the water unfit for use in drinking, cooking, cleaning, swimming, and other activities. Chemicals, garbage, bacteria, and parasites are examples of pollutants. Water is eventually damaged by all types of pollution. Lakes and oceans become contaminated by air pollution. Land contamination may contaminate an underground stream, a river, and ultimately the ocean. As a result, trash thrown on an empty lot can eventually contaminate a water source.

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Water Pollution

The water cycle, called  the hydrological cycle, involves the following steps:

Evaporation- Because of the sun's heat, the water bodies such as oceans, lakes, seas etc., get heated up, and water evaporates in the air, forming water vapours.

Transpiration- Like evaporation, the plants and trees also lose water from them which goes to the atmosphere. This process is called transpiration.

Condensation- As the water evaporates, it starts to become cool because of the cold atmosphere in the air and because of this cooling down of water leads to the formation of clouds.

Precipitation- Because of the high movements of the wings, the clouds start to collide and then fall back to the earth’s surface in the form of rain. Sometimes they also fall back in the form of snow, hail, sleet etc., depending upon the temperature.

Runoff or Infiltration- After precipitation, the water either flows to the water bodies called runoff or is absorbed into the soil, called infiltration.

Causes of Water Pollution

There are many reasons for water pollution. Some of the reasons are directly affected by water pollution and some indirectly. Many factories and industries are dumping contaminated water, chemicals, and heavy metals into major waterways as a result of direct water pollution. 

One more reason for water pollution is the use of modern techniques in farms. Farmers apply nutrients such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium in the form of chemical fertilizers, manure, and sludge. It causes farms to discharge large quantities of agrochemicals, organic matter, and saline drainage into water bodies. It indirectly affects water pollution.

Pollutants can be of various types such as organic, inorganic, radioactive etc. Water pollutants are discharged either from one point from pipes, channels etc., which are called point sources or from various other sources. They can be agricultural areas, industries etc., called dispersed sources. 

Some of the major forms of water pollutants are as follows:

Sewage- Domestic sewage from homes contains various forms of pathogens that threaten the human body. Sewage treatment reduces the risk of pathogens, but this risk is not eliminated. 

Domestic sewage majorly contains nitrates and phosphates, and excess of these substances allows the algae to grow on the surface of water bodies. Due to this, the clean water bodies become nutrient-rich water body and then slowly, the oxygen level of water bodies reduces. This is called eutrophication or cultural eutrophication (if this step rapidly takes place by the activities of humans). This leads to the early death of water bodies.

Toxins- The industrial or factory wastes that are not disposed of properly and contain chemicals such as mercury and lead are disposed of in the water bodies making the bodies toxic, radioactive, explosive and cancerous.

Sediments- Sediments are the result of soil erosion that is formed in the water bodies. These sediments imbalances the water bodies ecologically. They also interfere in the reproductive cycle of various aquatic animals living in the water.

Thermal pollution- Water bodies get polluted because of heat, and excess heat reduces the oxygen level of the water bodies. Some of the species of fish cannot live in such water bodies with very low oxygen levels. The disposal of cold waters from the power plants leads to increased thermal pollution in the water bodies.

Petroleum oil pollution- The runoff of oil into the water bodies, either accidentally as happened in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, or intentionally, leads to an increase in water pollution.

As water is an important element of human health, polluted water directly affects the human body. Water pollution causes various diseases like typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, cancer, etc. Water pollution damages the plants and aquatic animals present in the river by reducing the oxygen content from the water. Polluted water washes the essential nutrients which plants need out of the soil and also leaves large amounts of aluminium in the soil, which can be harmful to plants. 

Wastewater and sewage are a by-product of daily life and thus produced by each household through various activities like using soap, toilets, and detergents. Such sewage contains chemicals and bacteria which are harmful to human life and environmental health. Water pollution also leads to an imbalance in our ecosystem. Lastly, it also affects the food chain as the toxins in the water bodies are consumed by aquatic animals like fish, crabs etc., and then humans consume those animals forming turmoil. 

Sometimes our tradition also becomes a cause for water pollution. Some people throw the statues of deities, flowers, pots, and ashes in rivers.

There are various standards to define water quality standards. Water meant for swimming may not be clean enough for drinking, or water meant for bathing may not be good for cooking. Therefore, there are different water standards for defined:

Stream standards- Standards that define streams, lakes, oceans or seas based on their maximum use.

Effluent standards- Define the specific standards for the level of contaminants or effluents allowed during the final discharge of those into the water bodies.

Drinking water standards- Define the level of contamination allowed in water that will be supplied for drinking or cooking in the domestic areas.

Different countries regulate their water quality standards through different acts and amendments.

While many of the solutions for water pollution need to be applied on a broader macro-level for that individual, companies, and communities can have a significant and responsible impact on the water quality. Companies, factories have to dispose of leftover chemicals and containers properly as per the product instructions. Farmers also have to reduce the use of nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers, pesticides, and contamination of groundwater. 

The Swachh Bharat Mission of the government had led to reduced groundwater contamination. Under the Namami Ganga program, the government has initiated several major projects to clean Ganga. Along with all these steps, conservation of water is the very basic and important step towards water conservation and should be followed globally, treatment of sewage before their disposal in the water bodies and using environment-friendly products that do not form toxins when dissolved in water. These are some small steps that have to be taken into consideration by every human being.

As we all know, “Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” We have to save water. We must keep the water clean. If everyone will follow their responsibility against water to protect it from getting polluted then it will be easy to get clean and healthy drinking water. Clean water is a must for us and our kids' present, future, and healthy environment. 

We cannot just live with contaminated waters filled with toxins and no oxygen. We cannot see our wildlife being destroyed and therefore, immediate steps have to be taken by groups of people to first clean the already contaminated water bodies and then keep a check on all the surrounding water bodies. Small steps by every individual can make a huge difference in controlling water pollution.

Water Pollution Prevention

Conserve Water 

Our first priority should be to conserve water. Water wasting could be a big problem for the entire world, but we are just now becoming aware of it.

Sewage Treatment 

Cleaning up waste materials before disposing of them in waterways reduces pollution on a large scale. By lowering its dangerous elements, this wastewater will be used in other sectors or in agriculture.

Usage of Eco-Friendly Materials

We will reduce the amount of pollution produced by choosing soluble products that do not alter to become pollutants.

Water contamination is the discharge of pollutants into the water body, where they dissolve, are suspended, are deposited on the bottom, and collect to the point where they hinder the aquatic ecosystem's ability to function. Water contamination is brought on by toxic compounds that easily dissolve and combine with it and come from factories, municipalities, and farms.

Healthy ecosystems depend on a complex network of organisms, including animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi, all of which interact with one another either directly or indirectly. In this article, we read about water pollution, its causes and prevention. With this, we have come to the end of our article, in case of any other doubts, feel free to ask in the comments.

FAQs on Water Pollution Essay

1. What are the effects of water pollution?

Water pollution has a great impact on human health. Water pollution kills. It's been recorded that in 2015 nearly 1.8 million people died because of water pollution. People with low income are exposed to contaminated water coming out from the industries. Presence of disease causing pathogens in drinking water are the major cause of illness which includes cholera, giardia, and typhoid. Water pollution not only affects human health but also our environment by causing algal bloom in a lake or marine environment. Water pollution also causes eutrophication which suffocates plants and animals and thus causes dead zones. Chemicals and heavy metals from industrial and municipal wastewater contaminate waterways and harm aquatic life.

2. What are the causes of Water pollution?

Water being a universal solvent is vulnerable to pollution as it dissolves more substances than any other liquid on earth. Therefore, water is easily polluted. Toxic substances from farms, towns, and factories readily dissolve into water and mix with it, resulting in water pollution. Agricultural pollution is one of the major causes of contamination in rivers and streams. The use of excessive fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste from farms and livestock operations lets the rain wash the nutrients and pathogens—such as bacteria and viruses—into our waterways. The other major cause of water pollution is used water,  termed as wastewater which comes from our sinks, showers, toilets and from commercial, industrial, and agricultural activities. It's been reported that the world's 80% wastewater flows back into the environment without being treated or reused. Oil spills and radioactive waste also cause water pollution to a great extent.

3. How to prevent water pollution?

It is important to keep our water bodies clean so we can take the following preventive measures to prevent from water pollution:

Chemicals like bleach, paint, paint thinner, ammonia, and many chemicals are becoming a serious problem. Dumping toxic chemicals down the drain or flushing them down the toilet can cause water pollution. Thus, proper disposal is important. Also, household chemicals need to be recycled.

Avoid buying products that contain persistent and dangerous chemicals. Buying non-toxic cleaners and biodegradable cleaners and pesticides cut down on water pollution.

Prevent from pouring fats or greasy substances down the drain as it might clog the drain resulting in the dumping of waste into yards or basement which can contaminate the local water bodies.

4. What is the role of medical institutions in polluting the water?

Pharmaceutical pollution affects aquatic life and thus there is a need to take preventive measures. Consumers are responsible for winding up pharmaceutical and personal care products in lakes, rivers, and streams. There's a lot of unused and expired medication that can potentially get into the water if not disposed of properly.

5. What are the major kinds of pollution?

The three main types of pollution are air pollution, water pollution or soil pollution. Some artificial pollution is also there, such as noise pollution. Factors leading to such pollution include:

Air Pollution: Industrial emissions, fires, traffic and transportation, burning of chemical waste, etc.

Water Pollution: No proper sewage disposal, pesticides in farms leaking into water bodies, industrial waste dumped into water bodies, etc.

Soil Pollution:  Oil spills, acid rains, irresponsible disposal of trash, chemical waste, etc.

Noise Pollution: Honking of horns, construction activities, loud parties, etc.

Water Pollution

Water pollution is often a prominent environmental problem witnessed across the globe. In some cases, water pollution happens when pollutants empty into rivers, revenues, lakes, and other bodies of mineral water. Pollutants can be as chemicals from fertilizers, pesticides, acrylic, gasoline, antifreeze, and in some cases mulch or soil. Sometimes rainwater washes the particles in to the water bodies, too. There are several preventative steps which might be taken to reduce water pollution. Water is amongst the most fundamental needs for individuals.

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Curriculum for the Bioregion

Connecting climate change and environmental (un)justice: food security, water quality, and air pollution case studies in environmental science.

Brian Saunders, North Seattle College, Environmental Science

In a series of discussion-based assignments, students learn about environmental and climate justice through case studies conveyed mostly through online videos and documentaries. Students explore connections between climate change and fossil fuel extraction and processing activities and social injustices affecting people living in different parts of the world, through case studies on food insecurity, degraded water quality, and poor air quality that highlight the systemic nature of these problems. This activity also helps students recognize examples of civic engagement for climate justice and supports students' own actions and understandings of types of civic engagement that are effective.

Learning Goals

1. Define the concept of environmental injustice and its root causes.

2. Learn to critically think, synthesize ideas, and make connections between environmental issues, climate change, and environmental injustice.

3. Develop research skills in identifying reliable science.

4. Recognize the disproportionate effects of adverse climate change on impoverished and marginalized people.

5. Recognize and find examples of civic engagement that promote climate justice.

6. Practice and reflect on effective means of civic engagement.

Context for Use

I use five discussion-based assignments plus a civic engagement activity in an introductory environmental science course with a class size of 24 to 30 students at a two-year college. Each assignment is aligned with science topics covered in a typical introductory environmental science course. For each assignment, students watch videos or a documentary, have small-group discussions with other students during class time, and complete a group assignment at the end of each class session. After completing the assignments over several weeks, students complete a civic engagement activity that highlights positive stories of change related to climate justice. My class meets twice per week for two hours each session and I implement each assignment during one of the two-hour sessions each week, for a total of five weeks needed for the assignments and activity. (The other two-hour class sessions each week are laboratory sessions, of which the assignments and activity are not a direct part.) The assignments are independent of each other, so you could use them in a different order than described here or you could use only one or two of the assignments. Whether using one assignment or more, or all, I recommend including the civic engagement activity, so that students feel empowered and have learned ways that they can take action to promote climate justice.

The assignments and the activity could work for any introductory STEM or non-STEM course focused on environmental issues at a similar two-year college, four-year college or university, or upper-level high school class. The assignments can be adapted for an asynchronous online course by having students complete each assignment over one week using a discussion forum feature of a Learning Management System (LMS), such as Canvas. Prior to encountering this set of assignments, it would be helpful for students to have a basic understanding of the scientific method and how reliable and credible science is conducted. Students should also be familiar with the basic chemistry and biology concepts typically taught in an introductory environmental science course (e.g., matter, energy, and life; ecosystems and the biosphere; community and population ecology; conservation and biodiversity) or a high school biology or chemistry course. I use the free online Open Educational Resources (OER) textbook Environmental Biology by Matthew R. Fisher for the course in which I implement the assignments and the activity, but any standard introductory environmental science textbook should work. Access to a computer and the internet is needed for watching videos and documentaries. I use the Canvas online LMS to distribute assignments, collect student work, and offer feedback on assignments completed by students, but the use of an LMS is not necessary if the course is offered in-person in a classroom. In this context, instead of using an LMS, you could print out handouts for distribution to students during class, collect assignments completed by students on paper during class, and provide written feedback on each assignment.

Description and Teaching Materials

Planning for Class Time:

A total of two hours is needed to implement each assignment (1 through 5 below) during class time, which involves introducing case studies using videos or documentaries, allowing time for students to discuss the case studies in small groups of 4 to 5 students, asking each group to share the highlights of their discussion with the whole class, and allowing time for students to complete each assignment during class time. At the end of each class session, I collect one assignment from each group and use that to assign a grade to all students in each group. The two hours of class time needed for each assignment can be reduced by having students explore resources before class and/or answer discussion questions before class and/or ask students to complete the assignments after the class session ends. The time needed for the civic engagement activity varies, depending on what each student decides to do. I will first describe and provide teaching materials for implementing the assignments and the civic engagement activity in an in-person class. Further below, I provide an overview of how I implement them in an asynchronous online course.

Assigned Readings:

The assignments align with chapters in the free online Open Educational Resources (OER) textbook Environmental Biology by Matthew R. Fisher, which is the textbook that I use for the course. Although I use Environmental Biology by Matthew R. Fisher, any standard introductory environmental science textbook that includes the topics covered in these chapters should work. The Environmental Biology textbook does not cover all science topics in the depth that I need for my course, so I offer students resources to supplement the environmental science content from this textbook when needed. For each assignment, students read a chapter from the textbook that aligns with each assignment before I do each assignment in class.

• Prior to Assignments 1 and 2, students read Chapter 1: Environmental Science , which covers human impacts on the environment, sustainability, ethics, and environmental justice and indigenous struggles, as well as Chapter 6: Environmental Hazards & Human Health , which includes information about how chemicals in the environment affect human health and ecosystems.
• Prior to Assignment 3, students read Chapter 8: Food & Hunger and Chapter 9: Conventional & Sustainable Agriculture , which together discuss food security and the impacts of industrial agricultural practices on soils, plants, and ecosystems. 
• Prior to Assignment 4, students read Chapter 7: Water Availability and Use , which focuses on environmental issues that affect water supply and water quality. 
• Prior to Assignment 5, students read Chapter 10: Air Pollution, Climate Change, & Ozone Depletion , which provides information about ozone depletion, acid rain, and global climate change. In addition to these chapters, which align with each activity, students have learned the science content covered in Chapters 2 through 5 of this textbook prior to encountering any of the assignments.

Implement In Class With Small Class Size (24 to 30 Students):

Instructor Preparation : Check web links to all videos and documentaries used for each activity; prepare assignment questions for use in class either by uploading to an online location where students can download it or printing it out and bringing it to class; prepare a discussion forum on a learning management system (I use Canvas) as a follow-up to each assignment.

Assignment 1: Introduction to Environmental Justice (2 hours) . This assignment introduces students to the concept of environmental justice. The handout for the assignment is provided below. I start by showing a five-minute video (in class) made by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) called Advancing Environmental Justice through the National Environmental Policy Act . The video shows an example of environmental injustice with a case study in the city of Memphis, Tennessee (USA), where a freeway was routed through a historically redlined community, and also offers a general definition of environmental justice. The video also explains how the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) , a law passed by the US federal government in 1970, requires that impacts on communities be considered, and community input sought, when projects such as highways are being sited and ultimately built. After the video, students have a discussion in small groups about NEPA and environmental justice and how environmental justice relates to climate justice. (I introduce the idea of climate justice in this assignment to get them thinking about it in preparation for the other four assignments (2 through 5) and the civic engagement activity.) Students use the first set of questions (1 through 3) on the handout to guide their discussion. Following the discussion, students explore a local (Seattle, Washington) freeway (Interstate 5, I-5) using the Duwamish Valley Cumulative Health Impacts Analysis , which is a report written by a local non-profit ( Just Health Action ) that works to reduce health inequities that result from environmental, economic, political, and social conditions. Students analyze maps on pages 11 through 21 of this report, as well as Table 2 on page 31, to learn about the demographics of people living along the I-5 freeway corridor (e.g., socioeconomic factors, age, pre-existing health conditions, education level, environmental exposures, life expectancy and incidence of certain health challenges such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and cancer). They use Table 2 to compare this region of the city of Seattle (The Duwamish Valley) to other parts of the city and discuss whether they feel the I-5 corridor is a case for environmental justice. (I point out to students that the I-5 freeway was constructed in 1969, before NEPA was enacted as law, so it is not a violation of NEPA.) Students discuss the second set of questions on the handout (1 through 5) in small groups while in class. At the end of class, students submit the handout as a group with their written responses to each question.

Introduction to Environmental Justice Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB May26 24)

Assignment 2: Introduction to Climate Justice (2 hours) . Climate justice is situated in the larger environmental justice movement. One definition of climate injustice, which I use in this activity, is the disproportionate effects of climate disruption and fossil fuel extraction and processing activities on future generations (i.e., inter-generational inequity) and groups that have been marginalized due to their race, income level, gender, ability, and/or other factors (i.e., intra-generational inequity). I start this activity by showing a 17-minute film, Women of Cancer Alley , in which several women speak about their experiences living in a region of the state of Louisiana (USA) infamously known as "Cancer Alley" due to the overwhelming and inter-generational burden of illness and death caused by toxic air pollution. Cancer Alley is an 80-mile length of the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana where chemical plants and oil refineries, including 180 petrochemical processing plants, were located in historic and predominantly Black communities. After watching the video, students discuss in small groups how this case study illustrates environmental injustice, the role of NEPA, and what they can do as U.S. citizens to support justice for communities in Cancer Alley. This film and discussion provide students with another example of environmental injustice. It is also a great case study for helping students see the connections between environmental justice, climate justice, and climate change, which is the focus of the second part of this assignment. Students begin Part 2 of this assignment by continuing to discuss the Women of Cancer Alley film, but this time guided by questions that ask about the connections between environmental injustice and climate injustice, with a specific focus on fossil fuel extraction and processing activities. Next, students watch a five-minute video, How the Pandemic Mirrors the Injustices We Saw With Hurricane Katrina , which features professor and environmental justice leader Robert Bullard talking about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, on communities living in low-lying areas of Cancer Alley. Students then discuss more about connections between environmental injustice and climate injustice, with a specific focus this time on climate disruption (e.g., warming of the planet, increased abundance and severity of tropical storms and flooding, sea level rise).

Introduction to Climate Justice Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 19kB May26 24)

Assignment 3: Food Insecurity and Climate Justice (2 hours) . This assignment starts in class with students watching the first 60 minutes of Food, Inc. The documentary examines corporate farming and industrial agriculture in the United States, showing how agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy (e.g., low nutritional content, high fat/cholesterol leading to diseases such as diabetes), environmentally harmful, and abusive of animals and people employed in the food system (e.g., farmers, factory workers). Students discuss the documentary in small groups, guided by questions focused on the role of the United States Department of Agriculture in food regulation and food safety as well as who is more at risk for the adverse effects of food production. The first hour highlights how low-income communities and other marginalized communities are most negatively impacted by U.S. food systems. In Part 2 of this assignment, students discuss ways they think food production and security is related to climate change. Then, they watch a six-minute PBS NewsHour video How climate change is disrupting the global food supply to learn more. (PBS is Public Broadcasting System, an American public broadcast service.) After the video, they continue their discussion about food production, food security and climate change, with a focus on identifying the specific connections.

Food Insecurity and Climate Justice Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 17kB May26 24)

Assignment 4: Water Quality and Climate Justice (2 hours) . This assignment starts with students watching a 54-minute PBS Frontline documentary about the Flint Water Crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan called Flint's Deadly Water . Flint is a city inhabited by a population that is more than 60 % Black and Latino, with more than 40 % of its residents living below the poverty line. Most people associate this crisis with lead poisoning in pipes, but a lesser known issue is contamination of Flint's water supply by Legionella bacteria. The presence of these bacteria in Flint's water caused a public health disaster and one of the largest outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in U.S. history, which is a serious type of pneumonia that occurs when Legionella bacteria enter people's lungs. The Flint Water crisis began in 2014, when the municipal water supply to Flint was switched from Detroit-supplied Lake Huron water to the Flint River. This switch caused water distribution pipes to corrode and leach lead and other contaminants into municipal drinking water. It also created the perfect conditions for the growth of Legionella bacteria in the pipes. The number of cases of Legionnaires' disease increased in the summers, when it was warmer (which is where the climate connection comes in with a second video). After viewing the PBS Frontline documentary, students discuss in small groups the value of water as a resource and its vulnerability to mismanagement, as well as the civil rights violations, legal prosecution of government officials, environmental injustice, and how society might prevent "another Flint" from happening in the future. After this discussion, I show students a six-minute video called " Could climate change make us sick? " that explains how warming of the planet makes disease worse, including discussion of the biological and physiological responses of organisms to warming and how regions predicted to become warmer and wetter due to climate change will have higher rates of disease transmission. After viewing this video, students discuss the connections between climate change and infectious disease, as well as how these connections could relate to the Flint water crisis in a climate-changed future.

Water Quality and Climate Justice Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 17kB May9 24)

Assignment 5: Air Quality and Climate Justice (2 hours) . This assignment focuses on the connections between air quality and climate justice, and also introduces students to civic engagement. I start this assignment by showing a 24-minute documentary by Unreported World called Dying to breathe: Mongolia's polluted air , which focuses on coal burning and particulate matter pollution (PM 2.5) in the capital city of Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar) by nomadic herding communities who have been displaced from their homes in rural areas because of climate impacts on grasslands (colder and drier conditions degrade pastures that their livestock need for grazing). In addition to the disproportionate effect of climate change (due to CO2 pollution of the air) and PM 2.5 pollution on nomadic herding peoples, the film also highlights how babies and young children are much more impacted by poor air quality. After watching the film, students reflect on connections between air pollution, social injustice, and climate change by discussing in small groups during class time. They also spend time researching a second case study of air pollution, social injustice and climate change, as well as how people are trying to address the issue in the case study they found by protecting themselves and their communities, and/or by advocating for other communities. I also provide students with examples of civic engagement, as well as a general definition of civic engagement. Students brainstorm how they think someone could address the issue in their case study with one of the civic engagement examples I gave them.

Air Quality and Climate Justice Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 17kB May9 24)

Activity: Civic Engagement for Climate Justice (a few hours) .  Students carry out this activity outside of class. They access the assignment using a learning management system (Canvas) and post a report of their civic engagement activity to a discussion board in Canvas. The assignment begins with students watching five short videos on their own that are focused on creating change and working to address climate injustices. The videos provide students with examples of how environmental issues and climate change can be addressed through civic engagement and are meant to inspire them to act. The first video, I will be a hummingbird , is two minutes long and was created by (now deceased) Kenyan political activist Wangari Maathai. It is a cartoon that shows a hummingbird trying to put out a forest fire by carrying tiny drops of water from a river, while much larger animals like an elephant, with a large trunk that holds much more water, stand by and watch, yet do nothing. It emphasizes that action matters, no matter how small the action, and validates the feeling that taking small actions, as only one person on this Earth, can seem insignificant when it comes to "putting out the fire" of global environmental problems like climate change. The second video is four minutes and shows poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a citizen of the Marshall Islands, reading her poem "Dear Matafele Peinem" , written for her seven-month-old daughter, to delegates and attendees of the United Nations Climate Summit. The third video is a two-minute trailer for the documentary The Ants and the Grasshopper , which shows Anita Chitaya traveling from Malawi, where her home is affected by extreme weather, to California and the White House, to persuade Americans that climate change is real. The fourth video, It's Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels , is a little longer (ten minutes) and features Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist and executive director of Honor the Earth, as she shares her views on ending fossil fuels and fighting pipelines through protest. The final video, 'Little Miss Flint' continues to fight for clean water access , is five minutes and shows an ABC News television interview where Mari Copeny from Flint, Michigan, who, 14 years old at the time of the interview, describes the actions she has taken since she was 8 years old to help people access clean water. Following the videos, each individual student answers a discussion question about which civic engagements, observed in the videos, they feel are most effective in promoting change and why. Students also answer a question about which civic action they would like to try, from a list of options I offer them to help with their brainstorming. The list includes (but I tell them is not limited to) influencing policy (encouraging or registering others to vote, contacting government officials, canvassing), volunteering (for a group or organization, or fundraising), outreach (using social media or publication, write an op-ed or letter to the editor) or protesting (join a protest, sign or organize petitions, organize boycotts, create art, fashion, display buttons, logos, signs, stickers). After they complete this assignment, they carry out their action sometimes over the next week and then complete another discussion post where they describe their action and reflect on the effectiveness of another student's action.

Civic Engagement Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 19kB May26 24)

Implement In Online Asynchronous Course:

To implement this in an asynchronous online course, which I have done, I give students one week to complete each assignment. Early in each week, I ask students to read the textbook chapter that aligns with each assignment, as I have described in the second paragraph at the beginning of this section. In the middle of the week, I ask students to watch the first video or documentary and answer the first set of questions in a discussion forum on our Canvas site. At the end of the week, I ask students to explore the second set of resources and answer the second set of questions in a discussion forum on our Canvas site. Each of the five assignments and the civic engagement activity follows this pattern, for a total of six weeks of a 10-week term. (My college is on the 10-week-long quarter system.)

Teaching Notes and Tips

Students find these assignments and the activity insightful, producing greater clarity and a deeper dive into the lecture topics. The most enjoyable part of including these activities in my environmental science course is to see how engaging they are for students. During the small group discussion, and especially very early in the term when students are still getting comfortable with the course and with me, I emphasize that there can be more than one correct answer to the discussion questions. I also encourage them to not stress about getting the answers 'correct' but focus on using critical thinking, which is also how I assess these assignments. This reassurance seems necessary to getting students engaged and active in the discussions. This can be especially important for younger students who may still see the world as black-and-white and who may have been conditioned by our educational systems to think there is always "one correct answer" to a question.

The civic engagement activity works well as an assignment outside class time because it occurs at the end of the 10-week term, when final exams are happening. It is a nice way to finish the class because it leaves students feeling more hopeful and empowered than they may have if they completed only the five assignments. They are also very creative with what they choose for their civic action, including writing a rap song (the student who wrote it gave me permission to share it: Climate Justice Rap Song.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB May10 24) ), creating art, signing petitions, posting to social media, or registering themselves to vote or helping others register to vote. When students approach me with questions about what they should do, I encourage them to take actions that they are interested in, such as encouraging a student majoring in art to create art, a STEM student to participate in a citizen science project, or a political science major to call an elected official or attend a city council meeting. Sometimes, when students see on the class discussion board what other students are doing, they will do the same thing. For example, I had a student recently sign an online petition and other students in the class saw this student post about it on the discussion board. Then, many other students signed online petitions as well. This limits the variety of civic actions on the discussion board, such that students are not exposed to a variety of civic actions that other students have taken and that they could also take. It might help to tell students that they need to do a civic action that is different from those of other students. For example, in a class size of 24 to 30 students, which is the size of my class, you could add a guideline to the Civic Engagement Assignment, such as "Please read any discussion posts already made about actions that other students in the course have already taken. Do not choose a type of action if five others students in the class have already taken that same type of action. For example, if five other students have already filled out and submitted a petition, do not take that same type of action. Think of another thing you can do." Adding this guideline to the assignment may require you to have a list of other options ready for students who cannot think of ideas, but you could easily create this list by doing the activity a few times in a class, documenting different student actions, and then sharing and building this list as you continue to teach this. I would also promote instruction that encourages students of diverse cultural backgrounds to share their experiences related to each topic. These acts of sharing further layer the enrichment of each assignment.

I provide students with a weekly suggested schedule, especially when teaching this in online asynchronous form, to make sure students are on track to do the readings from the textbook before each assignment. These chapters contain knowledge about environmental science topics that align with the different assignments, and it is good for them to be familiar with the science topics before encountering each assignment.

The timing of implementing each assignment and the activity can be adapted, depending on which key environmental science concepts you want to use as you introduce and integrate climate justice into your course. For instance, you could implement the assignments and activity earlier in the course, such as when students are typically learning the scientific method, or later in the term after some basic ecology concepts have been covered (e.g., population dynamics, growth, abiotic and biotic influences on populations and food chain/webs would align with the food security assignment).

Learning Goals 1 through 5 all involve a lot of formative assessment and feedback during class time, as well as a more summative assessment of their written work after the class session is over. In small groups, students discuss all the questions on each assignment during class time. During the small group discussions, I walk around the room listening to student conversations as they talk in small groups and answering questions they ask me. This is a way for me to informally assess this learning goal and also offer formative feedback to students. When students are done discussing in small groups, I ask each group to share their answers to each question with the class, which allows me to assess the understanding of the class as a whole and provide formative feedback to the whole class. At the end of each class session, each group submits one document to me, with their answers to every question on the assignment, so that I can assess their written work and assign a grade to their group's work.

I assess this learning goal during Assignment 1 (Introduction to Environmental Justice). We watch the NEPA video and students work on the I-5 freeway case study during class time. Specifically, Question 2 in Part 1 about the NEPA videos and Question 5 in Part 2 about the I-5 freeway case study both allow me to hear their thoughts on the meaning of environmental justice. (These questions are on the "Introduction to Environmental Justice Assignment" Word document under Assignment 1 above.) I assess their understanding of the root causes of environmental justice using Questions 1 through 4 in Part 2 of this assignment, which are about the I-5 freeway case study. I continue to assess this learning goal as part of Assignment 2 (Introduction to Climate Justice) with Questions 1 and 2 in Part 1 of the "Introduction to Climate Justice Assignment" Word document (under Assignment 2 above).

I begin to assess this learning goal with Question 3 in Part 1 of the "Introduction to Environmental Justice Assignment" Word document (under Assignment 1 above). This allows me to assess their initial understanding of what climate justice means. For Assignment 2 (Introduction to Climate Justice), I assess this learning goal with Questions 1 and 2 in Part 2 of the "Introduction to Climate Justice Assignment" Word document (under Assignment 2 above).

My assessment of this learning goal is threaded through Assignments 1 through 4. (There is no question that assesses this learning goal in Assignment 5 nor as part of the civic engagement activity.) I first assess this learning goal using the second question asked in Question 1 (the first Question 1) about the NEPA video in the "Introduction to Environmental Justice Assignment" Word document (see Assignment 1 above). The next assessment of this learning goal is with Question 3 in Part 2 of the "Introduction to Climate Justice Assignment" Word document (see Assignment 2 above). In the food security case study (Assignment 3), I assess this learning goal with the second question asked as part of Question 2 in Part 1 (found in the "Food Security and Climate Justice Assignment" Word document). I use Question 1 in Part 1 of Assignment 4 to assess this learning goal in the context of the Flint, Michigan case study (the question is in the "Water Quality and Climate Justice Assignment" Word document).

I assess this learning goal using questions included in Assignments 2 through 4. For Assignment 2 (Introduction to Climate Justice), I assess this learning goal with Questions 1 and 2 in Part 2 of the "Introduction to Climate Justice Handout" Word document (under Assignment 2 above). For Assignment 3 (Food Insecurity and Climate Justice), I assess this learning goal with Questions 1 through 3 in Part 2 of the "Food Insecurity and Climate Justice Handout" Word document (under Assignment 3 above). For Assignment 4 (Water Quality and Climate Justice), I assess this learning goal with Question 1 in Part 2 of the "Water Quality and Climate Justice Handout" Word document (under Assignment 4 above).

5. Recognize and find examples of civic engagement that promotes climate justice.

I initially assess this learning goal using Question 3 in Part 1 of the "Introduction to Climate Justice Assignment" (see Word document provided with Assignment 2). As part of the last assignment (Assignment 5), which I implement in the week before the civic engagement activity, I use Questions 2 and 3 on the "Air Quality and Climate Justice Assignment" Word file to assess this learning goal. 6. Practice and reflect on effective means of civic engagement.

To assess this learning goal, I use Question 2 in Part 1 and also Question 1 in Part 2 of the "Civic Engagement Assignment" Word file (under "Civic Engagement for Climate Justice" activity described above.

References and Resources

This work is supported in part by NSF IUSE grant DUE 2043535.

Environmental Biology is an Open Access Resource (OER) textbook by Matthew R. Fisher that is free available online to anyone with a computer and internet connection (I use this in my environmental science course, but any introductory environmental science textbook should work)

Advancing Environmental Justice through the National Environmental Policy Act (video made by the United States Environmental Protection Agency)

The Duwamish Valley Cumulative Health Impacts Analysis (report written by a Seattle non-profit, Just Health Action )

Women of Cancer Alley (experiences shared by women in the video created by a digital storytelling workshop coordinated by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and led by StoryCenter, with leadership from the Women of Cancer Alley )

How the Pandemic Mirrors the Injustices We Saw With Hurricane Katrina (I originally found this video on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1257538997914785 )

Food Inc. (documentary - It is one hour and 33 minutes long, but I show only the first hour for reasons discussed above)

How climate change is disrupting the global food supply (PBS NewsHour video)

Flint's Deadly Water (60-minute documentary by PBS's Frontline. PBS is the Public Broadcasting System based in the United States.)

Could climate change make us sick? (6-minute video overview of how organisms, including disease organisms, respond to climate change)

FLINT, MICHIGAN: DID RACE AND POVERTY FACTOR INTO WATER CRISIS? (used for information on the demographics of people living in Flint, Michigan)

Dying to Breathe " (24-minute documentary by Unreported World about air pollution in the capitol city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar)

I will be a hummingbird (2-minute video by Wangari Maathai)

"Dear Matafele Peinem" (3-minute poem read by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner at the United Nations Climate Summit)

The Ants and the Grasshopper (2-minute documentary trailer about Malawian Anita Chitaya's life and journey to the United States)

It's Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels (10-minute interview with Winona LaDuke, Native American activist and executive director of Honor the Earth)

'Little Miss Flint' continues to fight for clean water access (5-minute interview by ABC News of 14-year-old Mari Copeny from Flint, Michigan)

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