presentation about water pollution

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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Home / Free Education Presentation templates / Free Water Pollution PPT Template and Google slides

Free Water Pollution PPT Template and Google slides

About the Template

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

Key Features of this free Water Pollution Presentation template:

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

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

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

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What Causes Water Pollution and How Do We Solve it?

Water pollution is putting our health at risk. Unsafe water kills more people each year than war and all other forms of violence combined. Meanwhile, less than 1% of the Earth’s freshwater is actually accessible to us and it’s in our best interest to protect what we have, especially considering that by 2050, global demand for freshwater is expected to be one-third greater than it is now. Here are six causes of water pollution, as well as what we can do to reduce it.

Water is uniquely vulnerable to pollution because it’s able to dissolve more substances than any other liquid on Earth. Toxic substances from farms, towns, and factories readily dissolve into and mix with it, which causes water pollution as a result.

6 Most Common Causes of Water Pollution

1. sewage and wastewater .

According to the UN , more than 80% of the world’s wastewater flows back into the environment without being treated or reused; in some least-developed countries, this figure tops 95%. Harmful chemicals and bacteria can be found in sewage and wastewater even after it’s been treated. Households release sewage and wastewater, which makes its way to the ocean, mixing with freshwater and affecting the water quality and marine life. Also, the bacteria and pathogens found in wastewater breed disease, and cause health-related issues in humans and animals. 

2. Oil Spills

Large oil spills and leaks are some of most significant causes of water pollution. These are often caused by oil drilling operations in the ocean, but nearly half of the estimated 1 million tons of oil that makes its way into marine environments each year come not from oil tankers, but from land-based sources like factories, farms and cities. In England and Wales, there are about 3,000 pollution incidents involving oil and fuel each year. Oil makes drinking water unsafe and a substantial amount of oil released into oceans or become river water pollution, will destroy marine life and the ecosystems that support them. What’s more, oil reduces the oxygen supply within the water environment.  Oil is also naturally released from under the ocean floor through fractures known as seeps.

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3. Industrial Waste

Industrial waste is one of the biggest sources of water contamination. Many industrial sites produce waste in the form of toxic chemicals and pollutants, and some don’t have proper waste management systems in place. Sometimes, industrial waste is dumped into nearby freshwater systems. The toxic chemicals leached from this waste can make the water unsafe for human consumption, and they can also cause the temperature in freshwater systems to change, making them dangerous for marine life. Finally, industrial waste can cause “ dead zones ,” which are areas of water that contain so little oxygen that marine life cannot survive in them.

4. Agricultural Runoff

To protect crops from pests, farmers use pesticides, however when these substances seep into the groundwater, they can harm animals, plants and humans. Additionally, when it rains, the chemicals mix with rainwater, which flows into waterways and creates further pollution. Other agricultural processes such as uncontrolled spreading of slurries and manures, tillage and ploughing the land can also cause water pollution.

5. Marine Dumping and Plastic Pollution in the Sea

Most items collected and dumped into oceans by many countries can take anywhere from two to 200 years to decompose completely! Other sources of waste at sea include plastic and other materials blown or washed from land. Currently, about 11 million metric tons of plastic make their way into the oceans each year. Research has found that should this rate of pollution continues, the amount of ocean plastics will grow to 29 million metric tons per year by 2040. The damage to wildlife habitats and to life on land is incalculable. 

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6. Radioactive Waste

Radioactive waste can persist in the environment for thousands of years , making disposal a major challenge and one of the most harmful water contaminants. Radioactive waste released from facilities that create nuclear energy can be extremely harmful to the environment and must be disposed of properly; uranium, the element used in the creation of nuclear energy, is a highly toxic chemical. Accidents occur at these facilities from time to time, and toxic waste is released into the environment.

In April 2021, Japan discharged contaminated water containing radioactive materials from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. Though the Japanese government claims potential health risks and damage to marine life to be minimal as the waste water have been treated, close monitoring is required to ensue there are no environment effects from the water pollution. 

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How Can You Reduce Water Pollution?

• Reduce your plastic consumption and reuse or recycle plastic when you can. 
• Properly dispose of chemical cleaners, oils and non-biodegradable items.
• Use phosphate-free detergents – phosphates lead to algae blooms and kill fish and other aquatic animals by reducing the oxygen in the water. 
• Dispose of medical waste properly.
• Eat more organic food, which is produced without the use of pesticides.
• Cut down on your meat consumption – raising animals for meat takes lots of water for the grains and other feed they need. Furthermore, the antibiotics and solid waste are both likely to end up in groundwater and rivers.

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Discharge from a Chinese fertilizer factory winds its way toward the Yellow River. Like many of the world's rivers, pollution remains an ongoing problem.

Water pollution is a rising global crisis. Here’s what you need to know.

The world's freshwater sources receive contaminants from a wide range of sectors, threatening human and wildlife health.

From big pieces of garbage to invisible chemicals, a wide range of pollutants ends up in our planet's lakes, rivers, streams, groundwater, and eventually the oceans. Water pollution—along with drought, inefficiency, and an exploding population—has contributed to a freshwater crisis , threatening the sources we rely on for drinking water and other critical needs.

Research has revealed that one pollutant in particular is more common in our tap water than anyone had previously thought: PFAS, short for poly and perfluoroalkyl substances. PFAS is used to make everyday items resistant to moisture, heat, and stains; some of these chemicals have such long half-lives that they are known as "the forever chemical."

Safeguarding water supplies is important because even though nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. And just one percent of freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in remote glaciers and snowfields.

Water pollution causes

Water pollution can come from a variety of sources. Pollution can enter water directly, through both legal and illegal discharges from factories, for example, or imperfect water treatment plants. Spills and leaks from oil pipelines or hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations can degrade water supplies. Wind, storms, and littering—especially of plastic waste —can also send debris into waterways.

Thanks largely to decades of regulation and legal action against big polluters, the main cause of U.S. water quality problems is now " nonpoint source pollution ," when pollutants are carried across or through the ground by rain or melted snow. Such runoff can contain fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides from farms and homes; oil and toxic chemicals from roads and industry; sediment; bacteria from livestock; pet waste; and other pollutants .

Finally, drinking water pollution can happen via the pipes themselves if the water is not properly treated, as happened in the case of lead contamination in Flint, Michigan , and other towns. Another drinking water contaminant, arsenic , can come from naturally occurring deposits but also from industrial waste.

Freshwater pollution effects

Water pollution can result in human health problems, poisoned wildlife, and long-term ecosystem damage. When agricultural and industrial runoff floods waterways with excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, these nutrients often fuel algae blooms that then create dead zones , or low-oxygen areas where fish and other aquatic life can no longer thrive.

Algae blooms can create health and economic effects for humans, causing rashes and other ailments, while eroding tourism revenue for popular lake destinations thanks to their unpleasant looks and odors. High levels of nitrates in water from nutrient pollution can also be particularly harmful to infants , interfering with their ability to deliver oxygen to tissues and potentially causing " blue baby syndrome ." The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 38 percent of the European Union's water bodies are under pressure from agricultural pollution.

Globally, unsanitary water supplies also exact a health toll in the form of disease. At least 2 billion people drink water from sources contaminated by feces, according to the World Health Organization , and that water may transmit dangerous diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Freshwater pollution solutions

In many countries, regulations have restricted industry and agricultural operations from pouring pollutants into lakes, streams, and rivers, while treatment plants make our drinking water safe to consume. Researchers are working on a variety of other ways to prevent and clean up pollution. National Geographic grantee Africa Flores , for example, has created an artificial intelligence algorithm to better predict when algae blooms will happen. A number of scientists are looking at ways to reduce and cleanup plastic pollution .

There have been setbacks, however. Regulation of pollutants is subject to changing political winds, as has been the case in the United States with the loosening of environmental protections that prevented landowners from polluting the country’s waterways.

Anyone can help protect watersheds by disposing of motor oil, paints, and other toxic products properly , keeping them off pavement and out of the drain. Be careful about what you flush or pour down the sink, as it may find its way into the water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends using phosphate-free detergents and washing your car at a commercial car wash, which is required to properly dispose of wastewater. Green roofs and rain gardens can be another way for people in built environments to help restore some of the natural filtering that forests and plants usually provide.

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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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Text copyright © Chris Woodford 2006, 2022. All rights reserved. Full copyright notice and terms of use .

This article was originally written for the UK Rivers Network and first published on their website in April 2006. It is revised and updated every year.

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Effects of Water Pollution: Causes, Consequences, & Solutions on Environment

• June 10, 2023
• Environment

Water pollution is a global environmental issue that affects the quality of our water bodies, threatening aquatic ecosystems and human health. This article explores the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to combat water pollution. By understanding the gravity of this problem, we can take necessary actions to protect and preserve our water resources for future generations.

Causes of Water Pollution:

• Industrial Discharges: Industrial activities often release harmful chemicals and pollutants into nearby water bodies, contaminating the water and endangering aquatic life.
• Agricultural Runoff: Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture results in runoff, carrying these pollutants into rivers and lakes, leading to eutrophication and the death of aquatic organisms.
• Sewage and Wastewater: Inadequate sewage treatment systems allow untreated or poorly treated wastewater to flow into water sources, introducing disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.
• Oil Spills: Accidental oil spills from shipping, offshore drilling, or transportation accidents have catastrophic effects on marine life, as oil coats and suffocates animals and birds, disrupting the entire ecosystem .

Consequences of Water Pollution:

• Threat to Aquatic Ecosystems: Water pollution disrupts the delicate balance of aquatic ecosystems by depleting oxygen levels, destroying habitats, and reducing biodiversity . This, in turn, affects fish populations and other aquatic organisms, leading to ecosystem collapse.
• Human Health Impacts: Contaminated water is a major source of waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and hepatitis. Additionally, long-term exposure to polluted water can lead to various health problems, including cancer, developmental disorders, and reproductive issues.
• Economic Toll: Water pollution has significant economic implications, including the decline of fisheries, tourism, and recreational activities. Cleaning up polluted water sources and providing clean water to affected communities also incur substantial costs.

Key Consequences in Detail:

• Eutrophication: Excessive nutrient runoff, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, leads to eutrophication, causing algal blooms and depleting oxygen levels. This creates dead zones where marine life cannot survive.
• Bioaccumulation: Pollutants such as heavy metals and pesticides enter the food chain and accumulate in the tissues of aquatic organisms. As larger predators consume smaller ones, these pollutants become concentrated, posing risks to human health when consumed.
• Destruction of Coral Reefs: Water pollution, combined with factors like ocean acidification and rising temperatures, contributes to coral reef degradation. Coral reefs support a diverse range of marine life and act as natural barriers against coastal erosion.
• Disruption of the Water Cycle: Polluted water can interfere with the natural water cycle, affecting precipitation patterns, groundwater quality, and overall water availability in a region.

Solutions to Water Pollution:

• Enhanced Regulations: Governments should enforce stricter regulations on industrial and agricultural practices, ensuring proper waste management and reducing the release of pollutants into water bodies.
• Improved Sewage Treatment: Investing in modern wastewater treatment facilities and infrastructure can effectively treat and purify sewage before it is released back into the environment .
• Sustainable Agriculture: Promoting sustainable farming practices, such as organic farming and precision irrigation, can reduce the use of harmful chemicals and minimize agricultural runoff.
• Public Awareness and Education: Raising awareness about the importance of water conservation, pollution prevention, and responsible water usage is crucial in fostering a sense of environmental responsibility among individuals and communities.

Key Takeaways:

Water pollution poses a severe threat to our environment, economy, and public health. By understanding the causes, consequences, and solutions to combat water pollution, we can work together to protect and restore our precious water resources. Implementing stricter regulations, improving wastewater treatment, adopting sustainable agricultural practices, and promoting public awareness are essential steps towards achieving clean and healthy water bodies worldwide. Let us act now to ensure a sustainable future for ourselves and the generations to come.

FAQs about Effects of Water Pollution

Q: what is water pollution.

A: Water pollution refers to the contamination of water bodies such as rivers, lakes, oceans, and groundwater with harmful substances, chemicals, or pollutants, making the water unsafe for use and threatening aquatic ecosystems.

Q: What are the main causes of water pollution?

A: Water pollution can be caused by various factors, including industrial discharges, agricultural runoff, sewage and wastewater, oil spills, and improper waste disposal.

Q: How does water pollution affect the environment?

A: Water pollution has detrimental effects on the environment. It can lead to the loss of aquatic biodiversity, destruction of habitats, disruption of ecosystems, and the formation of dead zones where marine life cannot survive.

Q: How does water pollution impact human health?

A: Water pollution can have severe consequences for human health. Consuming contaminated water can lead to waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and hepatitis. Long-term exposure to polluted water can also result in various health problems, including cancer, developmental disorders, and reproductive issues.

Q: What are the economic impacts of water pollution?

A: Water pollution has significant economic implications. It can lead to the decline of fisheries, loss of tourism revenue, and increased costs for cleaning up polluted water sources. Providing clean water to affected communities and treating waterborne diseases also incur substantial financial burdens.

Q: How can we prevent water pollution?

A: Preventing water pollution requires collective efforts. Some key solutions include enforcing stricter regulations on industrial and agricultural practices, improving sewage treatment systems, promoting sustainable farming methods, and raising public awareness about water conservation and pollution prevention.

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• December 18, 2023

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• December 13, 2023

• In PowerPoint Downloads
• On June 9, 2021

Water Pollution PPT Free Download | 10 Slides

Table of contents.

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

“Water is Precious. Save Water”

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

What is Water Pollution?

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

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

How does the water get polluted?

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

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

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

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

Wastewater from factories & industries

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

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

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

Oil leaks & spills

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

Use of chemicals & pesticides in agriculture.

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

Why do we need to save water?

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

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

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

How can we prevent water pollution?

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

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

What each one of us can do?

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

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

Jinu Varghese

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Water pollution and its prevention

Aug 09, 2014

520 likes | 800 Views

Chapter 17. Water pollution and its prevention . 1. Water pollution. What is water pollution. Water pollution can be defined as

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• biochemical oxygen demand
• lower quality treatments
• safe drinking water act
• health advisories
• outdoor privy
• ultraviolet light

Presentation Transcript

Chapter 17 Water pollution and its prevention

1. Water pollution

What is water pollution • Water pollution can be defined as "the presence of a substance in the environment that because of its chemical composition or quantity, prevents the functioning of natural processes and produces undesirable environmental and (human) health effects."

Categories of Water Pollutants

Main groups of water pollutants • Biodegradable • Rapidly degradable (non-persistent) • Slowly degradable (persistent) • Non-biodegradable

Water Pollutants: sources a. Non-point-source pollutants: agricultural runoff, storm-water drainage, atmosphericdeposition. b. Point-source pollutants: dischargesfromfactories, sewagesystems, power plants, underground coal mines, oilwells.

Strategies to bring water pollution under control: • Reduce or remove the sources • Treat the water to remove pollutants or convert them to harmless forms.

Water pollutants: types a.Pathogens b. Organicwastes c.Chemicalpollutants d.Sediments e.Nutrients

Pathogens • Infectious agents that cause sickness and death • Come from excrement from humans and other animals that are infected

Public heath • Before mid 1800s: epidemics were common in cities (typhoid fever, cholera) • After: connection between disease and sewage-carried pathogens • Today: public health measures • Purification and disinfection of public water supplies with chlorine and other agents • Sanitary collection and treatment of sewage wastes • Maintenance of sanitary standards in all facilities in which food is processed or prepared for public consumption • Public education in personal and domestic hygiene practices

Sanitation = good medicine • Good health is a result of the prevention of disease through public-health measures • Population in areas where here is little or no sewage treatment are extremely vulnerable to deadly epidemics.

Organic wastes • Includes leaves, grass clippings, trash, etc. • Enter water as a consequence of runoff or excessive aquatic plant growth • As bacteria and detritus feeders decompose organic matter, they consume dissolved oxygen (DO) in water. • BOD (biochemical oxygen demand): measures the amount of organic material in water in terms of how much oxygen will be required to break it down. • Fishes and shellfish are killed below a DOof 2 to 3 ppm • A BOD value for raw sewage is around 250 ppm

Chemical pollutants • Inorganic chemicals: include heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, nickel, etc), acids from mine drainage and acid precipitation, and road salts. • Organic chemicals: include petroleum products, pesticides, industrial chemicals (PolyChorinated Biphenyls, cleaning solvents and detergents)

Sediments • Erosion from farmlands, deforested slopes, overgrazed rangelands, construction sites, mining sites, stream banks and roads increase the load of sediments.

Nutrients • Inorganic chemicals carried in solution in all bodies of water are classified as nutrients. • Include phosphorus and nitrogen • Stimulate undesirable plant growth in the bodies of water. • Sources include sewage outfalls, agricultural runoff, lawns and gardens, golf courses and storm drains.

Water quality standards • National Recommended Water Quality Criteria (EPA) provides standards for assessing water pollution. • Lists 158 chemicals and substances as criteria pollutants and recommends concentrations for fresh water, salt water and human consumption

Water quality standards • Criteria maximum concentration (CMC): highest single concentration beyond which environmental impacts may be expected • Criterion continuous concentration (CCC): highest sustained concentration beyond which undesirable impacts may be expected • Drinking water standards and health advisories: enforceable under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) • Maximum Contaminant levels (MCLs)

Arsenic as a example: • Listed as a human carcinogen • CMC and CCC values are 340 and 150 g/L for freshwater bodies, and 69 and 36 g/L for saltbodies. • Drinking water MCL concentration is 10 g/L

Other applications to the water quality criteria • National pollution discharge elimination system program (NPDES): addresses point-source pollution and issues permits to regulate discharges from industrial sources. • Total maximum daily load program(TMDL): evaluates all sources of pollutants entering a body of water, especially non-point sources

2. Eutrophication

Types of aquatic plants • Benthic • Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) • Emergent vegetation • Phytoplankton (algae, protists, cyanobacteria)

What is an oligo-trophic body of water? • Oligotrophic = low in nutrients

What is a Eutrophic Body of Water? • Eutrophic = well nourished

How do you create a Eutrophic Body of Water? • 1. Nutrient enrichment, natural or cultural • 2. Increased phytoplankton growth resulting in increased turbidity • 3. Loss of sunlight, food and habitat • 4. Depletion of dissolved oxygen from decomposition of phytoplankton by decomposers

How to Stop Eutrophication • Attack the symptoms: • Chemical treatments (with herbicides) • Aeration • Harvest aquatic weeds • Draw water down

How to Stop Eutrophication • Attack the root cause: • Control point-source pollutants • Ban the sale of phosphate detergents • Regulate the maximum alowablelevel of phosphates • NPDES permits

How to Stop Eutrophication • Attack the root cause: • Control non-point-source pollutants • EPA regulationsthrough the TMDL program include: • Identifypollutants • Estimate pollution commingfrom all sources • Estimate the ability of the body of water to assimilatepollutants • Determine the maximum allowable pollution load • Allocate the allowablelevel of pollution among the different sources

How to Stop Eutrophication • Attack the root cause: • Best management practices (BMPs) • Practices used to minimize erosion, runoff and leaching • Methods of soil conservation

When washings from animal facilities are flushed directly into natural waterways, they contribute significantly to eutrophication. This may be avoided by collecting the flushings in ponds from which both the water and the nutrients may be recycled.

How to Stop Eutrophication • Attack the root cause: • Recovery • Governmentpractices for the management of watersheds • Lake washington

3. Sewage Management and Treatment

History of sewage treatment • Late 1800s: human excrement was disposed in the outdoor privy • Louis Pasteur and other scientists showed that sewage borne bacteria were responsible for many infectious diseases • Human wastes started to be disposed through drain systems • The flush toilet was introduced • Water became unfit to swim in because of sewage contamination • 1900: Sewage treatment systems were developed

What is in Raw Sewage • 1. Debris and grit: plastic bags, coarse sand, gravel • 2. Particulate organic matter: fecal matter, food wastes, garbage, toilet paper • 3. Colloidal and dissolved organic matter: urine, soaps, detergents and cleaning agents. • 4. Dissolved inorganic matter: nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients • 5. Pathogens: bacteria, protozoa, virus • 6. Heavy metals, pesticides, and various other toxic compounds

How Do We Remove These Substances from the Water? • Preliminary Treatment - debris and grit removed by a bar screen and grit chamber

How Do We Remove These Substances from the Water? • Primary Treatment - particulate organic matter removed by primary clarifiers

How Do We Remove These Substances from the Water? • Secondary Treatments - colloidal and dissolved inorganic matter removed by trickling filter systems or activated sludge systems

How Do We Remove These Substances from the Water? • Biological Nutrient Removal - dissolved inorganic matter removed by bacterial denitrification and bacterial uptake of phosphorusa. Can also be done inorganically by using chemical processes·Lime causes phosphate to precipitate as insoluble calcium phosphate ·Ferric chloride causes phosphate to precipitate as insoluble ferric phosphateb. Removal of the dissolved inorganic matter is not standard treatment though it is becoming more common

Final Clarification and Disinfection • Meant to eliminate pathogens • Disinfecting agents • chlorine gas • Sodium hypochlorite (chlorox) • Ozone gas • Ultraviolet light

Discharge • BOD values are 10 to 20 ppm(200 ppm in the incoming sewage) • Many cities are still operating with lower quality treatments or with no treatment at all.

Treatment of sludge • Raw sludge • Most is disposed in landfills with no previous treatment • It is considered a biologically hazardous material • It is a nutrient-rich organic material with potential to be used as organic fertilizer • Methods for treating sludge include: • Anaerobic digestion • Composting • Pasteurization

Anaerobic digestion • Raw sludge is put into large airtight tanks (sludge digesters) • Anaerobic bacteria break down the organic matter • End products include carbon dioxide, methane and water (biogas) • Treated sludge is called biosolid • Dewatered it becomes a sludge cake

Composting • Raw sludge is mixed with wood chips • Placed in piles that allow air circulation • Aerobic bacteria and other decomposers break down organic material to rich humus-like material

Pasteurization • The sludge cake is put through ovens to be pasteurized • The product is dry, odorless organic pellets.

Alternative Treatment Systems • On site wastewater treatment systems • Using effluents for irrigation • Reconstructed wetland systems

4. Public Policy

Public Policy • EPA is responsible for overseeing water • Depends on laws passed by Congress • Clean water act (CWA) of 1972 • Required permits for all point source discharges of pollutants • Clean water state revolving fund program (SRF) • Gives funds to local governments to build treatment facilities

Problems and progress • Problems • Non point source pollution • Construction of new wastewater treatment facilities • Storm water discharges • Sewer overflows • Wetlands protection • Animal feeding operations • Progress • The number of people served by adequate sewage has increased • Soil erosion has been reduced • Two-thirds of the nation’s waterways are safe for fishing and swimming • Many rivers have been cleaned up and restored

http://www.ewg.org/node/22520 • http://wn.com/Another_dead_body_in_the_Ganges_river_at_Varanasi • http://smkalammegah.wordpress.com/ • http://www.greendiary.com/entry/china-to-impose-hefty-fines-on-polluters/ • http://bio4esobil2010.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/eutrophication/ • http://www.squamlakes.org/programs/phosphorus.php • http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/183928/enlarge • http://epistimograph.blogspot.com/2011/04/blue-waters-of-mediterranean.html • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eutrophic_Armstrong.jpg • http://www.cee-environmental.com/en/company/info/id/2302 • http://www.jleeg.com/2010/04/09/fertilizing-with-milorganite-organic-fertilizer/dsc03501/

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Water Resources Business Plan

Water companies are the ones who provide this basic necessity for society. In some countries, competition is fierce, so try giving a presentation with our new free business plan template, ready for engaging even the most demanding audience.

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Science Subject for High School: Inter-American Water Day

Without water, there would be no life. That, we know as much. Several organizations decided to hold the Inter-American Water Day on October 2 to raise awareness about the non-equitative access to water in Latin American countries and the lack of sanitation services in some places. In order to give...

Pastel Water Marble Minitheme

How did someone manage to put something inside a marble? And with that shape in particular? We don't know, but it's fascinating. Now, what if we used some pastel colors and added some water to it so that it looks even more fascinating? The result is this minitheme, completely topic-free...

Baby Ducks Theme

Download the Baby Ducks Theme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

Roman God: Neptune

Download the Roman God: Neptune presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

Water Thesis

Have you finished your water thesis and are looking for a template to help you prepare your presentation to defend it? We have the solution for you with this design of organic shapes and blue tones that will allow you to present all your research in an attractive way. Because...

Biology Subject for Pre-K: The Water Cycle

It’s going to happen eventually: your little students are going to ask you why the sky is blue, where does rain come from and where does water go. Do you want to be ready for that moment? Then download this creative template and edit it to speak about the water...

Poisoning by Non-Drinking Water Case Report

Shed light on the seriousness of the non-drinking water poisoning issue through a compelling case report presentation. This template, specially designed for Google Slides and PowerPoint, serves as a platform to elaborate your findings and solutions. The unique, creative and corporative design in subtle cream colors offers professionalism and sincerity,...

Happy World Water Day! Minitheme

Our body is composed of about 70% water. Life as we know it originated in water and furthermore, without this liquid no living thing, animal or plant, could live. Something of such importance deserves its own day of celebration. Every March 22 World Water Day is celebrated not only to...

International Women's Day

Download the International Women's Day presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

Drought Awareness Newsletter

Download the Drought Awareness Newsletter presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. Attention all marketers! Are you looking for a way to make your newsletters more creative and eye-catching for your target audience? This amazing template is perfect for creating the perfect newsletter that will capture your audience's attention from the...

Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention

This is the template you need if you’re looking to present an action plan for water pollution prevention. It’s full of beautiful illustrations of water, and combining a background in shades of blue with colorful touches. It has everything you need to make the subject come alive, from graphs and...

First Aid and Emergency Response - 6th Grade

Download the First Aid and Emergency Response - 6th Grade presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed for Middle School by...

Biology Subject for Pre-K: The Water Cycle Infographics

Download the Biology Subject for Pre-K: The Water Cycle Infographics template for PowerPoint or Google Slides and discover the power of infographics. An infographic resource gives you the ability to showcase your content in a more visual way, which will make it easier for your audience to understand your topic....

Water Contamination Diseases: Diarrhea

Download the Water Contamination Diseases: Diarrhea presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. Taking care of yourself and of those around you is key! By learning about various illnesses and how they are spread, people can get a better understanding of them and make informed decisions about eating, exercise, and seeking...

Daily Routines and Personal Hygiene - French - 6th Grade

Download the Daily Routines and Personal Hygiene - French - 6th Grade presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed for Middle...

Aqua Marketing Plan

For those times when a marketing plan needs to cause an impact, trust this template. You'll see instantly how appealing the watercolor details are when contemplating these slides. This design can be the perfect choice if your message has to do with water or the environment!

Language Arts Subject for High School: The Odyssey Infographics

The Odyssey was one of the two main epic poems from Ancient Greece that were allegedly created by Homer, but not the one that works in sector 7-G! If you haven't read it, give it an epic try! If you have read it, you might be interested in this template...

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