SUMMARY

Water is a natural resource whose preservation and effective use lie at the very foundation of environmental sustainability and ecological safety. This assignment gives an analysis of the literature on water pollution, preventive measures and efforts to maintain the safety and utility of water resources through policy instruments and conservancy. The preservation of forests and the environment generally as important water catchments is a prominent activity in regulating water pollution. Moreover, the regulation of disposal of industrial effluence, promotion of water purification and processing for domestic use are some of the major measures of preventing water pollution. This project seeks to establish the international status of activities geared at the management of water resources in the light of mitigating pollution as a menace both for industrial and domestic water usage but also for environmental sustainability and conservancy. This project relies mainly on the review of literature in presenting an analysis of the status of water pollution as an environmental menace. Moreover, the literature on the environment is constancy changing due to the rapid progress of industrial development and urbanization as two key forces determining welfare correlations to exposure for harm regarding water pollution. The people depicted as adversely vulnerable to water and environmental pollution are slum dwellers in poorly developed urban areas and people residing near lakes or rivers carrying industrial refuse.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary ....1 Acknowledgements 2 Table of Content ..3 Introduction ..4-5-6 Causes of water pollution .7 Types of water pollution8 Types of water pollution( Ground water pollution)..9 Types of water pollution( oil spillage).10 Effects of water pollution 11-12 Prevention of water Pollution .13 Conclusion 14 References .15 Appendix .16

INTRODUCTION
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies (e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers and groundwater), very often by human activities. Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds. Water covers over 70% of the Earths surface. It is a very important resource for people and the environment. Water pollution affects drinking water, rivers, lakes and oceans all over the world. Water pollution is the second most imperative environmental concern along with air pollution. Any change or modification in the physical, chemical and biological properties of water that will have a detrimental consequence on living things is water pollution. Lakes, rivers, oceans and ground waters are affected by pollution every now and then. 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. 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. Despite the major efforts that have been made over recent years to clean up the environment, pollution remains a major problem and poses continuing risks to health. The problems are undoubtedly greatest in the developing world, where traditional sources of pollution such as industrial emissions, poor sanitation, inadequate waste management, contaminated water supplies and exposures to indoor air pollution from biomass fuels affect large numbers of people. Even in developed countries, however, environmental pollution persists, most especially amongst poorer sectors of society1,,2. In recent decades, too, a wide range of modern pollutants have emergednot least, those associated with road traffic and the use of modern chemicals in the home, in food, for water treatment and for pest control. Most of these pollutants are rarely present in excessively large concentrations, so effects on health are usually far from immediate or obvious. As Taubes3 has noted, few of the problems of environmental exposure that concern us today imply large relative risks. Detecting small effects against a background

of variability in exposure and human susceptibility, and measurement error, poses severe scientific challenges. The progressively larger number of people exposed to environmental pollution (if only as a result of growing population numbers and increasing urbanization) nevertheless means that even small increases in relative risk can add up to major public health concerns. The emergence of new sources of exposure and new risk factors, some of themsuch as endocrine disruptorswith the capacity to have lifelong implications for health, also means that there is a continuing need for both vigilance and action. As the impact of human activities and issues of environmental health become increasingly global in scale and extent, the need to recognize and to address the health risks associated with environmental pollution becomes even more urgent. Effective action, however, requires an understanding not only of the magnitude of the problem, but also its causes and underlying processes, for only then can intervention be targeted at where it is most needed and likely to have greatest effect. As background to the other chapters in this volume, therefore, this chapter discusses the nature of the link between environmental pollution and health and considers the contribution of environmental pollution to the global burden of disease.

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. 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.

TYPES OF WATER POLLUTION?

Water comes from many sources. This means they can be polluted in many scenarios. Let's see a few types of water pollution:

1. Nutrients Pollution Some wastewater, fertilizers and sewage contain high levels of nutrients. If they end up in water bodies, they encourage algae and weed growth in the water. This will make the water undrinkable, and even clog filters. Too much algae will also use up all the oxygen in the water and other water organisms in the water will die out of oxygen from starvation.

2. Surface water pollution Surface water includes natural water found on the earth's surface, like rivers, lakes, lagoons and oceans. Any kind of activity that pollutes these surface waters can be called surface water pollution.

3. Oxygen Depleting Water bodies have micro-organisms. These include aerobic and anaerobic organisms. When to much biodegradable matter (things that easily decay) end up in water, it encourages more microorganism growth, and they use up more oxygen in the water. If oxygen is depleted, aerobic organisms die, and anaerobic organism grow more to produce harmful toxins such as ammonia and sulfides.

4. Ground water pollution When humans apply pesticides and chemicals to soils, they are washed deep into the ground by rain water. This gets to underground water. This means when we dig wells and bore holes to get water from underground, it needs to be checked for ground water pollution.

5. Microbiological In many communities in the world, people drink untreated water (straight from a river or stream). Sometimes there is natural pollution caused by microorganisms like viruses, bacteria and protozoa. This natural pollution can cause fishes and other water life to die.

They can also cause serious illness to humans who drink from such waters. This is called microbiological pollution.

6. Suspended Matter some pollutants (substances, particles and chemicals) do not easily dissolve in water. This kind of material is called particulate matter. Some suspended pollutants later settle under the water body. This can harm and even kill aquatic life that live at the floor of water bodies.

7. Chemical Water Pollution Many industries and farmers work with chemicals that end up in water. These include chemicals that are used to control weeds, insects and pests. Metals and solvents from industries can pollute water bodies. These are poisonous to many forms of aquatic life and may slow their development, make them infertile and kill them.

8.Oil Spillage Oil spills usually have only a localized effect on wildlife but can spread for miles. The oil can cause the death of many fish and stick to the feathers of seabirds causing them to lose the ability to fly.

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 caror uses almost any kind of petroleumfueled transportcontributes 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 wateryet 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 acuteand sometimes fatalillness 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 livesand that, most selfishly, is why pollution should matter to all of us.

Conclusion:
Arent we aware of the different problems occurring in our nature, especially in different bodies of water? Water pollution is the caused of our undisciplined actions and irresponsibility. We, humans are only creating problems that consequently we will also carry the burden of these problems. We all know that water pollution can affect our health badly and seriously. It can cause such sicknesses and diseases that will badly affect our health. We all know how important water is. Water is essential to our body.
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Neither we nor every living thing cant survive without water. And so therefore, we should keep, protect, save, and help prevent our waters from being polluted, we should act as early as now, we should save rivers, seas and oceans, and other bodies of water because we will also bare the burden of this problem. We should not wait for the time until people are competing just to get sufficient, fresh and clean water, the time where clean water is insufficient to the people and animals, and the time where in our sources of water are diminishing or until the time where there are totally no sources of water. And so, let us be disciplined and responsible enough to save, protect and conserve not only sources of water but also our mother nature because our nature provides and helps us in our daily lives. Lets just realize how important our mother nature is. It is our only source of living. Let us not destroy it nor pollute it. Let us act for a change. We need and we should help save and conserve our mother nature, especially the different bodies of water. Absolutely, there are many simple ways in how we can help. Change ourselves before we construct changes in our nature.

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References:
1) http://www.explainthatstuff.com/waterpollution.html 2) http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/68/1/1.full 3) http://www.explainthatstuff.com/waterpollution.html

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Appendix:

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