Water Pollution
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Pollution
• When asked to define pollution, most people
have little trouble doing so, having witnessed
some form of it firsthand. They usually come
up with an answer that is a description of its
obvious effects, but pollution is complicated,
and it cannot be easily defined because what
pollution is and isn’t is a judgment call
Acc to U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (USEPA)
• “the presence of matter or energy whose
nature, location, or quantity produced
undesired environmental effects … impurities
producing an undesirable change in an
ecosystem.”
• “any substance introduced into the
environment that adversely affects the
usefulness of a resource.”
Water Pollution
• It refers to the undesirable change occurring
in water which is harmful for nature as well as
humans
Condition on what a water sample can
be declared polluted
Until the middle of the nineteenth
century
• A British public health physician named John Snow, assigned to
control the spread of cholera, noticed a curious concentration of
cholera cases in one part of London. Almost all of the people
affected drew their drinking water from a community pump in the
middle of Broad Street.
• However, people who worked in an adjacent brewery were not
affected. Snow recognized that the brewery workers' apparent
immunity to cholera occurred because the brewery drew its water
from a private well and not from the Broad Street pump (although
the immunity might have been thought due to the health benefits
of beer). Snow's evidence convinced the city council to ban the
polluted water supply, which was done by removing the pump
handle so that the pump was effectively unusable. The source of
infection was cut off, the cholera epidemic subsided, and the public
began to recognize the public health importance of drinking water
supplies.
Type of water pollution
• Groundwater
• Surfacewater- Lantic & Lotic
• Ocean Water
SOURCES OF WATER POLLUTION
• point source
• nonpoint source
• Oxygen-demanding substances, such as might
be discharged from milk processing plants,
breweries, or paper mills, as well as municipal
wastewater treatment plants, make up one of
the most important types of pollutant because
these materials decompose in the
watercourse and can deplete the water's
oxygen and create anaerobic conditions.
• Suspended solids also contribute to oxygen
depletion; in addition, they create unsightly
conditions and can cause unpleasant odors.
• Nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, can
promote accelerated eutrophication, and
• some bioconcentrated metals can adversely
affect aquatic ecosystems as well as make the
water unusable for human contact or
consumption.
• Heat is also an industrial waste that is discharged
into water; heated discharges may drastically
alter the ecology of a stream or lake.
• Municipal wastewater is as important a source
of water pollution as industrial waste. A
century ago, most discharges from
municipalities received no treatment
whatsoever. Since that time, the population
and the pollution contributed by municipal
discharge have both increased, but treatment
has increased also.
Consequences and Ecological effects of
water pollution
• Minamata Disease – Mercury poisoning
• Diarrhoea/Water borne disease
• Mortality of aquatic life
• Reduction in productivity
• Siltation- gills of fishes are deposited with salt
• Poor oxygenation
• Poor photosynthesis
• Eutrophication
• Mithemoglobinema - The nitrate used in
fertilizers enters the intestine of man through
drinking water. In the intestine,it is converted
into nitrite. Nitrite is absorbed into the blood
where it combines with haemoglobin to form
methaemoglobin. Methaemoglobin cannot
transport oxygen. This leads to suffocation
and breathing troubles, especially in infants.
This disease is called methaemoglobinema.
