What do you mean by Water Pollution?
Water pollution takes place when toxic substances like chemicals generally or the microorganisms pollute the river, stream, lake, aquifer, ocean, or any other water bodies, which reduces the quality of water and make it toxic to either human beings or for the environment.
These harmful chemicals can be found of biological nature. Very common pollutants comprise of the organism which are having any kind of disease; any human or animal waste; radioactive materials; harmful metals like mercury or lead; the toxic chemicals released out from the power plants, usually called, “Thermal Pollution”; chemical used in agricultural like fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides; acid rain.
Water pollutants are hazardous to human beings or for animal consumption and also, it damage the crops. Due to high-temperature, even algae can grow quickly, which reduces the quality of water and make it unfit for drinking.
Causes of Water Pollution
Water pollution is particularly vulnerable. Called as the “universal solvent”, the water is capable of dissolving a greater number of substances compared to any other fluid present on the Earth. The reason for this is that we have spectacular waterfalls. Also, it’s the reason why water gets easily polluted. From towns, farms, and factories, toxic substances quickly dissolve and mix with water and result in water pollution.
“Point sources” of water pollution from oil leak ejected from the pipeline or plumbing or the chemical wastage from the factory can be generally controlled. “Non-Point sources” like run-off waste and nitrate-containing water from feedlots which represents a great amount of water pollution and is difficult to recognize and gets it remedy.
The pollution from Nonpoint sources can be passed into springs or streams, or aquifers while covering an extensive area.
Even though water has been found on many planets, but none of the planets consist of that much water, as Earth is having which is 70 percent and this much percentage is covered by water. About the water of 97.4 percent is found in the form of oceans on earth which is very much salty to consume for humans.
An extra 2.6 percentage is found in the form of freshwater which is seen as underground water bodies known as polar ice caps or water found in frozen glaciers, or the aquifers. And the pure or the actual water present on Earth which is consumable is “less than 0.02 percent”. This water is found in rivers, lakes, or the atmosphere.
In some of the places, the water is very much pure to directly drink directly from springs (waterfalls) or wells, but as we move forward, water should be treated in a way to clear away dangerous contaminated substances and elements or molecules like chloramines, chlorine, or ozone which should be added to protect our earth from harmful bacteria.