essay about causes and effects of water pollution

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.

Share this:

How 5 Cities Shape Sustainable Urban Futures? Passive Cooling Revolution

• December 18, 2023

• Global Warming

What Is The Impact of Rising Sea Levels on The Pacific Island?

• December 13, 2023

Donate to Defend Our Planet

Drilling on public lands, mass wildlife extinctions, worsening climate change—our planet is in crisis. Help us fight back and your gift will be matched $1 for $1.

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.

• Share this page block

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.

Related Stories

​​The Smart Seafood and Sustainable Fish Buying Guide

How to Become a Community Scientist

How to Start Saving the Planet in 100 Days: the Joe Biden Edition

When you sign up, you’ll become a member of NRDC’s Activist Network. We will keep you informed with the latest alerts and progress reports.

Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions

Introduction, causes of water pollution, effects of water pollution, solutions to water pollution, reference list.

Rivers are common sources of water in the world. Water is useful in various ways both domestically and in industries. It is imperative that such water remains clean and safe and free from any pollution. Unfortunately, water pollution takes place in various water bodies all over the world. This essay seeks to examine the concept of water pollution, its causes, effects, and solutions to water pollution.

Water pollution refers to dirtying of water resulting in a chemical, physical or biological alteration in the condition of water making such water harmful to anyone who utilizes it. In other words, pollution makes water unfit for consumption (Go Green Academy, 2013). There are various causes of water pollution. Disposing solid waste in water sources is the main cause of water pollution (Go Green Academy, 2013). Most of these wastes are made of plastic, which by nature, is non-biodegradable. Plastics take over four hundred years to decompose in water and as such, they move in different places before they finally decompose.

Effluence from industries and factories cause water pollution (Go Green Academy, 2013). Coffee factories use fresh water to transport waste to rivers. Effluence from industrial plants adds pollutants like lead and mercury into rivers. Oil spills from ships on transit also cause water pollution. Oil is indissoluble in water and consequently forms thick patches on the water surface making it hard for organisms in such a water body to survive. Overall, such contaminated water destroys an ecosystem (Go Green Academy, 2013).

Sewerage disposal from households and commercial houses cause water pollution. In some places, sewage can be treated or recycled but in most places, such waste finds a way into rivers. Due to chemical substances used in maintaining hygiene in washrooms, effluence from such places is destructive to water sources into which it flows (Go Green Academy, 2013). Cauterizing of fossil fuels leads to building up of acidic particles in the air, which in turn leads to acidic rains falling on water bodies (Go Green Academy, 2013).

Groundwater polluted through the use of chemicals in farming causes destruction to plants, which in turn affect human beings and animals that feed on them (Go Green Academy, 2013). Secondly, polluted water causes skin rashes and even cancer to swimmers. In addition, such water can cause reproductive difficulties and typhoid fever, which if untreated, leads to death. Water pollution leads to flooding when solid wastes accumulate to very high levels (Go Green Academy, 2013).

Global warming leads to increased water temperatures and this leads to the destruction of aquatic plants. Coral reefs, for instance, suffer destruction because warm water has a discoloring effect on them. In addition, plastic materials can easily entangle organisms such as fish leading to their suffocation and death hence reduction in available organisms for human consumption. Water polluted by oil spills also leads to the death of aquatic animals (Go Green Academy, 2013).

Several measures are necessary to tackle water pollution. Relevant authorities should enforce existing regulations concerning water pollution and come up with an even stricter penalty for those who pollute water (Hearn, 2013). Secondly, people should use less plastic and avoid littering by using designated dumping sites. Farmers, as well as householders, should minimize the use of chemicals such as fertilizers and adopt the use of environmental friendly fertility boosters like animal wastes. Since cars emit particles that lead to acidic rains, people should drive less and where possible use public transport to minimize emissions into the atmosphere (Hearn, 2013)

Go Green Academy. 2013, Causes and effects of water pollution . Web.

Hearn, M. 2013, Solutions to water pollution . Web.

Cite this paper

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2020, September 8). Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions. https://studycorgi.com/water-pollution-causes-effects-and-solutions/

"Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions." StudyCorgi , 8 Sept. 2020, studycorgi.com/water-pollution-causes-effects-and-solutions/.

StudyCorgi . (2020) 'Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions'. 8 September.

1. StudyCorgi . "Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions." September 8, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/water-pollution-causes-effects-and-solutions/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions." September 8, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/water-pollution-causes-effects-and-solutions/.

StudyCorgi . 2020. "Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions." September 8, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/water-pollution-causes-effects-and-solutions/.

This paper, “Water Pollution Causes, Effects and Solutions”, was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment.

Before publication, the StudyCorgi editorial team proofread and checked the paper to make sure it meets the highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, fact accuracy, copyright issues, and inclusive language. Last updated: November 8, 2023 .

If you are the author of this paper and no longer wish to have it published on StudyCorgi, request the removal . Please use the “ Donate your paper ” form to submit an essay.

• Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
• Climate Change
• Policy & Economics
• Biodiversity
• Conservation

Get focused newsletters especially designed to be concise and easy to digest

• ESSENTIAL BRIEFING 3 times weekly
• TOP STORY ROUNDUP Once a week
• MONTHLY OVERVIEW Once a month
• Enter your email *

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.

You Might Also Like: How Do Oil Spills Affect the Environment?

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. 

You Might Also Like: 8 Shocking Plastic Pollution Statistics to Know About

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. 

You Might Also Like: The Nuclear Waste Disposal Dilemma

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.

You Might Also Like: Flood Water Contamination Threatens Communities Living Near Chemical Facilities – Can Private Law Protect Them?

Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact

10 Companies Called Out For Greenwashing

10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics

Hand-picked stories weekly or monthly. We promise, no spam!

• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Boost this article By donating us $100, $50 or subscribe to Boosting $10/month – we can get this article and others in front of tens of thousands of specially targeted readers. This targeted Boosting – helps us to reach wider audiences – aiming to convince the unconvinced, to inform the uninformed, to enlighten the dogmatic.

• Random article
• Teaching guide
• Privacy & cookies

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.

If you liked this article...

Find out more, on this site.

• Air pollution (introduction)
• Climate change and global warming
• Environmentalism (introduction)
• Land pollution
• Organic food and farming

For older readers

For younger readers.

• Earth Matters by Lynn Dicks et al. Dorling Kindersley, 2008: A more general guide to problems Earth faces, with each major biome explored separately. In case you're interested, I contributed the polar regions chapter. The book is mostly a simple read and probably suitable for 7–10 (and maybe 9–12).

Selected news articles

Water pollution videos, notes and references.

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.

Rate this page

Tell your friends, cite this page, more to explore on our website....

• Get the book
• Send feedback

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.

Related Topics

• WATER POLLUTION
• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• FRESH WATER
• GROUNDWATER
• WATER QUALITY
• WATER RESOURCES

You May Also Like

Here’s what worries engineers the most about U.S. infrastructure

Are you drinking water all wrong? Here’s what you need to know about hydrating.

Is tap water safe to drink? Here’s what you really need to know.

England’s chalk streams were millions of years in the making. Can they survive today?

Japan releases nuclear wastewater into the Pacific. How worried should we be?

• Environment

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• Coronavirus Coverage
• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Paid Content
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

• Skip to main content
• Skip to secondary menu
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Study Today

Largest Compilation of Structured Essays and Exams

Essay on Water Pollution : Causes, Effects & Solutions

February 2, 2021 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

Water is one of the most important factors essential for sustaining life. Every organism, no matter how big or small, requires water to live.

You must’ve noticed that water quality has undergone a sea change over the years. The water has gotten harder and harder.

The color of water in rivers and lakes has significantly changed. The crystal clear surface on water bodies was a thing of the past and we no longer get to see a picturesque image of a clean and perfect water body anymore.

The tap water we receive can no longer be used for drinking, and we are forced to buy separate drinking water, install water purifying devices in our homes.

Have you wondered why we are forced to go in for such applications at our homes. There is no answer for water scarcity in big cities today and people are forced to live with the bitter truth.

Table of Contents

What is water pollution?

Water pollution is nothing but contamination of water bodies with chemicals, toxins and effluents let out from industrial establishments and factories.

These toxins contain harmful concentrations of lead, Sulphur, heavy metals and detergents in them.

Not just that, water bodies are mixed with sewage water and one can imagine the extent of dirt and filth that is contained in the waters of river bodies, thus making them highly polluted.

Pollution is tainting or forcefully mixing harmful and toxic substances into environment. These substances that endanger the consistency and integrity of the environment are called Pollutants.

Pollutants have been ever rampant since man entered the industrial ages.

The environment has been enduring the abuse we afflicted on it since ages. Industries, factories, etc. contribute to pollution on a large scale.

The daily activities that we perform, also pollute the earth due to inefficiency of the methods we use. Alarming quantities of pollutants are being produced and released.

Causes of water pollution

Speaking about water, most of the industries and factories have leftover chemical effluents. They release these residual products into primary water sources like rivers streams, lakes, fresh water tanks etc.

These residues may be a mixture of a myriad of chemically toxic substances.

The microbes present in the natural sources of water have the ability to purify the water to some extent. But the problem arises when we dump more Pollutants before the current batch of water is purified.

Purified, in this context, means oxidizing the water.

Microbes present in water have the natural ability to oxidize it. But constant human intended interference has almost nullified that ability.

In short, pollutants just overtake the good microbial activity and instead cause damage to water sources by inducing them  with filth and dirt.

The activities of the microbes in cleaning up the water reduce to a low minimum or may not take place at all. Waste water from domestic sources is also often dumped into rivers. This pollutes the entire source.

Other Essays on Pollution

• Essay on Pollution
• Essay on Marine Pollution
• Essay on Land Pollution
• Essay on Soil Pollution
• Essay on Radioactive Pollution
• Essay on Water Pollution
• Essay on Anti Pollution
• Essay on Noise Pollution
• Essay on Air Pollution
• Essay on Environmental Pollution

Effects of water pollution

Water pollution affects us on a daily basis. The cases of water borne disease are on the rise. Since water is one of the building blocks of life, we have but no choice to consume the same water in adequacy.

The dangers of polluted water increases when people unknowingly use polluted water for daily purposes.

This mostly occurs in rural areas, where rivers are a prime source of water.

Factories set up near river bodies may be releasing effluents and people downstream maybe using the same water for drinking purposes and for other daily activities.

It is common knowledge that 70 percent of the earth is covered by water. But not all of this water can be used for drinking and household purposes.

Only a small percentage is fresh water, and most of the other share in the percentage finds itself frozen at the Poles.

The advent of pollution has further reduced the potable water resources. Water available today is way more polluted than it was ages ago.

Our quality of life is greatly affected by this. Use of polluted water causes diseases and ailments. It can be directly linked to the receding length of our lifespan.

Solutions for water pollution

Humans have realized that they have greatly affected the environment in a bad way. Everywhere, efforts are being made to conserve water.

Water treatment plants are setup everywhere. Every waste disposal station has a water treatment department, so that all the chemical and other harmful substances can be removed from water before it is let into the main source.

This has been pivotal in controlling pollution of water. Rules and regulations have been made stringent for factories and industries, regarding their effluent emission, both through the air and through water.

Domestic waste disposal techniques have been improved and proper steps taken in the right direction.

It is entirely up to us, what we decide to do, with our water sources. Global warming is becoming an ever gaping issue and a worldwide concern. There’s always fear of the rains being more infrequent and unseasonal.

What on earth do we do without adequate water. The hardships we’d have to face to obtain enough water for sustaining looks so terrible if we were to quest for a suitable answer.

The everyday tasks that we do would become incredibly difficult. We need to take measures ourselves, to save water and keep it from being polluted.

We must start conserving water in our homes. Only then will the next generation have even the slightest hope for a well-rounded future.

Water pollution is actually a two-fold issue raising global concerns today.

The first issue, the most common one as we know is of the contamination of water by toxins and measures to reduce the contamination and improve the quality of water.

The second one is more serious and pertains to the availability of potable water on earth after some years, putting a question mark on the survival of life on earth itself.

We talk about beautifying our lakes, restoring the cleanliness of our water bodies, removing their contaminants and making them toxic free.

Yes, this is definitely required at the moment and there have been measures taken in the right direction to make our rivers clean and clear.

Specific installations of dust collector and dirt remover equipment’s in river basins have been employed to collect waste material from river surfaces.

This is primarily to remove hard traces of waste or what we can call as visible wastes. This also takes removes unnecessary growth of phytoplankton in rivers, thus letting the river waters breathe at ease.

Regarding toxin removal from river waters, purification using reverse osmosis methods, chemical filtration methods and other treatments using distillation methods are employed to make them free from chemical residues.

Much other advancement have been achieved and successfully employed in the river basins of our country to restore the natural beauty of lakes and rivers.

The best example of river water cleaning in our country is the cleanliness drive carried out at river Ganga in the holy city of Varanasi.

The government of India took it up as a big challenge to clean the river waters at the region and was successful in achieving its mission.

It is only with citizen co-operation and participation that any reformative measures taken by the governments will prove fruitful and worthy of action.

We blame successive governments for not cleaning up our river beds, for not providing us clean drinking water, for not beautifying our lakes etc.

In the melee, we forget our own responsibilities of acting with care and concern.

If we visit rural areas and spot women washing their clothes, utensils and cattle in river waters, it is our duty to educate them and spread awareness about their wrong acts.

We ought to tell them that they aren’t supposed to pollute the river water.

Reader Interactions

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top Trending Essays in March 2021

• Essay on my School
• Summer Season
• My favourite teacher
• World heritage day quotes
• my family speech
• importance of trees essay
• autobiography of a pen
• honesty is the best policy essay
• essay on building a great india
• my favourite book essay
• essay on caa
• my favourite player
• autobiography of a river
• farewell speech for class 10 by class 9
• essay my favourite teacher 200 words
• internet influence on kids essay
• my favourite cartoon character

Brilliantly

Content & links.

Verified by Sur.ly

Essay for Students

• Essay for Class 1 to 5 Students

Scholarships for Students

• Class 1 Students Scholarship
• Class 2 Students Scholarship
• Class 3 Students Scholarship
• Class 4 Students Scholarship
• Class 5 students Scholarship
• Class 6 Students Scholarship
• Class 7 students Scholarship
• Class 8 Students Scholarship
• Class 9 Students Scholarship
• Class 10 Students Scholarship
• Class 11 Students Scholarship
• Class 12 Students Scholarship

STAY CONNECTED

• About Study Today
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions

Scholarships

• Apj Abdul Kalam Scholarship
• Ashirwad Scholarship
• Bihar Scholarship
• Canara Bank Scholarship
• Colgate Scholarship
• Dr Ambedkar Scholarship
• E District Scholarship
• Epass Karnataka Scholarship
• Fair And Lovely Scholarship
• Floridas John Mckay Scholarship
• Inspire Scholarship
• Jio Scholarship
• Karnataka Minority Scholarship
• Lic Scholarship
• Maulana Azad Scholarship
• Medhavi Scholarship
• Minority Scholarship
• Moma Scholarship
• Mp Scholarship
• Muslim Minority Scholarship
• Nsp Scholarship
• Oasis Scholarship
• Obc Scholarship
• Odisha Scholarship
• Pfms Scholarship
• Post Matric Scholarship
• Pre Matric Scholarship
• Prerana Scholarship
• Prime Minister Scholarship
• Rajasthan Scholarship
• Santoor Scholarship
• Sitaram Jindal Scholarship
• Ssp Scholarship
• Swami Vivekananda Scholarship
• Ts Epass Scholarship
• Up Scholarship
• Vidhyasaarathi Scholarship
• Wbmdfc Scholarship
• West Bengal Minority Scholarship
• Click Here Now!!

Mobile Number

Have you Burn Crackers this Diwali ? Yes No

Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions Expository Essay

Introduction, causes and effects of water pollution, possible solutions for water pollution.

Water pollution is any form of activity that may lead to contamination or addition of pollutants into water body. It is an important issue to the world to put into consideration because human beings need clean water. Other living creatures need good water as well.

Therefore, water is a very important requirement in the daily activities of people, and it is a very useful resource in industries, hospitals, schools and even in food manufacturing companies. This is why clean water is required in all the places to make sure the people and all the living creatures in the planet live a good and healthy life.

Water pollution cases have been increasing in the contemporary world, despite all the efforts to reduce it. Despite all these efforts, the question remains as to what steps the world should take to end this problem of water pollution.

Harmful and toxic pollutants cause most cases of water pollution. The pollutants may cause the water to change both its physical or chemical nature by causing mixed reactions with its contents. One of the major pollutants is waste chemicals from manufacturing industries or factories.

Most of these institutions are careless with this matter of water pollution. This is actually a very serious matter because most of the people concerned know the effects of this activity but they end up ignoring it. Moreover, these wastes contain very harmful and toxic chemicals that may cause health problems to human beings and other living creatures in the water body.

Another major pollutant is sewage. Sewage dumped to various water bodies such as rivers, lakes or sea is a direct harm to the nearby occupants, given that it is there main source of water. This will mean that these people will lack clean water and will have one option of drinking the dirty water. The toxic contents of the sewage may also harm or kill aquatic animals present in that particular water body. Indeed, this is a government concern, though it seems that it is being neglected all the time.

Oil spillage to water bodies is another cause of water pollution, as it leads to more harmful effects to the living creatures and human beings around. Oil spillage will definitely affect the health of aquatic organisms, as well as other living things dependent on the water body being polluted. Garbage and other toxic substances are also the other causes of water pollution. All these directly affect human health and the natural environment in the surrounding areas. It is therefore up to the government to put more efforts to reduce these problems.

One of the best solutions to water pollution is the enactment and implementation of rules against those industries and institutions that carelessly dump waste chemicals, garbage, and other toxic pollutants to the water bodies without considering human life and the natural habitat around. The government would need to be very strict on this matter.

People should also avoid dumping litter, household waste, or garbage to water bodies. Individuals should also avoid throwing dirty and harmful substances to their water lines that drain to sewage. Individual farmers must try to use the right amount of fertilizer when applying chemicals, as excess amount of fertilizer may drain to the nearby water body.

Water pollution issues are currently increasing in the world because of neglect of the governments and ignorance of the people. Water pollution issue should not only be issue to the government, but also all the people in the society. Therefore, people should join hands together with the government to reduce this world’s major problem. Nevertheless, water is a very important resource in the world, and it should therefore be kept clean and safe.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 31). Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions. https://ivypanda.com/essays/environmental-issues-2/

"Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions." IvyPanda , 31 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/environmental-issues-2/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions'. 31 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/environmental-issues-2/.

1. IvyPanda . "Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/environmental-issues-2/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/environmental-issues-2/.

• Responding to Oil Spillage: The Gulf of Mexico
• Pollution Problem: Sewage Spills in San Jose
• Gulf Fertilizer Company Strategies
• Sewage and Urban Run-Offs
• Sewage Treatment and Public Health Issues
• Brain Drain in Iran: An Education Aspect
• Effects of Oil Spills on Aquatic Environments
• Fertilizer Plant Explosion: Assessment
• Garbage Pollution
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill's Environmental Effect
• Pollution as a Big Problem That Faces the World
• Contribution of Education in Carbon Emissions
• Earth’s Global Energy Budget
• Alternative Sources of Energy: Solar, Wind, and Hydropower
• The Temperate Forest Biome's Greatest Sustainability Threats

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Water Pollution — Causes And Effects Of Water Pollution

Causes and Effects of Water Pollution

• Categories: Water Pollution

About this sample

Words: 1827 |

10 min read

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 1827 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Table of contents

Deforestation, agriculture, industrialization.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Environment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1801 words

2 pages / 881 words

2 pages / 1164 words

1 pages / 737 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Water Pollution

Water pollution occurs when contaminators are disposed into water sources and thus causing environmental degradation. Continuous pollutants disposal not only affect the marine ecosystem but also the biosphere surroundings (Nanda [...]

Everybody knows humans need pure drinking water to sustain life. But are Brisbane residents drinking clean water? The water pollution problem in Brisbane is beginning to get out of hand. If something is not done soon, it will be [...]

The Kalamazoo River oil spill was the worst oil spill in Michigan’s history. Well over 800,000 gallons of crude oil were spilled from an Enbridge pipeline in a creek upriver, and subsequently flowed downriver, causing [...]

In recent decades, the world has grappled with an escalating crisis—pollution. Pollution, in its various forms, has inflicted considerable harm upon our environment, affecting not only human beings but also the delicate [...]

The numbers that show cell phone usage while driving are shocking. Facts demonstrate that at any time of the day, around 660,000 drivers try to use their phones as they are driving and this can be attributed to a smartphone that [...]

Niels Bohr was a man who was born in Copenhagen in the year 1885, on the 7th of October. Niels Henrik David Bohr was already in the clear to be a strong influence to the scientific community. Bohr was raised in an educated [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Essay on Water Pollution for Students and Children

500+ words essay on water pollution.

Water is the most important resource for survival on a planet. It is the essence of life on our planet – Earth. Yet if you ever see a river or lake around your city, it would be evident to you that we are facing a very serious problem of Water pollution. Let us educate ourselves about water and water pollution . Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered by water , seventy-six perfect of your body is made up of water.

Water and Water Cycle

As you already know water is everywhere and all around.  However, we have a fixed amount of water on earth. It just changes its states and goes through a cyclic order, known as the Water Cycle. The water cycle is a natural process that is continuous in nature. It is the pattern in which the water from oceans, seas, lakes, etc gets evaporated and turns to vapor. After which it goes through the process of condensation, and finally precipitation when it falls back to earth as rain or snow.

What is Water Pollution?

Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies (like oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, aquifers, and groundwater) usually caused due to human activities. Water pollution is any change, minor or major in the physical, chemical or biological properties of water that eventually leads to a detrimental consequence of any living organism . Drinking water, called Potable Water, is considered safe enough for human and animal consumption.

Sources of Water Pollution

• Domestic Waste
• Industrial effluents
• Insecticides and pesticides
• Detergents and Fertilizers

Some of the water pollutions are caused by direct Sources, such as factories, waste management facilities, refineries, etc, that directly releases waste and dangerous by-products into the nearest water source without treating them. Indirect sources include pollutants that infuse in the water bodies via groundwater or soil or via the atmosphere through acidic rain.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Effects of Pollution of Water

The effects of Water Pollution are:

Diseases: In humans, drinking or consuming polluted water in any way has many disastrous effects on our health. It causes typhoid, cholera, hepatitis and various other diseases.

Eradication of Ecosystem: Ecosystem is extremely dynamic and responds to even small changes in the environment. Increasing water pollution can cause an entire ecosystem to collapse if left unchecked.

Eutrophication: Chemicals accumulation and infusion in a water body, encourages the growth of algae. The algae form a layer on top of the pond or lake. Bacteria feed on this algae and this event decreases the amount of oxygen in the water body, severely affecting the aquatic life there

Effects of the food chain: Turmoil in food chain happens when the aquatic animals (fish, prawns, seahorse, etc) consume the toxins and pollutants in the water,  and then the humans consume them.

Prevention of Water Pollution

The best way to prevent large-scale water pollution is to try and reduce its harmful effects. There are numerous small changes we can make to protect ourselves from a future where water is scarce.

Conserve Water: Conserving water should be our first aim. Water wastage is a major problem globally and we are only now waking up to the issue. Simple small changes made domestically will make a huge difference.

Treatment of sewage: Treating waste products before disposing of it in water bodies helps reduce water pollution on a large scale. Agriculture or other industries can reuse this wastewater by reducing its toxic contents.

Use of environment-friendly products: By using soluble products that do not go on to become pollutants, we can reduce the amount of water pollution caused by a household.

Life is ultimately about choices and so is water pollution. We cannot live with sewage-strewn beaches, contaminated rivers , and fish that are poisonous to drink and eat. To avoid these scenarios,  we can work together to keep the environment clean so the water bodies, plants, animals, and people who depend on it remain healthy. We can take individual or teamed action to help reduce water pollution. As an example, by using environmentally friendly detergents, not pouring oil down the drains, reducing the usage of pesticides, and so on. We can take community action too to keep our rivers and seas cleaner. And we can take action as countries and continents to pass laws against water pollution. Working together, we can make water pollution less of a problem—and the world a better place.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Water Pollution - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Water pollution poses a dire threat to ecosystems, human health, and economies. Essays could explore the myriad sources of water pollution, such as industrial discharges, agricultural runoff, and improper waste disposal. The discourse might extend to the examination of the impacts of water pollution on aquatic life, human health, and the broader environment. Discussions could also delve into the various measures and technologies available to prevent and mitigate water pollution, such as wastewater treatment, pollution control regulations, and community-led initiatives. Furthermore, essays might focus on case studies showcasing the challenges and successes in addressing water pollution in different regions. The interlinkages between water pollution and broader environmental issues like climate change, along with the examination of international efforts to promote clean water and sanitation, could provide a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and potential solutions surrounding water pollution. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Water Pollution you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Water Pollution Effects on Humans

The world population is increasing every day, bringing with it several pollution problems. Water pollution is one of the biggest examples, which generates devastating effects on human beings, such as poisoning with heavy minerals, bacterial diseases, and serious skin problems. The degree of the consequence will depend on the exposure of the person and the type of contamination that is in the water during their contact. Sometimes, the damage generated could be irreversible, concluding in chronic diseases or even death. […]

Paired Debate Speech Water Pollution and Consumerism

Water is polluted many different ways, just to name a few are hypoxia, wastewater pollution, and marine debris. In this paper I will touch on many different ways waters become polluted, and you can see for yourself that human involvement is the root cause of it all. There are different types of pollution in the world. However, my argument is that water pollution is a more pressing matter in comparison to other forms of pollution. The EPA states in their […]

Water Scarcity and Pollution

Water is one of the most important natural resources for all living organisms. A normal person could stay alive without aliment for one whole week but not without water. However, in the areas where people experienced water shortage and pollution, safe drinking water was unable to be distributed to them. Water shortage or water scarcity is a condition where there is not enough supply of water to meet human needs. It is a situation that happened in many parts of […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Water Pollution – Major Problem in our World Today

Water pollution is the major problem in our world today and, is a major hazard that causes many problems to the people and environment. Water pollution needs to be stopped because pollution is going into lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans and its been killing land and water animals for years. Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem. Many living things suffer from polluted water. Humans, animals, and […]

Air and Water Pollution in Tokyo

How would you feel if you were watching anime, your ramen cooking, and the fight between Kurasakunoharujibokoniyosutokinamiyotokiretakomichiwakoto-Chan Harunosukemokimokisarekajimotonyaborokichiyamo-Senpai was about to get to that one part where it's so dramatic and junk, but THEN, suddenly, your power goes out. Screaming occurs outside your once tranquil home, the blood and massacred bodies fill the streets, people gruesomely turning from human, to a brainless, thoughtless, horror. Fighting for your life, and barely making it out alive. After weeks of walking, you finally […]

About Air, Water and Soil Pollution

Air Pollution What health hazards are associated with living indoors? Indoor air pollution can cause big health problems. People who may be exposed to these indoor air pollutants for long periods of time are most at risk to the effects of air pollution. This includes children, adults, and people with long term chronic illnesses. Most indoor air pollution comes from sources that release gases into the air. Things such as air fresheners, and building materials constantly give off air pollution. […]

Water Pollution in China

The challenge of rising water pollution in China poses a huge threat to existing water bodies that greatly benefit indigenous people, industries, and government. This water pollution was the result of effluents from large industrial areas, which drained the chemicals of rivers and other related streams. The escalating impasse of China's water pollution requires quick and practical measures aimed at protecting a few uncontaminated water bodies and stopping further pollution of those already polluted. These efforts will help protect aquatic […]

Water Pollution: the Treatment and Management

A technology was developed to provide better treatment as science advanced our knowledge of aquatic life mechanisms and human health effects. The need for purer water was also identified. Heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and other pollutants can now be removed from domestic and industrial wastewater to an increasingly greater degree. Methods of advanced treatment include microfiltration, carbon adsorption, evaporation/distillation, and chemical precipitation. Sludge Management In sludge management, the greatest uncertainty about future trends lies in the prospects for recycling sewage […]

Save the Earth from the Plastic Pollution

Pollution is caused by some sort of toxic waste that is thrown into the atmosphere or land nearby. There are many types of pollution, the main are air pollution, plastic pollution, and water pollution, all three are very dangerous to the ecosystem. Pollution is the contamination of the environment in which we live in and it harms nature and living things around it. It is the biggest global killer affecting over 100 million people. That’s more than global diseases like […]

Plastic Pollution in the Philippines

The top countries that dispose of the most plastic are all in Asia the Philippines is the third. What is the problem, the Philippines are using too many plastic objects. Who has the pollution affected humans, food sources including, land animals, crops, and wildlife? Solutions what can the Philippines do to help the water pollution and save their and our world. What is the problem? “The Philippines generates 2.7 million tonnes of plastic waste annually and 20 percent – or […]

Beach Clean-Up Study Shows Global Scope of Plastic Pollution

Have you ever been to the beach and seen trash laying there? Most people who see trash on the beach pick it up and throw it away. But, there are some people who see it and think “It’s just a little bit of trash, I’m sure it’s fine”. If you're one of those people I suggest you stop. There is so much waste in the ocean that destroys the life of marine animals. Not only does it hurt them and […]

Kinds of Pollution: the Future of Environment

Can you stay without light in your life?! Our environment is our light. God created the surroundings in their most beautiful form, but when a shadow got here over this light, our surroundings grew to become darkish and this shadow is us. The environment includes the living and non-living things that an organism interacts with or has an impact on it. Living elements that an organism interacts with are known as biotic elements: animals, plants, etc., abiotic elements are non-living […]

Should the Government Regulate Ocean Pollution?

The government should regulate ocean pollution due to the fact they are one of the contributing factors to ocean pollution. Ocean pollution affects more than just the waterways. Marine life is decreasing day by day due to the amount of trash that builds up in our oceans. Agricultural fertilizer and climate change have also been afflicted in negative ways by the inconsiderate attitude towards our environment namely the ocean. From nuclear bomb testing to creating the Great Pacific garbage patch. […]

Plastic Pollution of Earth’s Oceans

Introduction Approximately 300 million tons of plastic is produced every year (Cressey 2016). It's disposable, yet long-lasting nature makes it critical to pose the question “where does all this plastic end up?” A large quantity of the plastic produced eventually ends up floating on the surface of the ocean- some even reach the seafood humans eat (Rochman, 2016). Plastic is a cheap, versatile, disposable material that does not degrade easily, making it a perfect candidate for a variety of uses […]

Catastrophic Effect of the Pollution in the World

Pollution has a catastrophic effect in the world today and our future. Its caused by the process of making new land, water , air or other parts of the environment that are unsanitary and not able to be used. Simple abiotic factors such as light, sound, and temperature can be considered as a pollutants once they are initiated artificially into an environment. There are three different types of pollution today land, air and water. A pollutant that is most common […]

Long-Term Affects of Wastewater in Disposal Sites from Fracking

Overview This article discusses a study done at Penn state into the long-term affects of wastewater in disposal sites from fracking. In 2011, water and sediment downstream of fracking disposal sites was discovered to still contain unsafe levels of some chemicals, despite the water being treated, and had become radioactive. This had contaminated drinking water and aquatic life in the river, causing die-off of some present species. Due to this discovery, fracking wastewater was no longer treated and released back […]

Marine Pollution Due to Waste Water Discharge in Kuwait

The first part of this report summarizes the article named “Marine pollution due to waste water discharge in Kuwait” by (Jassim A, Shatti & Tamama A. Abdallah) Published on 1999. This scientific article discussed the sea pollution and contamination of beach resulted from discharging the untreated waste water into the sea. As per (Pomare, 1988), the sea is considered the natural sink of all the wastes resulted from land activities such as waste water, industrial waste and agricultural waste. All […]

India’s Air Pollution and Climate Change

The World Health Organization states that around 7 million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular systems (Secretariat 2018). Pollution is a worldwide problem. It is defined as the introduction of harmful materials into the environment (National Geographic 1). Materials are a variety of substances known as pollutants and can even be natural. Some of the substances are carbon dioxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO), and carbon monoxide […]

Additional Example Essays

• Plastic Straws Cause and Effect Final Draft
• Colonism in Things Fall Apart
• The short story "The Cask of Amontillado"
• Beowulf and Grendel Comparison
• The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
• Gender Inequality in Education
• Cinderella Marxism
• “The Cask Of Amontillado” Analysis
• An Internal Conflict Between Obsession And Responsibility In The Poem Sea Grapes By Derek Walcott
• Three Waves of Feminism
• Symbolism of Weather in Macbeth
• What Kind of Person Was Chris McCandless?

Essay About Water Pollution Water is basic to life requirements and more than 70% of the earth’s surface is cover by water. W.H.Auden said that “thousands have lived without love, not one without water”. Water is one of our most valuable and important resources because all living organisms require water to survive their life. The human body consists of more than 50% of water, so it proves that humans can survive without food but cannot survive if without water. Fish and other living organisms need water which forms lakes, rivers and oceans as their shelter. Water pollution caused by when humans started discarding sewage and toxic chemical into the ocean, effluents from industries, manufacturing and agro-based industries, dumping, oil pollution, acid rain and so on. Sewage that causes water pollution is one of the most important problem in the earth today. Rivers contaminated by sewerage contain high levels of organic pollutants, and they become breeding grounds for harmful bacteria and viruses that may cause fish and other aquatic organisms impossible to survive and become extinct. Sewage also causes many diseases such as cholera and typhoid that will detrimental to humans. For a few more times, water has been infected with sewage and human cannot enjoy clean water. Recently, the Amazon rainforest had some of the highest deforestations in the world, which has hugely affected the access to and quality of water. This causes the area of the earth to lose a lot of freshwater due to this problem. This is heartbreaking and terrifying to think that the Amazon is the largest rainforest on the planet which creates 20% of the earth’s oxygen, basically is the “lungs of the world”. People are literally destroying the miracle of home and waste a lot of water to put out the fire. Through deforestation, trees are being removed, naturally, there is a loss of support on the soil and leads to more loss of soil. Thereby causing higher rates of soil erosion that seeps into the nearby lakes, affecting the water quality of the lake. It also makes it impossible for sea creatures to survive because of the lack of clean water and the collapsed soil that fills the river’s space, the creatures cannot multiply. In Malaysia, the environmental problem that becoming more serious from time to time is water pollution. This pollution occurs when pollutants are not treated properly to remove harmful compounds are discharged into water bodies. So it is very important to prevent polluting of water bodies and remove existing contaminants or reducing the concentration of these contaminants and use it as desired. Dealing with water pollution is something that everyone including the government and local people need to get involved with. The ways of treating polluted water are industrial wastewater treatment which the raw sewage is needed to be treated carefully and correctly in a water treatment plant before it can be released into the environment. Therefore, all manufacturing industries should assure they have a well-designed treatment facility that can prevent water pollution. Besides, we should never throw rubbish away anyhow. If the rubbish bin is none around, we can take the rubbish home and put it in the rubbish bin. These include places like beaches, riverside and water bodies. We must use water wisely and do not keep the water pipe running when not in use. It can significantly prevent water shortages and reduce the amount of dirty water that needs treatment plants. Anti-pollution laws and regulations must be applied to everyone because it always played an important role to ensure water pollution are kept to the minimum. Anti-pollution laws can as well establish measures that put restrictions for water pollution. These laws are usually directed to industries, hospitals, schools and market areas on how to dispose of, treat and manage sewage.  

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

• Reference Manager
• Simple TEXT file

People also looked at

Review article, effects of water pollution on human health and disease heterogeneity: a review.

• 1 Research Center for Economy of Upper Reaches of the Yangtse River/School of Economics, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, China
• 2 School of Economics and Management, Huzhou University, Huzhou, China

Background: More than 80% of sewage generated by human activities is discharged into rivers and oceans without any treatment, which results in environmental pollution and more than 50 diseases. 80% of diseases and 50% of child deaths worldwide are related to poor water quality.

Methods: This paper selected 85 relevant papers finally based on the keywords of water pollution, water quality, health, cancer, and so on.

Results: The impact of water pollution on human health is significant, although there may be regional, age, gender, and other differences in degree. The most common disease caused by water pollution is diarrhea, which is mainly transmitted by enteroviruses in the aquatic environment.

Discussion: Governments should strengthen water intervention management and carry out intervention measures to improve water quality and reduce water pollution’s impact on human health.

Introduction

Water is an essential resource for human survival. According to the 2021 World Water Development Report released by UNESCO, the global use of freshwater has increased six-fold in the past 100 years and has been growing by about 1% per year since the 1980s. With the increase of water consumption, water quality is facing severe challenges. Industrialization, agricultural production, and urban life have resulted in the degradation and pollution of the environment, adversely affecting the water bodies (rivers and oceans) necessary for life, ultimately affecting human health and sustainable social development ( Xu et al., 2022a ). Globally, an estimated 80% of industrial and municipal wastewater is discharged into the environment without any prior treatment, with adverse effects on human health and ecosystems. This proportion is higher in the least developed countries, where sanitation and wastewater treatment facilities are severely lacking.

Sources of Water Pollution

Water pollution are mainly concentrated in industrialization, agricultural activities, natural factors, and insufficient water supply and sewage treatment facilities. First, industry is the main cause of water pollution, these industries include distillery industry, tannery industry, pulp and paper industry, textile industry, food industry, iron and steel industry, nuclear industry and so on. Various toxic chemicals, organic and inorganic substances, toxic solvents and volatile organic chemicals may be released in industrial production. If these wastes are released into aquatic ecosystems without adequate treatment, they will cause water pollution ( Chowdhary et al., 2020 ). Arsenic, cadmium, and chromium are vital pollutants discharged in wastewater, and the industrial sector is a significant contributor to harmful pollutants ( Chen et al., 2019 ). With the acceleration of urbanization, wastewater from industrial production has gradually increased. ( Wu et al., 2020 ). In addition, water pollution caused by industrialization is also greatly affected by foreign direct investment. Industrial water pollution in less developed countries is positively correlated with foreign direct investment ( Jorgenson, 2009 ). Second, water pollution is closely related to agriculture. Pesticides, nitrogen fertilizers and organic farm wastes from agriculture are significant causes of water pollution (RCEP, 1979). Agricultural activities will contaminate the water with nitrates, phosphorus, pesticides, soil sediments, salts and pathogens ( Parris, 2011 ). Furthermore, agriculture has severely damaged all freshwater systems in their pristine state ( Moss, 2008 ). Untreated or partially treated wastewater is widely used for irrigation in water-scarce regions of developing countries, including China and India, and the presence of pollutants in sewage poses risks to the environment and health. Taking China as an example, the imbalance in the quantity and quality of surface water resources has led to the long-term use of wastewater irrigation in some areas in developing countries to meet the water demand of agricultural production, resulting in serious agricultural land and food pollution, pesticide residues and heavy metal pollution threatening food safety and Human Health ( Lu et al., 2015 ). Pesticides have an adverse impact on health through drinking water. Comparing pesticide use with health life Expectancy Longitudinal Survey data, it was found that a 10% increase in pesticide use resulted in a 1% increase in the medical disability index over 65 years of age ( Lai, 2017 ). The case of the Musi River in India shows a higher incidence of morbidity in wastewater-irrigated villages than normal-water households. Third, water pollution is related to natural factors. Taking Child Loess Plateau as an example, the concentration of trace elements in water quality is higher than the average world level, and trace elements come from natural weathering and manufacture causes. Poor river water quality is associated with high sodium and salinity hazards ( Xiao et al., 2019 ). The most typical water pollution in the middle part of the loess Plateau is hexavalent chromium pollution, which is caused by the natural environment and human activities. Loess and mudstone are the main sources, and groundwater with high concentrations of hexavalent chromium is also an important factor in surface water pollution (He et al., 2020). Finally, water supply and sewage treatment facilities are also important factors affecting drinking water quality, especially in developing countries. In parallel with China rapid economic growth, industrialization and urbanization, underinvestment in basic water supply and treatment facilities has led to water pollution, increased incidence of infectious and parasitic diseases, and increased exposure to industrial chemicals, heavy metals and algal toxins ( Wu et al., 1999 ). An econometric model predicts the impact of water purification equipment on water quality and therefore human health. When the proportion of household water treated with water purification equipment is reduced from 100% to 90%, the expected health benefits are reduced by up to 96%.. When the risk of pretreatment water quality is high, the decline is even more significant ( Brown and Clasen, 2012 ).

To sum up, water pollution results from both human and natural factors. Various human activities will directly affect water quality, including urbanization, population growth, industrial production, climate change, and other factors ( Halder and Islam, 2015 ) and religious activities ( Dwivedi et al., 2018 ). Improper disposal of solid waste, sand, and gravel is also one reason for decreasing water quality ( Ustaoğlua et al., 2020 ).

Impact of Water Pollution on Human Health

Unsafe water has severe implications for human health. According to UNESCO 2021 World Water Development Report , about 829,000 people die each year from diarrhea caused by unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hand hygiene, including nearly 300,000 children under the age of five, representing 5.3 percent of all deaths in this age group. Data from Palestine suggest that people who drink municipal water directly are more likely to suffer from diseases such as diarrhea than those who use desalinated and household-filtered drinking water ( Yassin et al., 2006 ). In a comparative study of tap water, purified water, and bottled water, tap water was an essential source of gastrointestinal disease ( Payment et al., 1997 ). Lack of water and sanitation services also increases the incidence of diseases such as cholera, trachoma, schistosomiasis, and helminthiasis. Data from studies in developing countries show a clear relationship between cholera and contaminated water, and household water treatment and storage can reduce cholera ( Gundry et al., 2004 ). In addition to disease, unsafe drinking water, and poor environmental hygiene can lead to gastrointestinal illness, inhibiting nutrient absorption and malnutrition. These effects are especially pronounced for children.

Purpose of This Paper

More than two million people worldwide die each year from diarrhoeal diseases, with poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water being the leading cause of nearly 90% of deaths and affecting children the most (United Nations, 2016). More than 50 kinds of diseases are caused by poor drinking water quality, and 80% of diseases and 50% of child deaths are related to poor drinking water quality in the world. However, water pollution causes diarrhea, skin diseases, malnutrition, and even cancer and other diseases related to water pollution. Therefore, it is necessary to study the impact of water pollution on human health, especially disease heterogeneity, and clarify the importance of clean drinking water, which has important theoretical and practical significance for realizing sustainable development goals. Unfortunately, although many kinds of literature focus on water pollution and a particular disease, there is still a lack of research results that systematically analyze the impact of water pollution on human health and the heterogeneity of diseases. Based on the above background and discussion, this paper focuses on the effect of water pollution on human health and its disease heterogeneity.

Materials and Methods

Search process.

This article uses keywords such as “water,” “water pollution,” “water quality,” “health,” “diarrhea,” “skin disease,” “cancer” and “children” to search Web of Science and Google Scholar include SCI and SSCI indexed papers, research reports, and works from 1990 to 2021.

Inclusion-Exclusion Criteria and Data Extraction Process

The existing literature shows that water pollution and human health are important research topics in health economics, and scholars have conducted in-depth research. As of 30 December 2021, 104 related literatures were searched, including research papers, reviews and conference papers. Then, according to the content relevancy, 19 papers were eliminated, and 85 papers remained. The purpose of this review is to summarize the impact of water pollution on human health and its disease heterogeneity and to explore how to improve human health by improving water pollution control measures.

Information extracted from all included papers included: author, publication date, sample country, study methodology, study purpose, and key findings. All analysis results will be analyzed according to the process in Figure 1 .

FIGURE 1 . Data extraction process (PRISMA).

The relevant information of the paper is exported to the Excel database through Endnote, and the duplicates are deleted. The results were initially extracted by one researcher and then cross-checked by another researcher to ensure that all data had been filtered and reviewed. If two researchers have different opinions, the two researchers will review together until a final agreement is reached.

Quality Assessment of the Literature

The JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist was used to evaluate the quality of each paper. The JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) key assessment tool was developed by the JBI Scientific Committee after extensive peer review and is designed for system review. All features of the study that meet the following eight criteria are included in the final summary:1) clear purpose; 2) Complete information of sample variables; 3) Data basis; 4) the validity of data sorting; 5) ethical norms; (6); 7) Effective results; 8) Apply appropriate quantitative methods and state the results clearly. Method quality is evaluated by the Yes/No questions listed in the JBI Key Assessment List. Each analysis paper received 6 out of 8.

The quality of drinking water is an essential factor affecting human health. Poor drinking water quality has led to the occurrence of water-borne diseases. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) survey, 80% of the world’s diseases and 50% of the world’s child deaths are related to poor drinking water quality, and there are more than 50 diseases caused by poor drinking water quality. The quality of drinking water in developing countries is worrying. The negative health effects of water pollution remain the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Different from the existing literature review, this paper mainly studies the impact of water pollution on human health according to the heterogeneity of diseases. We focuses on diarrhea, skin diseases, cancer, child health, etc., and sorts out the main effects of water pollution on human health ( Table 1 ).

TABLE 1 . Major studies on the relationship between water pollution and health.

Water Pollution and Diarrhea

Diarrhea is a common symptom of gastrointestinal diseases and the most common disease caused by water pollution. Diarrhea is a leading cause of illness and death in young children in low-income countries. Diarrhoeal diseases account for 21% of annual deaths among children under 5 years of age in developing countries ( Waddington et al., 2009 ). Many infectious agents associated with diarrhea are directly related to contaminated water ( Ahmed and Ismail, 2018 ). Parasitic worms present in non-purifying drinking water when is consumed by human beings causes diseases ( Ansari and Akhmatov., 2020 ) . It was found that treated water from water treatment facilities was associated with a lower risk of diarrhea than untreated water for all ages ( Clasen et al., 2015 ). For example, in the southern region of Brazil, a study found that factors significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality from diarrhoea included lack of plumbed water, lack of flush toilets, poor housing conditions, and overcrowded households. Households without access to piped water had a 4.8 times higher risk of infant death from diarrhea than households with access to piped water ( Victora et al., 1988 )

Enteroviruses exist in the aquatic environment. More than 100 pathogenic viruses are excreted in human and animal excreta and spread in the environment through groundwater, estuarine water, seawater, rivers, sewage treatment plants, insufficiently treated water, drinking water, and private wells ( Fong and Lipp., 2005 ). A study in Pakistan showed that coliform contamination was found in some water sources. Improper disposal of sewage and solid waste, excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers, and deteriorating pipeline networks are the main causes of drinking water pollution. The main source of water-borne diseases such as gastroenteritis, dysentery, diarrhea, and viral hepatitis in this area is the water pollution of coliform bacteria ( Khan et al., 2013 ). Therefore, the most important role of water and sanitation health interventions is to hinder the transmission of diarrheal pathogens from the environment to humans ( Waddington et al., 2009 ).

Meta-analyses are the most commonly used method for water quality and diarrhea studies. It was found that improving water supply and sanitation reduced the overall incidence of diarrhea by 26%. Among Malaysian infants, having clean water and sanitation was associated with an 82% reduction in infant mortality, especially among infants who were not breastfed ( Esrey et al., 1991 ). All water quality and sanitation interventions significantly reduced the risk of diarrhoeal disease, and water quality interventions were found to be more effective than previously thought. Multiple interventions (including water, sanitation, and sanitation measures) were not more effective than single-focus interventions ( Fewtrell and Colford., 2005 ). Water quality interventions reduced the risk of diarrhoea in children and reduced the risk of E. coli contamination of stored water ( Arnold and Colford., 2007 ). Interventions to improve water quality are generally effective in preventing diarrhoea in children of all ages and under 5. However, some trials showed significant heterogeneity, which may be due to the research methods and their conditions ( Clasen et al., 2007 ).

Water Pollution and Skin Diseases

Contrary to common sense that swimming is good for health, studies as early as the 1950s found that the overall disease incidence in the swimming group was significantly higher than that in the non-swimming group. The survey shows that the incidence of the disease in people under the age of 10 is about 100% higher than that of people over 10 years old. Skin diseases account for a certain proportion ( Stevenson, 1953 ). A prospective epidemiological study of beach water pollution was conducted in Hong Kong in the summer of 1986–1987. The study found that swimmers on Hong Kong’s coastal beaches were more likely than non-swimmers to complain of systemic ailments such as skin and eyes. And swimming in more polluted beach waters has a much higher risk of contracting skin diseases and other diseases. Swimming-related disease symptom rates correlated with beach cleanliness ( Cheung et al., 1990 ).

A study of arsenic-affected villages in the southern Sindh province of Pakistan emphasized that skin diseases were caused by excessive water quality. By studying the relationship between excessive arsenic in drinking water caused by water pollution and skin diseases (mainly melanosis and keratosis), it was found that compared with people who consumed urban low-arsenic drinking water, the hair of people who consumed high-arsenic drinking water arsenic concentration increased significantly. The level of arsenic in drinking water directly affects the health of local residents, and skin disease is the most common clinical complication of arsenic poisoning. There is a correlation between arsenic concentrations in biological samples (hair and blood) from patients with skin diseases and intake of arsenic-contaminated drinking water ( Kazi et al., 2009 ). Another Bangladesh study showed that many people suffer from scabies due to river pollution ( Hanif et al., 2020 ). Not only that, but water pollution from industry can also cause skin cancer ( Arif et al., 2020 ).

Studies using meta-analysis have shown that exposure to polluted Marine recreational waters can have adverse consequences, including frequent skin discomfort (such as rash or itching). Skin diseases in swimmers may be caused by a variety of pathogenic microorganisms ( Yau et al., 2009 ). People (swimmers and non-swimmers) exposed to waters above threshold levels of bacteria had a higher relative risk of developing skin disease, and levels of bacteria in seawater were highly correlated with skin symptoms.

Studies have also suggested that swimmers are 3.5 times more likely to report skin diseases than non-swimmers. This difference may be a “risk perception bias” at work on swimmers, who are generally aware that such exposure may lead to health effects and are more likely to detect and report skin disorders. It is also possible that swimmers exaggerated their symptoms, reporting conditions that others would not classify as true skin disorders ( Fleisher and Kay. 2006 ).

Water Pollution and Cancer

According to WHO statistics, the number of cancer patients diagnosed in 2020 reached 19.3 million, while the number of deaths from cancer increased to 10 million. Currently, one-fifth of all global fevers will develop cancer during their lifetime. The types and amounts of carcinogens present in drinking water will vary depending on where they enter: contamination of the water source, water treatment processes, or when the water is delivered to users ( Morris, 1995 ).

From the perspective of water sources, arsenic, nitrate, chromium, etc. are highly associated with cancer. Ingestion of arsenic from drinking water can cause skin cancer and kidney and bladder cancer ( Marmot et al., 2007 ). The risk of cancer in the population from arsenic in the United States water supply may be comparable to the risk from tobacco smoke and radon in the home environment. However, individual susceptibility to the carcinogenic effects of arsenic varies ( Smith et al., 1992 ). A high association of arsenic in drinking water with lung cancer was demonstrated in a northern Chilean controlled study involving patients diagnosed with lung cancer and a frequency-matched hospital between 1994 and 1996. Studies have also shown a synergistic effect of smoking and arsenic intake in drinking water in causing lung cancer ( Ferreccio et al., 2000 ). Exposure to high arsenic levels in drinking water was also associated with the development of liver cancer, but this effect was not significant at exposure levels below 0.64 mg/L ( Lin et al., 2013 ).

Nitrates are a broader contaminant that is more closely associated with human cancers, especially colorectal cancer. A study in East Azerbaijan confirmed a significant association between colorectal cancer and nitrate in men, but not in women (Maleki et al., 2021). The carcinogenic risk of nitrates is concentration-dependent. The risk increases significantly when drinking water levels exceed 3.87 mg/L, well below the current drinking water standard of 50 mg/L. Drinking water with nitrate concentrations lower than current drinking water standards also increases the risk of colorectal cancer ( Schullehner et al., 2018 ).

Drinking water with high chromium content will bring high carcinogenicity caused by hexavalent chromium to residents. Drinking water intake of hexavalent chromium experiments showed that hexavalent chromium has the potential to cause human respiratory cancer. ( Zhitkovich, 2011 ). A case from Changhua County, Taiwan also showed that high levels of chromium pollution were associated with gastric cancer incidence ( Tseng et al., 2018 ).

There is a correlation between trihalomethane (THM) levels in drinking water and cancer mortality. Bladder and brain cancers in both men and women and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and kidney cancer in men were positively correlated with THM levels, and bladder cancer mortality had the strongest and most consistent association with THM exposure index ( Cantor et al., 1978 ).

From the perspective of water treatment process, carcinogens may be introduced during chlorine treatment, and drinking water is associated with all cancers, urinary cancers and gastrointestinal cancers ( Page et al., 1976 ). Chlorinated byproducts from the use of chlorine in water treatment are associated with an increased risk of bladder and rectal cancer, with perhaps 5,000 cases of bladder and 8,000 cases of rectal cancer occurring each year in the United States (Morris, 1995).

The impact of drinking water pollutants on cancer is complex. Epidemiological studies have shown that drinking water contaminants, such as chlorinated by-products, nitrates, arsenic, and radionuclides, are associated with cancer in humans ( Cantor, 1997 ). Pb, U, F- and no3- are the main groundwater pollutants and one of the potential causes of cancer ( Kaur et al., 2021 ). In addition, many other water pollutants are also considered carcinogenic, including herbicides and pesticides, and fertilizers that contain and release nitrates ( Marmot et al., 2007 ). A case from Hebei, China showed that the contamination of nitrogen compounds in well water was closely related to the use of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture, and the levels of three nitrogen compounds in well water were significantly positively correlated with esophageal cancer mortality ( Zhang et al., 2003 ).

In addition, due to the time-lag effect, the impact of watershed water pollution on cancer is spatially heterogeneous. The mortality rate of esophageal cancer caused by water pollution is significantly higher downstream than in other regions due to the impact of historical water pollution ( Xu et al., 2019 ). A study based on changes in water quality in the watershed showed that a grade 6 deterioration in water quality resulted in a 9.3% increase in deaths from digestive cancer. ( Ebenstein, 2012 ).

Water Pollution and Child Health

Diarrhea is a common disease in children. Diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera) kill 1.8 million people each year, 90 per cent of them children under the age of five, mostly in developing countries. 88% of diarrhoeal diseases are caused by inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene (Team, 2004). A large proportion of these are caused by exposure to microbially infected water and food, and diarrhea in infants and young children can lead to malnutrition and reduced immune resistance, thereby increasing the likelihood of prolonged and recurrent diarrhea ( Marino, 2007 ). Pollution exposure experienced by children during critical periods of development is associated with height loss in adulthood ( Zaveri et al., 2020 ). Diseases directly related to water and sanitation, combined with malnutrition, also lead to other causes of death, such as measles and pneumonia. Child malnutrition and stunting due to inadequate water and sanitation will continue to affect more than one-third of children in the world ( Bartlett, 2003 ). A study from rural India showed that children living in households with tap water had significantly lower disease prevalence and duration ( Jalan and Ravallion, 2003 ).

In conclusion, water pollution is a significant cause of childhood diseases. Air, water, and soil pollution together killed 940,000 children worldwide in 2016, two-thirds of whom were under the age of 5, and the vast majority occurred in low- and middle-income countries ( Landrigan et al., 2018 ). The intensity of industrial organic water pollution is positively correlated with infant mortality and child mortality in less developed countries, and industrial water pollution is an important cause of infant and child mortality in less developed countries ( Jorgenson, 2009 ). In addition, arsenic in drinking water is a potential carcinogenic risk in children (García-Rico et al., 2018). Nitrate contamination in drinking water may cause goiter in children ( Vladeva et al.., 2000 ).

Discussions

This paper reviews the environmental science, health, and medical literature, with a particular focus on epidemiological studies linking water quality, water pollution, and human disease, as well as studies on water-related disease morbidity and mortality. At the same time, special attention is paid to publications from the United Nations and the World Health Organization on water and sanitation health research. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between water pollution and human health, including: The relationship between water pollution and diarrhea, the mechanism of action, and the research situation of meta-analysis; The relationship between water pollution and skin diseases, pathogenic factors, and meta-analysis research; The relationship between water pollution and cancer, carcinogenic factors, and types of cancer; The relationship between water pollution and Child health, and the major childhood diseases caused.

A study of more than 100 literatures found that although factors such as country, region, age, and gender may have different influences, in general, water pollution has a huge impact on human health. Water pollution is the cause of many human diseases, mainly diarrhoea, skin diseases, cancer and various childhood diseases. The impact of water pollution on different diseases is mainly reflected in the following aspects. Firstly, diarrhea is the most easily caused disease by water pollution, mainly transmitted by enterovirus existing in the aquatic environment. The transmission environment of enterovirus depends on includes groundwater, river, seawater, sewage, drinking water, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the transmission of enterovirus from the environment to people through drinking water intervention. Secondly, exposure to or use of heavily polluted water is associated with a risk of skin diseases. Excessive bacteria in seawater and heavy metals in drinking water are the main pathogenic factors of skin diseases. Thirdly, water pollution can pose health risks to humans through any of the three links: the source of water, the treatment of water, and the delivery of water. Arsenic, nitrate, chromium, and trihalomethane are major carcinogens in water sources. Carcinogens may be introduced during chlorine treatment from water treatment. The effects of drinking water pollution on cancer are complex, including chlorinated by-products, heavy metals, radionuclides, herbicides and pesticides left in water, etc., Finally, water pollution is an important cause of children’s diseases. Contact with microbiologically infected water can cause diarrhoeal disease in children. Malnutrition and weakened immunity from diarrhoeal diseases can lead to other diseases.

This study systematically analyzed the impact of water pollution on human health and the heterogeneity of diseases from the perspective of different diseases, focusing on a detailed review of the relationship, mechanism and influencing factors of water pollution and diseases. From the point of view of limitations, this paper mainly focuses on the research of environmental science and environmental management, and the research on pathology is less involved. Based on this, future research can strengthen research at medical and pathological levels.

In response to the above research conclusions, countries, especially developing countries, need to adopt corresponding water management policies to reduce the harm caused by water pollution to human health. Firstly, there is a focus on water quality at the point of use, with interventions to improve water quality, including chlorination and safe storage ( Gundry et al., 2004 ), and provision of treated and clean water ( Khan et al., 2013 ). Secondly, in order to reduce the impact of water pollution on skin diseases, countries should conduct epidemiological studies on their own in order to formulate health-friendly bathing water quality standards suitable for their specific conditions ( Cheung et al., 1990 ). Thirdly, in order to reduce the cancer caused by water pollution, the whole-process supervision of water quality should be strengthened, that is, the purity of water sources, the scientific nature of water treatment and the effectiveness of drinking water monitoring. Fourthly, each society should prevent and control source pollution from production, consumption, and transportation ( Landrigan et al., 2018 ). Fifthly, health education is widely carried out. Introduce environmental education, educate residents on sanitary water through newspapers, magazines, television, Internet and other media, and enhance public health awareness. Train farmers to avoid overuse of agricultural chemicals that contaminate drinking water.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, XX|; methodology, LL; data curation, HY; writing and editing, LL; project administration, XX|.

This article is a phased achievement of The National Social Science Fund of China: Research on the blocking mechanism of the critical poor households returning to poverty due to illness, No: 20BJY057.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Afroz, R., Rahman, A., and Rahman, A. (2017). Health Impact of River Water Pollution in Malaysia. Int. J. Adv. Appl. Sci. 4 (5), 78–85. doi:10.21833/ijaas.2017.05.014

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Ahmed, S., and Ismail, S. (2018). Water Pollution and its Sources, Effects and Management: a Case Study of Delhi. Int. J. Curr. Adv. Res. 7 (2), 10436–10442. doi:10.24327/ijcar.2018.10442.1768

Ansari, Z. Z., and Akhmatov, S. V. (2020). Impacts of Water Pollution on Human Health: A Case Study of Delhi .

Google Scholar

Arif, A., Malik, M. F., Liaqat, S., Aslam, A., Mumtaz, K., and Afzal, A. (2020). 3. Water Pollution and Industries. Pure Appl. Biol. (PAB) 9 (4), 2214–2224. doi:10.19045/bspab.2020.90237

Arnold, B. F., and Colford, J. M. (2007). Treating Water with Chlorine at Point-Of-Use to Improve Water Quality and Reduce Child Diarrhea in Developing Countries: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 76 (2), 354–364. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.2007.76.354

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Bartlett, S. (2003). Water, Sanitation and Urban Children: the Need to Go beyond “Improved” Provision. Environ. Urbanization 15 (2), 57–70. doi:10.1177/095624780301500220

Bessong, P. O., Odiyo, J. O., Musekene, J. N., and Tessema, A. (2009). Spatial Distribution of Diarrhoea and Microbial Quality of Domestic Water during an Outbreak of Diarrhoea in the Tshikuwi Community in Venda, South Africa. J. Health Popul. Nutr. 27 (5), 652–659. doi:10.3329/jhpn.v27i5.3642

Boldo, E., MartÍN-Olmedo, P., Medina, S., Pirard, P., Mouly, D., and Beaudeau, P. (2006). Towards the Quantification of Health Impacts Caused by Drinking-Water Pollution in European Countries. Epidemiology 17 (6), S447. doi:10.1097/00001648-200611001-01198

Brown, J., and Clasen, T. (2012). High Adherence Is Necessary to Realize Health Gains from Water Quality Interventions. PLoS ONE 7 (5), e36735–9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036735

Cantor, K. P., Hoover, R., Mason, T. J., and McCabe, L. J. (1978). Associations of Cancer Mortality with Halomethanes in Drinking Water. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 61 (4), 979

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Cantor, K. P. (1997). Drinking Water and Cancer. Cancer Causes Control CCC 8 (3), 292–308. doi:10.1023/a:1018444902486

Chen, B., Wang, M., Duan, M., Ma, X., Hong, J., Xie, F., et al. (2019). In Search of Key: Protecting Human Health and the Ecosystem from Water Pollution in China. J. Clean. Prod. 228, 101–111. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.228

Cheung, W. H. S., Chang, K. C. K., Hung, R. P. S., and Kleevens, J. W. L. (1990). Health Effects of Beach Water Pollution in Hong Kong. Epidemiol. Infect. 105 (1), 139–162. doi:10.1017/s0950268800047737

Cheung, W. H. S., Hung, R. P. S., Chang, K. C. K., and Kleevens, J. W. L. (1991). Epidemiological Study of Beach Water Pollution and Health-Related Bathing Water Standards in Hong Kong. Water Sci. Technol. 23 (1-3), 243–252. doi:10.2166/wst.1991.0422

Chowdhary, P., Bharagava, R. N., Mishra, S., and Khan, N. (2020). Role of Industries in Water Scarcity and its Adverse Effects on Environment and Human Health. Environ. Concerns Sustain. Dev. , 235–256. doi:10.1007/978-981-13-5889-0_12

Clasen, T. F., Alexander, K. T., Sinclair, D., Boisson, S., Peletz, R., Chang, H. H., et al. (2015). Interventions to Improve Water Quality for Preventing Diarrhoea. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 10, CD004794. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004794.pub3

Clasen, T., Schmidt, W.-P., Rabie, T., Roberts, I., and Cairncross, S. (2007). Interventions to Improve Water Quality for Preventing Diarrhoea: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Bmj 334 (7597), 782. doi:10.1136/bmj.39118.489931.be

Conroy, R. M., Elmore-Meegan, M., Joyce, T., McGuigan, K. G., and Barnes, J. (1996). Solar Disinfection of Drinking Water and Diarrhoea in Maasai Children: a Controlled Field Trial. Lancet 348 (9043), 1695–1697. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(96)02309-4

Dasgupta, P. (2004). Valuing Health Damages from Water Pollution in Urban Delhi, India: a Health Production Function Approach. Envir. Dev. Econ. 9 (1), 83–106. doi:10.1017/s1355770x03001098

Dwivedi, S., Mishra, S., and Tripathi, R. D. (2018). Ganga Water Pollution: A Potential Health Threat to Inhabitants of Ganga Basin. Environ. Int. 117, 327–338. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2018.05.015

Ebenstein, A. (2012). The Consequences of Industrialization: Evidence from Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China. Rev. Econ. Statistics 94 (1), 186–201. doi:10.1162/rest_a_00150

El-Kowrany, S. I., El- Zamarany, E. A., El-Nouby, K. A., El-Mehy, D. A., Abo Ali, E. A., and Othman, A. A. (2016). Water Pollution in the Middle Nile Delta, Egypt: an Environmental Study. J. Adv. Res. 7 (5), 781–794. doi:10.1016/j.jare.2015.11.005

Enrique Biagini, R. (1975). Chronic Arsenic Water Pollution in the Republic of Argentina. Med. Cutan. Ibero Lat. Am. 3 (6), 423

Esrey, S. A., Potash, J. B., Roberts, L., and Shiff, C. (1991). Effects of Improved Water Supply and Sanitation on Ascariasis, Diarrhoea, Dracunculiasis, Hookworm Infection, Schistosomiasis, and Trachoma. Bull. World Health Organ 69 (5), 609

Ferreccio, C., González, C., Milosavjlevic, V., Marshall, G., Sancha, A. M., and Smith, A. H. (2000). Lung Cancer and Arsenic Concentrations in Drinking Water in Chile. Epidemiology 11 (6), 673–679. doi:10.1097/00001648-200011000-00010

Fewtrell, L., and Colford, J. M. (2005). Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Developing Countries: Interventions and Diarrhoea-A Review. Water Sci. Technol. A J. Int. Assoc. Water Pollut. Res. 52 (8), 133–142. doi:10.2166/wst.2005.0244

Fitzgerald, E. F., Schell, L. M., Marshall, E. G., Carpenter, D. O., Suk, W. A., and Zejda, J. E. (1998). Environmental Pollution and Child Health in Central and Eastern Europe. Environ. Health Perspect. 106 (6), 307–311. doi:10.1289/ehp.98106307

Fleisher, J. M., and Kay, D. (2006). Risk Perception Bias, Self-Reporting of Illness, and the Validity of Reported Results in an Epidemiologic Study of Recreational Water Associated Illnesses. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 52 (3), 264–268. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2005.08.019

Fong, T.-T., and Lipp, E. K. (2005). Enteric Viruses of Humans and Animals in Aquatic Environments: Health Risks, Detection, and Potential Water Quality Assessment Tools. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 69 (2), 357–371. doi:10.1128/mmbr.69.2.357-371.2005

Froom, P. (2009). Water Pollution and Cancer in Israeli Navy Divers. Int. J. Occup. Environ. Health 15 (3), 326–328. doi:10.1179/oeh.2009.15.3.326

Gundry, S., Wright, J., and Conroy, R. (2004). A Systematic Review of the Health Outcomes Related to Household Water Quality in Developing Countries. J. water health 2 (1), 1–13. doi:10.2166/wh.2004.0001

Halder, J., Islam, N., and Islam, N. (2015). Water Pollution and its Impact on the Human Health. Eh 2 (1), 36–46. doi:10.15764/eh.2015.01005

Hanif, M., Miah, R., Islam, M., and Marzia, S. (2020). Impact of Kapotaksha River Water Pollution on Human Health and Environment. Prog. Agric. 31 (1), 1–9. doi:10.3329/pa.v31i1.48300

Haseena, M., Malik, M. F., Javed, A., Arshad, S., Asif, N., Zulfiqar, S., et al. (2017). Water Pollution and Human Health. Environ. Risk Assess. Remediat. 1 (3), 20. doi:10.4066/2529-8046.100020

Henry, F. J., Huttly, S. R. A., Patwary, Y., and Aziz, K. M. A. (1990). Environmental Sanitation, Food and Water Contamination and Diarrhoea in Rural Bangladesh. Epidemiol. Infect. 104 (2), 253–259. doi:10.1017/s0950268800059422

Jalan, J., and Ravallion, M. (2003). Does Piped Water Reduce Diarrhea for Children in Rural India? J. Econ. 112 (1), 153–173. doi:10.1016/s0304-4076(02)00158-6

Jensen, P. K., Jayasinghe, G., Hoek, W., Cairncross, S., and Dalsgaard, A. (2004). Is There an Association between Bacteriological Drinking Water Quality and Childhood Diarrhoea in Developing Countries? Trop. Med. Int. Health 9 (11), 1210–1215. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3156.2004.01329.x

Jorgenson, A. K. (2009). Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment, the Mitigating Influence of Institutional and Civil Society Factors, and Relationships between Industrial Pollution and Human Health. Organ. Environ. 22 (2), 135–157. doi:10.1177/1086026609338163

Kaur, G., Kumar, R., Mittal, S., Sahoo, P. K., and Vaid, U. (2021). Ground/drinking Water Contaminants and Cancer Incidence: A Case Study of Rural Areas of South West Punjab, India. Hum. Ecol. Risk Assess. Int. J. 27 (1), 205–226. doi:10.1080/10807039.2019.1705145

Kazi, T. G., Arain, M. B., Baig, J. A., Jamali, M. K., Afridi, H. I., Jalbani, N., et al. (2009). The Correlation of Arsenic Levels in Drinking Water with the Biological Samples of Skin Disorders. Sci. Total Environ. 407 (3), 1019–1026. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.10.013

Khan, S., Shahnaz, M., Jehan, N., Rehman, S., Shah, M. T., and Din, I. (2013). Drinking Water Quality and Human Health Risk in Charsadda District, Pakistan. J. Clean. Prod. 60, 93–101. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.02.016

Kochhar, N., Gill, G. S., Tuli, N., Dadwal, V., and Balaram, V. (2007). Chemical Quality of Ground Water in Relation to Incidence of Cancer in Parts of SW Punjab, India. Asian J. Water, Environ. Pollut. 4 (2), 107 doi:10.1086/114154

Kumar, S., Meena, H. M., and Verma, K. (2017). Water Pollution in India: its Impact on the Human Health: Causes and Remedies. Int. J. Appl. Environ. Sci. 12 (2), 275

Lai, W. (2017). Pesticide Use and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Agricultural Water Pollution in China. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 86, 93–120. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2017.05.006

Landrigan, P. J., Fuller, R., Fisher, S., Suk, W. A., Sly, P., Chiles, T. C., et al. (2018). Pollution and Children's Health. Sci. Total Environ. 650 (Pt 2), 2389–2394. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.375

Lin, H.-J., Sung, T.-I., Chen, C.-Y., and Guo, H.-R. (2013). Arsenic Levels in Drinking Water and Mortality of Liver Cancer in Taiwan. J. Hazard. Mater. 262, 1132–1138. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2012.12.049

Lu, Y., Song, S., Wang, R., Liu, Z., Meng, J., Sweetman, A. J., et al. (2015). Impacts of Soil and Water Pollution on Food Safety and Health Risks in China. Environ. Int. 77, 5–15. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2014.12.010

Marino, D. D. (2007). Water and Food Safety in the Developing World: Global Implications for Health and Nutrition of Infants and Young Children. J. Am. Dietetic Assoc. 107 (11), 1930–1934. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2007.08.013

Marmot, M., Atinmo, T., Byers, T., Chen, J., and Zeisel, S. H. (2007). Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective. Nutr. Bull.

Marr, A., and Dasgupta, N. (2009). Industrial Water Pollution in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Strategies and Incentives for Pollution Control in Small and Medium Enterprises. Int. J. Interdiscip. Soc. Sci. Annu. Rev. 3 (11), 97–108. doi:10.18848/1833-1882/cgp/v03i11/52752

Morris, R. D. (1995). Drinking Water and Cancer. Environ. Health Perspect. 103, 225. doi:10.2307/3432315

Moss, B. (2008). Water Pollution by Agriculture. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 363 (1491), 659–666. doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2176

Page, T., Harris, R. H., and Epstein, S. S. (1976). Drinking Water and Cancer Mortality in Louisiana. Science 193 (4247), 55–57. doi:10.1126/science.935854

Pandey, S. (2006). Water Pollution and Health. Kathmandu Univ. Med. J. (KUMJ) 4 (1), 128. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2013.04.013

Parris, K. (2011). Impact of Agriculture on Water Pollution in OECD Countries: Recent Trends and Future Prospects. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev. 27 (1), 33–52. doi:10.1080/07900627.2010.531898

Payment, P., Siemiatycki, J., Richardson, L., Renaud, G., Franco, E., and Prevost, M. (1997). A Prospective Epidemiological Study of Gastrointestinal Health Effects Due to the Consumption of Drinking Water. Int. J. Environ. Health Res. 7 (1), 5–31. doi:10.1080/09603129773977

Rabbani, M., Chowdhury, M., and Khan, N. A. (2010). Impacts of Industrial Pollution on Human Health: Empirical Evidences from an Industrial Hotspot (Kaliakoir) in Bangladesh. Asian J. Water, Environ. Pollut. 7 (1), 27

Rajal, V. B., Cruz, C., and Last, J. A. (2010). Water Quality Issues and Infant Diarrhoea in a South American Province. Glob. Public Health 5 (4), 348–363. doi:10.1080/17441690802447267

Rampen, F. H. J., Nelemans, P. J., and Verbeek, A. L. (1992). Is Water Pollution a Cause of Cutaneous Melanoma? Epidemiology 3, 263–265. doi:10.1097/00001648-199205000-00013

Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution 1979 Seventh Report. Agriculture and Pollution . London, UK: H.M.S.O .

Rusiñol, M., Fernandez-Cassi, X., Timoneda, N., Carratalà, A., and Abril, J. F. (2015). Evidence of Viral Dissemination and Seasonality in a Mediterranean River Catchment: Implications for Water Pollution Management. J. Environ. Manag. 159, 58–67. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.05.019

Schullehner, J., Hansen, B., Thygesen, M., Pedersen, C. B., and Sigsgaard, T. (2018). Nitrate in Drinking Water and Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study. Int. J. Cancer 143 (1), 73–79. doi:10.1002/ijc.31306

Schwarzenbach, R. P., Egli, T., Hofstetter, T. B., Von Gunten, U., and Wehrli, B. (2010). Global Water Pollution and Human Health. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 35, 109–136. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-100809-125342

Sliman, N. A. (1978). Outbreak of Guillain-Barre Syndrome Associated with Water Pollution. Bmj 1 (6115), 751–752. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.6115.751

Smith, A. H., Hopenhayn-Rich, C., Bates, M. N., Goeden, H. M., Hertz-Picciotto, I., Duggan, H. M., et al. (1992). Cancer Risks from Arsenic in Drinking Water. Environ. Health Perspect. 97, 259–267. doi:10.1289/ehp.9297259

Stephens, J. K. (2002). Deterioration of Stored Domestic Water Quality and Diarrhoea in Zenu . University of Ghana .

Stevenson, A. H. (1953). Studies of Bathing Water Quality and Health. Am. J. Public Health Nations Health 43 (5 Pt 1), 529–538. doi:10.2105/ajph.43.5_pt_1.529

Team, S. H. (2004). Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Links to Health: Facts and Figures . World Health Organization .

Tondel, M., Rahman, M., Magnuson, A., Chowdhury, I. A., Faruquee, M. H., and Ahmad, S. A. (1999). The Relationship of Arsenic Levels in Drinking Water and the Prevalence Rate of Skin Lesions in Bangladesh. Environ. health Perspect. 107 (9), 727–729. doi:10.1289/ehp.99107727

Tseng, C.-H., Lei, C., and Chen, Y.-C. (2018). Evaluating the Health Costs of Oral Hexavalent Chromium Exposure from Water Pollution: A Case Study in Taiwan. J. Clean. Prod. 172, 819–826. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.10.177

Ustaoğlu, F., Tepe, Y., Taş, B., and Pag, N. (2020). Assessment of Stream Quality and Health Risk in a Subtropical Turkey River System: A Combined Approach Using Statistical Analysis and Water Quality Index. Ecol. Indic. , 113. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105815

Vartiainen, T., Pukkala, E., Rienoja, T., Strandman, T., and Kaksonen, K. (1993). Population Exposure to Tri- and Tetrachloroethene and Cancer Risk: Two Cases of Drinking Water Pollution. Chemosphere 27 (7), 1171–1181. doi:10.1016/0045-6535(93)90165-2

Victora, C. G., Smith, P. G., Vaughan, J. P., Nobre, L. C., Lombard, C., Teixeira, A. M. B., et al. (1988). Water Supply, Sanitation and Housing in Relation to the Risk of Infant Mortality from Diarrhoea. Int. J. Epidemiol. 17 (3), 651–654. doi:10.1093/ije/17.3.651

Vladeva, S., Gatseva, P., and Gopina, G. (2000). Comparative Analysis of Results from Studies of Goitre in Children from Bulgarian Villages with Nitrate Pollution of Drinking Water in 1995 and 1998. Cent. Eur. J. Public Health 8 (3), 179

Waddington, H., Snilstveit, B., White, H., and Fewtrell, L. (2009). Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Interventions to Combat Childhood Diarrhoea in Developing Countries . New Delhi India Global Development Network International Initiative for Impact Evaluation Aug .

Witkowski, K. M., and Johnson, N. E. (1992). Organic-solvent Water Pollution and Low Birth Weight in Michigan. Soc. Biol. 39 (1-2), 45–54. doi:10.1080/19485565.1992.9988803

Wu, C., Maurer, C., Wang, Y., Xue, S., and Davis, D. L. (1999). Water Pollution and Human Health in China. Environ. Health Perspect. 107 (4), 251–256. doi:10.1289/ehp.99107251

Wu, H., Gai, Z., Guo, Y., Li, Y., Hao, Y., and Lu, Z. N. (2020). Does Environmental Pollution Inhibit Urbanization in China? A New Perspective through Residents' Medical and Health Costs. Environ. Res. 182 (Mar.), 109128–109128.9. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2020.109128

Xiao, J., Wang, L., Deng, L., and Jin, Z. (2019). Characteristics, Sources, Water Quality and Health Risk Assessment of Trace Elements in River Water and Well Water in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Sci. Total Environ. 650 (Pt 2), 2004–2012. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.322

Xu, C., Xing, D., Wang, J., and Xiao, G. (2019). The Lag Effect of Water Pollution on the Mortality Rate for Esophageal Cancer in a Rapidly Industrialized Region in China. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 26 (32), 32852–32858. doi:10.1007/s11356-019-06408-z

Xu, X., Wang, Q., and Li, C. (2022b). The Impact of Dependency Burden on Urban Household Health Expenditure and its Regional Heterogeneity in China: Based on Quantile Regression Method. Front. Public Health 10, 876088. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.876088

Xu, X., Yang, H., and Li, C. (2022a). Theoretical Model and Actual Characteristics of Air Pollution Affecting Health Cost: A Review. Ijerph 19, 3532. doi:10.3390/ijerph19063532

Yassin, M. M., Amr, S. S. A., and Al-Najar, H. M. (2006). Assessment of Microbiological Water Quality and its Relation to Human Health in Gaza Governorate, Gaza Strip. Public Health 120 (12), 1177. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2006.07.026

Yau, V., Wade, T. J., de Wilde, C. K., and Colford, J. M. (2009). Skin-related Symptoms Following Exposure to Recreational Water: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Water Expo. Health 1 (2), 79–103. doi:10.1007/s12403-009-0012-9

Zaveri, E. D., Russ, J. D., Desbureaux, S. G., Damania, R., Rodella, A. S., and Ribeiro Paiva De Souza, G. (20203). The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital . World Bank Policy Research Working Paper .

Zhang, X.-L., Bing, Z., Xing, Z., Chen, Z.-F., Zhang, J.-Z., Liang, S.-Y., et al. (2003). Research and Control of Well Water Pollution in High Esophageal Cancer Areas. Wjg 9 (6), 1187–1190. doi:10.3748/wjg.v9.i6.1187

Zhitkovich, A. (2011). Chromium in Drinking Water: Sources, Metabolism, and Cancer Risks. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 24 (10), 1617–1629. doi:10.1021/tx200251t

Keywords: water pollution, human health, disease heterogeneity, water intervention, health cost

Citation: Lin L, Yang H and Xu X (2022) Effects of Water Pollution on Human Health and Disease Heterogeneity: A Review. Front. Environ. Sci. 10:880246. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.880246

Received: 21 February 2022; Accepted: 09 June 2022; Published: 30 June 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Lin, Yang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Xiaocang Xu, [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Bioaerosol Emission Characteristics and the Epidemiological, Occupational, and Public Health Risk Assessment of Waste and Wastewater Management

• Biology Article
• Water Pollution Control

Water Pollution And Its Control

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

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

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

Also Read: How Can We Conserve Water?

• Water pollution
• Modern Epidemic

Minamata Incident

• Ganges River

What is Water Pollution?

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

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

Also Refer:  Types of Pollution

Sources Of Water Pollution

The key causative of water pollution in India are:

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

Water Pollution – A Modern Epidemic

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

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

Effects Of Water Pollution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pollution of the Ganges

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

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

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

Control Measures of Water Pollution

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

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

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

Further Reading:

Frequently Asked Questions

What is sewage treatment.

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

What are the main steps in sewage treatment?

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

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

What are the main causes of water pollution?

The main causes of water pollution are attributed to

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

What are the effects of water pollution?

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

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

Put your understanding of this concept to test by answering a few MCQs. Click ‘Start Quiz’ to begin!

Select the correct answer and click on the “Finish” button Check your score and answers at the end of the quiz

Visit BYJU’S for all Biology related queries and study materials

Your result is as below

Request OTP on Voice Call

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post My Comment

I like this paper

Best source for obtaining detailed information about anything

Nice and useful site

i know right

Best platform for gaining accurate solutions of Maths And Science

can u tell me what are the preventions and control of river pollution important for India ???

The best platform for study purposes Really very helpful 😊 Thanks to Byjus 🙏

Elaboration is beautiful

really helpful for my semester report 🙂

Byjus is my best education platform, this bring revolutinise the educatuon, thanks to byjus

Really it is best knowledge source

• Share Share

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

An essay about causes and effects of water pollution .

Related Papers

Doorva Upadhyay

vishwas patodia

Environmental Management in South Africa

Carin Bosman

Water pollution is the degradation of water quality as measured by biological, physical or chemical criteria, and this degradation is generally judged in terms of the intended use of the water, its departure from the norm, its effects on public health, or ecological impacts. If the intended use is, for example, recreation and eco-tourism, any deviation from natural background levels (norm) may be deemed pollution. The quality of water can also be influenced by natural phenomena, such as geology, which in some cases, may cause water to be unfit for human use and consumption, but that is not regarded as pollution. Pollution of water is deemed to be a human induced impact, and is defined in the National Water Act 107 of 1998 to mean ‘the direct or indirect alteration of the physical, chemical or biological properties of a water resource so as to make it - (a) less fit for any beneficial purpose for which it may reasonably be expected to be used; or (b) harmful or potentially harmful - (i) to the welfare, health or safety of human beings; (ii) to any aquatic or non-aquatic organisms; (iii) to the resource quality; or iv) to property. As South Africa is a water scarce country, the removal of pollutants from effluents and wastes before it can enter the water resource, as well as the removal of pollutants from already contaminated water resources, is critical. Such removal obviously has a cost implication, and the higher the level of impurity, the more expensive the treatment of the water for re-use. Thus pollution affects the national economy, as well as the quality of life of the citizens of South Africa. This chapter will briefly discuss the factors influencing water pollution and the main water pollution problems experienced in South Africa, highlighting the biggest pollution challenges currently being faced. The legislative tools and policy options available to manage water pollution, as well as the current challenges towards dealing with water pollution, are also highlighted.

Niysoriya KANG

Water pollution is one of the most ecological threats we face today. It is formed when chemical compounds or waste enters water bodies such as lakes, rivers and oceans, dissolving in them, lying suspended in the water and degrading the quality of the water. Water pollution can be caused by many ways such as city sewage and industrial waste, chemical waste, oil spill, and plastic. For this reason, in this essay I am going to explain the effects of water pollution on human health, animals and clean water.

Similade A Adeodun

Water is a unique substance, because it can naturally renew and cleanse itself, by allowing pollutants to settle out (through the process of sedimentation) or break down, or by diluting the pollutants to a point where they are not in harmful concentrations. However, this natural process takes time, and is difficult when excessive quantities of harmful contaminants are added to the water. Meanwhile humans are using more and more materials that are polluting the water sources that we drink from through various anthropogenic activities. Rate of pollution is excessively greater than the natural rate at which water renews and cleans itself, and this is a major environmental problem. Therefore it is expedient to know the causes and effects of water pollution and thereafter proffer a sustainable solution the environmental menace.

kziel murcia

Water pollution is a major issue for the whole word. It undermines the health and well being of humans, plants, and animals. As the world became more mechanical and smaller due to corresponds and exchange, accidental and also unsafe dumping have been contributed to the issue of water pollution. All water pollution is dangerous to the health of living organisms, but sea and river pollution can be especially adverse to all life form. Rivers and seas are used as essential sources of potable water by populations all over the world. Another genuine outcome of this pollution is the effect of this pollution on trade in the polluted areas. (TED analysis cases (n.d) Water pollution is a major global problem which requires progressing assessment and update of water resource policy at all levels. It has been suggested that water pollution is the main overall causes for passing and infections to the people nowadays, and that it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily.An estimated 580 individuals in India die due to water pollution related sickness. About 90 percent of the water in the urban of China is polluted.As of 2007, a large portion of Chinese people have no entrance to safe drinking water. In addition to the acute problems of water pollution in developing countries, developed countries also keep on struggling with contamination issues. The head of China's national development agency said in 2007 that one quarter the length of China's seven principle waterways were so harmed so the water can harmed the skin of one individual. Water is regularly alluded to as contaminated when it is impaired by anthropogenic contaminants and either does not support a human use, such as drinking water, or experiences a right moves in its ability to support its constituent biotic communities, such as fish. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also can cause real changes in water quality and the natural status of water. (Water Pollution (n.d) Water pollution might be brought by any dangerous substance or material that makes contact with the earths water supply. This may include oil from oil tankers and oil refineries, garbage from construction sites, city streets and residential lawns, shameful transfer of dangerous materials from garbage disposal companies, chemical spills and improper chemical disposal, sewage leaks and agricultural runoffs just to name a few. Water pollution is brought by any human actives however the others are can be created by the natural resources. When water is polluted it is usually defined as either being polluted from point sources or non point sources. Point source pollution happens from a one particular area by a single source such as a large factory, oil refinery or hauling ship that contributed a massive amount of pollution within a single area. This vast scale contamination can be spread crosswise over expansive waterways affecting many miles of water, agricultural land, animal habitats and oceanic ecosystems. Non point source pollution may happen in any areas that all contribute to a body of water. This can occur from large neighborhoods with poor private grass quality from sewage leaks and other types of contaminants, city streets where garbage and chemicals are not disposed of properly and large agricultural areas that utilize unsafe chemicals which overflow into a waterway

Agnes K Limmer

HUSEIN ELKESHREU

Waddah Alabsi

Maria Louise Bønnelykke

Chapter from the book: Living with Environmental Change: Waterworlds (2014)

RELATED PAPERS

rapiatul hasanah

Signum: Estudos da Linguagem

Vanderci D A Aguilera

Nature communications

Allen Moore

Yamuna Mahesh

Hannu Nieminen

Francis Assadian

Odovtos - International Journal of Dental Sciences

José Vega-Baudrit

Andre Indrawan

2006 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

Goodfellow Publishers Ltd

Jennie Jordan

The Journal of Infectious Diseases

Suraj Nahak

Papeles de poblacion / Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados de la Poblacion, Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico

César González

Nature Neuroscience

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

Laudemir Carlos Varanda

The Indian journal of medical research

Dr. Shalini Agnihotri

Journal of nanobiotechnology

alejandra alvarez

Springer eBooks

Heli Helaakoski

kazunari takahashi

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

Chinyere Nwankwo

Optimus Fintech

Anne-Lou Vicente

Australian Academic & Research Libraries

Tạp chí Khoa học Đại học Tân Trào

Revista de Ciencias Agricolas

Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas , Alejandro Hurtado-Salazar , Juan Sebastián Arias-García

The Professional Medical Journal

Qamar u nisa -ag-2990

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Skip to main content

India’s Largest Career Transformation Portal

Essay on Water Pollution: Types, Causes, Effects & Prevention

March 10, 2021 by Sandeep

Water Pollution Essay: When water gets contaminated by pollutants making it unhealthy and unfit to consume, we call it water pollution. The pollution of water bodies like oceans, rivers, lakes, and underground sources has drastically affected life forms. Domestic and industrial wastes, pesticides and effluents mainly pollute water.

Essay on Water Pollution 500 Words in English

Below we have provided Water Pollution Essay in English, suitable for class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10. This essay is drafted in simple and easy words.

Water is undoubtedly one of the essential resources on our planet. It is vital for the survival of all living organisms. Water takes over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface. It is a priceless commodity that has been contaminated and depleted to a critical level with time. The addition of harmful foreign substances into water bodies is known as water pollution. These water bodies can be in the form of aquifers, rivers, lakes, ponds, seas, groundwater, streams, waterfalls, and oceans. Human activities are the prime reason for the adulteration of water bodies.

Types of Water Pollution

Water pollution can be of three kinds – groundwater pollution’s, surface water pollution, and marine pollution.

The contamination of groundwater is known as groundwater pollution. Industrial effluents, dirty water from drains and sewage, which flow on the land surface, seep down the soil and mix with the groundwater. Surface water pollution includes contamination of open water bodies (like rivers, lakes, and oceans) present on Earth’s surface. Lack of proper sanitation and uncontrollable discharge are the major contributors.

Marine pollution involves large water bodies. Wastewater discharges in the river make their way to the seas and oceans, thus causing pollution. Aquatic species become exposed to hazardous chemicals. Food chains get disrupted. Oxygen content in the water bodies is reduced. Marine life is adversely affected as a result. These polluted water bodies become the hub for microbes and spread epidemics like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, and diarrhoea.

Causes of Water Pollution

Water tends to dissolve almost everything. It is known as the universal solvent. This feature enables it to dissolve toxic substances. These toxicities arise from factories, refineries, waste disposal sites, acid rains, detergents, domestic waste, etc. Some of the major causes of water pollution are:

• Sewage: Every day, tons of waste matter generated from farmlands, commercial sites and households are dumped into the lakes and rivers. These wastes which remain untreated contain harmful chemicals that can be poisonous to plants, animals, and humans.
• Industrial Effluents: Industrial waste largely contributes to the adulteration of water bodies. Direct disposal of these wastes has disastrous effects on the ecosystem. Chemical effluents from tanning industries contain poisonous compounds, volatile matter, and heavy metals. This water then mixes with the river and contaminates the underground water table.
• Eutrophication: It is the process that occurs when large amounts of nutrients in the water bodies result in the formation and growth of algae on the surface of the water. Bacteria feed on these algae. Hence, aquatic organisms like fishes and plants get depleted of oxygen. Their habitat is destroyed, and the quality of water is critically reduced.
• Oil Spills: Leakages from ships and tankers result in oil spills. This is one of the most dangerous modes of water pollution. When the oil gets spilt, it forms a layer over the water surface. This layer prevents the penetration of oxygen, which is essential for the survival of marine plants and animals.
• Affected River Banks: Lack of sanitation measures in the villages has resulted in defecation in open areas (especially near river banks). Washing clothes and cattle in the lakes is a common practice. Solid waste accumulation is not a rare sight. Litters composed of plastics, glasses, Styrofoam, etc., do not decompose well and stay in the water for years.
• Indirect Sources: These are the pollutants that indirectly lead to water pollution. They can be chemical dumps, septic tanks, pesticides, hazardous wastes, radioactive substances, etc. Radioactive wastes generated from atomic power plants and other medical procedures are dangerous.

Prevention of Water Pollution

Besides predominantly affecting our health, water pollution can have disastrous effects on our ecosystem. Toxicant pass through the affected aquatic species to us humans. The food chain is badly influenced by it. Prevention of water pollution is essential. Conservation of water must be the first step. Preventive measures include sewage water treatment, using environment-friendly products, reduction in plastic consumption, proper disposal of chemical liquids, solid waste management, and less use of pesticides.

Apart from that, drains must be cleaned more often. The implementation of proper sanitary measures by the government in the villages is a great step. Mass awareness through media and entertainment can help sensitize people about the issue. Educating people, especially in rural areas, can ensure a positive outcome. Enforcement of appropriate laws for Industries and other production sectors can prove beneficial. Natural reserves of water must be safeguarded, and a balance must be maintained in our diversified environment.

Related Essays