21.3 Water Pollution
Learning Objectives
- Discuss the risks that water pollution poses to human and environmental health.
- Explain where fresh and saltwater pollution come from.
- Discuss how pathogen born diseases are caused by water pollution.
- Describe why conserving water and protecting water quality is important to human
health and the environment. - Describe how water pollution reduces the amount of safe drinking water available.
- Discuss who is responsible for preventing and cleaning up water pollution.
Freshwater and ocean pollution are serious global problems that affect the availability of
safe drinking water, human health and the environment. Waterborne diseases from water
pollution kill millions of people in undeveloped countries every year.
Sources of Water Pollution
Water pollution can make our current water shortages even worse than they already are.
Imagine that all of your drinking water came from a river polluted by industrial waste and
sewage. In undeveloped countries throughout the world, raw sewage is dumped into the
same water that undeveloped people drink and bathe in. Without the technology to collect,
treat and distribute water, people do not have access to safe drinking water. Throughout the
world, more than 14,000 people die every day from waterborne diseases, like cholera which
is spread through polluted water.
Even in developed countries that can afford the technology to treat water, water pollution
affects human and environmental health.
Water pollution includes any contaminant that gets into lakes, streams and oceans. The
most widespread source of water contamination in undeveloped countries is raw sewage
dumped into lakes, rivers and streams. In developed countries, the three main sources of
water pollution are:
- Agriculture, including fertilizers, animal waste and other waste, pesticides, etc.
- Industry, including toxic and nontoxic chemicals
- Municipal uses, including yard and human waste