Water Pollution
Man is a complex being; he makes the deserts bloom and lakes die - Gil Stern
image by: People's Daily, China
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Diffuse water pollution: an invisible and growing threat
On 22 March each year the world turns its attention to the global water crisis on the occasion of World Water Day. Water policies around the world are in need of urgent reform. Water – an essential natural resource on which all life depends – has become a global garbage can.
You wouldn’t think you could kill a freshwater ecosystem or an ocean, would you? But the biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems has been degraded more than any other ecosystem. And more than 400 dead zones have been identified in the world’s oceans. Pollution is a major driver of such damage.
The effects of water pollution imperil not only ecosystems, but also human lives and economic growth. At least…
Resources
Coronavirus spotlights the link between clean water and health
As the world confronts the coronavirus pandemic, experts say that a key way to minimize the odds of getting sick is by washing your hands thoroughly and frequently. But what if you don’t have access to clean water? Over the past 40 years, many nations have made great progress in treating wastewater, providing residents with clean drinking water and enhancing water supplies to grow needed food and fiber. But as a researcher focusing on water resources management and policy, I know there is still far to go.
How This Entrepreneur Is Taking On America's Water Crisis
At Aquagenuity, we have a singular mission: making water quality data easy to access and easy to understand for the non-technical user. We have gone far beyond providing a list of toxins and parts per billion found in local water supplies (gibberish that means almost nothing to the average consumer); instead, we make water quality data visual, color-coded, and relevant.
A Renewable Solution For Polluted Waters: Biochar Explained
Luckily, scientific advances in renewable materials and biomass-based products, such as biochar from organic materials like forest harvest residues, agricultural wastes and leftovers, and animal manure, can offer a more sustainable alternative.
Rural America’s Own Private Flint: Polluted Water Too Dangerous to Drink
The groundwater that once ran cool and clean from taps in this Midwestern farming town is now laced with contaminants and fear. People refuse to drink it. They won’t brush their teeth with it. They dread taking showers.
The world's water quality might be in trouble
When we think about how climate change will impact water, we “tend to think about droughts or flooding or extreme rainfall,” says Anna Michalak. “But the linkages between climate and water quality are potentially just as strong as climate and water quantity.”
We knew fertilizer contaminates water. It turns out it contaminates air, too
Soil has long been known to contribute to NOx emissions; microbes feed on nitrate-rich organic matter in soil, and produce NOx as they munch away. Farmers add fertilizer, basically a pile of nitrates, because plants use nitrogen to make chlorophyll, which helps them grow. But what the plants don’t use is digested by the microbes, producing NOx that escapes into the air. In heavily-fertilized areas like California’s agricultural Central Valley, that is happening on a massive scale.
FLOW
Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
The Science Is Clear: Dirty Farm Water Is Making Us Sick
For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.
The Worldwide 'Thirst' For Clean Drinking Water
"The last 100 years has been the golden age of water in the developed world: water that has been safe, unlimited and essentially free," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But that era is over. We will not, going forward, have water that has all three of those qualities at the same time: unlimited, unthinkingly inexpensive and safe."
Why Rivers No Longer Burn
Protecting our nation’s waters may seem like common sense today, but the idea of nationally uniform, tough standards against polluters was both original and radical. Thinking big, the Clean Water Act’s preamble declared that the nation’s waters would be swimmable and fishable within a decade, with no discharges of pollutants within a dozen years. These weren’t idle boasts.
‘Dump it down the drain’: How contaminants from prescription-drug factories pollute waterways
Acacophony of machines, some as big as a dump truck, mix pharmaceutical ingredients, press them into tablets, and fill capsules at a West Virginia factory owned by generic-drug giant Mylan. By the end of each run, the walls, ceilings, floors, and nearly every nook and cranny of the intricate equipment were caked in powdery drug residues, say three former Mylan employees.
Artificial Sweeteners Are Used to Track Water Pollution
Sucralose turns out to be a perfect substance for tracing household wastewater.
Bottled Water, Nothing is Really Clear or Pure
Besides cluttering up the planet, bottled water may not be as healthy as you think!
China has made huge strides cleaning up its polluted rivers
While major rivers such as the Yangtze still suffer from pollution, a comprehensive new study found that government policies since 2001 have significantly improved average inland water quality nationwide.
Don’t Drink the Water
In 1991, the EPA learned that there were toxins in a mountain stream. But nobody told the family who owned the property.
How antibiotic pollution of waterways creates superbugs
Humans pollute the world with many chemicals and some of these affect living things, even at very low concentrations. Endocrine-disrupting compounds, which interfere with hormones, are a good example, but recently more concern has been raised about pollution with antibiotics.
Is Your Water Making You Sick?
I study waterborne disease and water pollution. I am a water scientist and my laboratory is the vast array of rivers, lakes and aquifers on this blue planet. I care about water quality and how this affects our health and our well being. Pollution continues to impact surface and ground waters, our drinking waters as well as coastlines and recreational waters.
More than ever, our clothes are made of plastic. Just washing them can pollute the oceans.
It’s no secret that too many of the plastic products we use end up in the ocean. But you might not be aware of one major source of that pollution: our clothes.
Ocean Plastics
Plastic ocean pollution, a component of marine litter, injures and kills marine life, spreads toxins, and poses a potential threat to human health.
Omega-3s: Is It an Environmental Disaster?
Are Omega-3 fatty acids one of nature's wonder supplements or are we just destroying the fish and the oceans and ultimately ourselves in the quest for health?
Organic Compounds in Freshwater
Effects of organic pollution on freshwater ecosystems.
Sea Trash
I keep reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that floating island of trash between California and Hawaii. Can we ever clean it up? And should we even bother?
The case against cruises
Along with the moral implications of low wages and high profits and how little ports benefit from cruise tourism, the cruise industry has a severe impact on the environment. These ships are essentially floating cities, and many of them produce as much pollution as one. In 2016, the Pacific Standard reported that “each passenger’s carbon footprint while cruising is roughly three times what it would be on land.”
The Frightening Spread of Toxic Algae
Toxic algae is one of the quickest-spreading deadly effects of the climate crisis in the United States. As the Arctic’s glaciers melt and the Amazon’s rainforest burns, America’s lakes, rivers, and coastlines are being increasingly infiltrated by several different types of brightly colored, toxic algae bacterium that thrive in warm, nutrient-rich conditions.
The World’s Next Environmental Disaster
India’s Yamuna River, born in a glacier in the Himalayas, is so defiled by the time it leaves Delhi that it can’t sustain life.
Water Fluoridation, Has It Outlived Its Usefulness?
Tap water fluoridation has been around for over 65 years. But is it more harmful than beneficial? Many countries have already banned its use, so why hasn't the United States?
Water Pollution
So that you can become a water pollution expert, first we'll investigate different kinds of water pollution. And when you're ready, you can help clean up an oil spill!
Water Pollution: The Invisible, Creeping Threat
Every other week we read of a new water pollution scandal, often after people fall sick, but sometimes because of large-scale fish die off or other adverse environmental impacts. Can we turn the tide of growing water pollution around?
What Are The Biggest Sources of Water Pollution?
The UN declared 2005-2015 as the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’. Yet each day thousands of people still die as a result of contaminated water. This does not even take into account the millions of organisms that perish every year thank to polluted water sources.
Whose job is it to clear up all the rubbish floating in the oceans?
Ultimately the problem with sea debris is responsibility. There is a low sense of responsibility, ownership or recognition in government departments world wide that might encourage stewardship. Instead the problem is reduced to changing individual behaviour instead of government departments linking up to prevent debris entering the oceans.
Why are New Zealand's waters so polluted?
New Zealand's abundant rivers have been central to its reputation as a land of natural beauty – but are its waterways as sparkling as the tourist ads suggest?
Diffuse water pollution: an invisible and growing threat
On 22 March each year the world turns its attention to the global water crisis on the occasion of World Water Day. Water policies around the world are in need of urgent reform. Water – an essential natural resource on which all life depends – has become a global garbage can.
9 Things That Causes Water Pollution And Its Possible Solution
Indeed, water pollution is one of the major crisis that the world faces today, and it affects millions of people who don’t have access to clean drinking water. The government spends time and effort to focus on water pollution and its effects to protect the people.
Water Pollution Guide
Welcome to the Water Pollution Guide, where you can find useful information about the sources of water pollution and how they can be treated.
4Ocean
Cleaning the ocean and coastlines, one pound at a time.
Global Water Partnership
The Global Water Partnership’s vision is for a water secure world. Its mission is to advance governance and management of water resources for sustainable and equitable development.
Let's Talk (Dirty) water
The blog on water pollution.
Oceana
Oceana, founded in 2001, is the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation. Our offices in North America, South America and Europe work together on a limited number of strategic, directed campaigns to achieve measurable outcomes that will help return our oceans to former levels of abundance.
Save the Boundary Waters
The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters is leading the effort to ensure permanent protection for the Boundary Waters Wilderness, America's most visited Wilderness and Minnesota's crown jewel, from proposed sulfide-ore copper mining.
Save the Water
Save the Water™ (STW™) is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the world water crisis through excellence in water science research and by forming alliances with organizations, scientists, universities, media, businesses, and governments around the world to promote awareness of water contamination issues.
The Groundwater Foundation
The Groundwater Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and motivating people to care for and about groundwater.
The Watergeeks
Our mission is to help turn the global water crisis upside down through empowering consumers with compelling new choices that better fit both their active lifestyles and their ecological beliefs. We create innovative new water consumption products designed for the world as it is today. Our products are uniquely designed to create both a healthier "you" and a healthier "planet.
Water Environment Federation
WEF and its member associations proudly work to achieve our mission of preserving and enhancing the global water environment.
Water Pollution Forum
Discusses all water-related issues, particularly in terms of quality and scarcity.
WaterAid
WaterAid started in 1981 because no non-profit like us existed. We are determined to make clean water, reliable toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation. Only by tackling these 3 essentials, in ways that last, can people change their lives for good.
Aquagenuity
Your local water quality changes every day, multiple times a day. Just like the weather. It used to be impossible to track these changes in real-time. But now, the AquaGenius app keeps you informed when your water quality changes...
Blue Sphere Media
We fuse dramatic imagery with intimate and thought-provoking stories, to connect people to globally important issues and inspire action.
DAKIE
With our projects, we are improving people’s livelihood by accessing clean drinking water, health, education and income. Combating child poverty is particularly important to us. We promote African art and culture and want to support integration into our society today.
EarthEcho International
EarthEcho International's mission is to empower youth to take action that restores and protects our water planet.
Natural Resources Defense Council
Scientists estimate that each year up to 7 million Americans become sick from contaminated tap water, which can also be lethal. Pollution, old pipes and outdated treatment threaten tap water quality.
Pacific Institute
The Pacific Institute creates and advances solutions to the world’s most pressing water challenges. Our vision is to create a world in which society, the economy, and the environment have the water they need to thrive now and in the future.
Project Kaisei
Project Kaisei is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco and Hong Kong, established to increase the understanding and the scale of marine debris, its impact on our ocean environment, and how we can introduce solutions for both prevention and clean-up.
Toxic-Free Future
Toxic-Free Future focuses on preventing water pollution by stopping the use of harmful chemicals in consumer products and manufacturing.
UK Rivers Network
The world's rivers have never been under so much stress. Even in the UK and Ireland, rivers are under huge pressure from water extraction ("abstraction"), climate change, pollution, and other human activities. The UK Rivers Network brings people together to create a better future for rivers and inland waters in the UK and Ireland.
EPA
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to sweeping amendments in 1972.
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