Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Water pollution is a major global environmental problem because it can result in the degradation of all aquatic ecosystems – fresh, coastal, and ocean waters. [75] The specific contaminants leading to pollution in water include a wide spectrum of chemicals , pathogens, and physical changes such as elevated temperature.
The term waterborne disease is reserved largely for infections that predominantly are transmitted through contact with or consumption of microbially polluted water.Many infections may be transmitted by microbes or parasites that accidentally, possibly as a result of exceptional circumstances, have entered the water.
Biological pollution (impacts or bio pollution) is the impact of humanity's actions on the quality of aquatic and terrestrial environment. Specifically, biological pollution is the introduction of non-indigenous and invasive species, [ 1 ] otherwise known as Invasive Alien Species (IAS).
While marine pollution can be obvious, as with the marine debris shown above, it is often the pollutants that cannot be seen that cause most harm.. Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there.
This kills off marine life or forces it to leave the area, removing life from the area and giving it the name dead zone. Hypoxic zones or dead zones can occur naturally, but nutrient pollution from human activity has turned this natural process into an environmental problem. [29] There are five main sources of nutrient pollution.
Aquatic biomonitoring is the science of inferring the ecological condition of rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands by examining the organisms (fish, invertebrates, insects, plants, and algae) that live there. While aquatic biomonitoring is the most common form of biomonitoring, any ecosystem can be studied in this manner.
Unlike chemical testing of water samples, which gives brief snap-shots of chemical concentrations, an IBI captures an integrated net impact on a biological community structure. While the complete absence, particularly sudden disappearance of, suites of indicator species can constitute powerful evidence of a specific pollutant or stress factor ...
For example, hepatitis, gastroenteritis, meningitis, fever, rash, and conjunctivitis can all be spread through contaminated water. More viruses are being discovered in water because of new detection and characterization methods, although only some of these viruses are human pathogens. [4] Rotavirus, an example of human water viruses