- 04/02/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Qualitative factor
Limited fresh water resources are further reduced because of their pollution. The most dangerous are waste waters (industrial, agricultural and domestic), because much of the used water go back to the water basins in the form of sewage.
Industrial waste water, containing organic and inorganic waste, is often thrown out to the rivers and the seas. Each year thousands of chemical substances, which act on the environment is not known beforehand, get in the water sources. Hundreds of these substances are new compounds. Although industrial waste water in many cases subjected to preliminary treatment, they still contain toxic substances, which are difficult to detect.
One of the major pollutants of the surface water is the oil and petroleum products. Oil can fall into the water from its natural outlets in the areas of occurrence. But the main sources of pollution associated with human activities: oil production, transportation, processing and use of oil as a fuel and industrial raw materials.
Of course there is a variety of methods of water purification. They are divided into three groups: mechanical, physical, chemical and biological.
The most inexpensive is mechanical cleaning. These include filtration, settling and filtration. However, these methods do not provide full Cleanup of the water from all impurities.
Chemical cleaning is used for discharge from wastewater soluble inorganic impurities. During the waste water chemical treatment the special reagents neutralize and decontaminate them.
Biological methods are used for purification of the dissolved organic compounds.
Currently, the total number of wastewater mechanical treatment is 68% of all sewage, physico-chemical-3%, biological – 29% (Shiklomanov, 1999).custom term paper
And in the developing countries this numbers are even smaller.
A small amount of water and its pollution lead to unsanitary conditions and to the emergence of dangerous diseases, which sometimes grow into the epidemic.
The most common types of diseases in the countries with shortages of water are diarrhea (1.4 million preventable child deaths per year), malnutrition (860 000 preventable child deaths per year), intestinal nematode infections (2 billion infections—affecting one third of the world’s population—that could be prevented), trachoma (visual impairments in 5 million people that could have been prevented) (Annette, 2008).
Conclusion
According to all this facts it can be said that the preservation of still available fresh water is the main task of the mankind nowadays. Many of today’s developed countries begin to experience water shortages, which affects all sectors of human activities, people’s health, and that the most important it is very dangerous for the children.
The introduction of high-quality water purification mechanisms will help to improve the level of fresh water on the planet, which will be suitable for consumption. Since all sources of water in our world is interconnected, and the pollution of only one lake, will lead to pollution of all water resources.
Moderate consumption of water by all people, would enable countries in need to raise the level of available fresh water, leading to voltage drop in global water supply.
Works Cited
“5th World Water Forum. Highlights from Istanbul” 16-22 March 2009.
“Water Crisis.” 27 May 2009. http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25
Annette Prüss-Üstün, Robert Bos, Fiona Gore, Jamie Bartram. “Safer water, better health. Costs, benefits and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health.” World Health Organization, Geneva, 2008.
Gleick, Peter. “Water and conflict”. 1998. The World’s Water. Island Press, Washington, D.C. 1998-1999. pp. 105-135.
Kirby, Alex. “Dawn of a thirsty century.” BBC News. 2 June 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Klare, Michael. “Resource Wars: The New landscape of Global conflict.” New York, 2001.
Postel, Sandra. “The Last Oasis. facing water scarcity.” Earthscan Publications Limited, 1992
Ward, Alan. “Weighing Earth’s water from space.” 23 December 2003. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
Shiklomanov, Igor. “World Water resources and their use a joint SHI/UNESCO product.” St. Petersburg, 1999.
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