water quality water cycle drought contamination desalination drinking water h20h20 fresh water flood...
TRANSCRIPT
Water Quality
Water Cycledrought
contamination
desalination
Drinking water
H20 fresh waterflood
salt water
clouds
evaporation
agriculture
Keep Your Head Above Water
Unsafe and polluted drinking
water is a major cause for
concern worldwide. As the
number of individuals lacking
regular access to clean water
supplies grows into the billions
microbial pollutants continue
to cause health problems
across the globe. It remains
quite common for young
children living in developing
countries to die each year
from diseases caused by
impure drinking water as well
as the lack of water for
adequate sanitation.
A growing body of scientific research suggests that
efforts by all individuals are essential to ensuring healthy, clean water. Fertilizers, manure,
automobile oil, and other pollutants flow into rivers and lakes on a continual basis, allowing unsafe
bacteria to thrive, resulting in a lack of oxygen in those
bodies of water.
Must Be Something in the Water
A recent five-month
Associated Press investigation
of drinking-water quality
found concentrations of 56
pharmaceuticals, ranging
from antibiotics to mood
stabilizers, in the water
supplies of at least two dozen
major U.S. metropolitan
areas. Currently, neither
sewage-treatment plants nor
drinking water plants remove
pharmaceuticals from the
water that they process.
come clean
Americans have traditionally been trained to just flush them
down the toilet. When this occurs, trace elements of such medications eventually end up
in drinking water supplies because wastewater plants do not currently treat water for
pharmaceuticals before returning it to nearby bodies of
water for consumption once again.
Watered Down
“We should not be having an argument about how many chemicals a body can stand before something happens…We as a society need to take
these things as warning signals.”-Craig Hafer, Institute for the
Advancement of Children’s Environmental Health
Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal
“P2D2”, a prescription drug disposal program launched as a student assignment at Illinois’ Pontiac Township High
School allows individuals to return any unused drugs to
various pharmacies in order to ensure their
proper disposal.
Currently, the P2D2 program exists in seven states — including 100 Illinois communities — and has already been
responsible for the collection of
approximately 87,500 pounds of drugs in the state of Illinois alone
since the program was launched in early 2008.
A Flood of P2D2
The common practice of fishermen cleaning their catch
along the docks and tossing fish carcasses back into the water,
or construction crews that unintentionally allow sediment-
laden water to discharge off their construction sites, can end
up degrading an area’s water quality.
One Fish, Two Fish…
…Red Fish, Blue Fish
WIn Deep Water
Victims of natural disasters frequently experience a lack of access to clean
drinking water in the aftermath of such tragedies, which frequently renders them
at substantially increased risks of becoming ill or dying.
Aid shipments containing supplies of clean water, purification tablets, and
water purification equipment often take too long to arrive.
A growing body of research
suggests that there is a link
between water quality and
livestock. Bodies of water
surrounding densely packed
livestock operations typically have
higher E. coli levels than other
bodies of water in the same region.
Holy Cow!
The importance of
preventing these
contaminants from
leaking into water
supplies is becoming
even more challenging.
It is well known that lead is
particularly harmful to young
children, infants, and babies in
a woman’s womb. But, while
adults are exposed to levels of
such medications that are well
below a therapeutic dose,
medical researchers now fear
that the “cocktail effect of
mixing different drugs”
through the regular
consumption of drinking water
can also “have detrimental
effects on fetuses.”
They Say, “Go With the Flow”
A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
The impact of water pollutants from
agriculture, pharmaceuticals and
other wastes have a great impact
on wildlife as well. Trace quantities
of medication in the water have
caused reproductive problems in
several types of fish, including carp,
fathead minnow, and the razorback
sucker. It has also been discovered
that such contamination has
resulted in various health problems
in wildlife, such as kidney failure in
vultures.
What does the future
hold for our earth’s
water? As more and
more contaminated
water flows into the
ocean, will it have an
effect on the quality of
water available for
desalination? Will it
jeopardize the
ecosystems of the
ocean?
Swimming with the Sharks
Many experts have predicted
that wars in the 21st
century will be fought over access to
quality water sources.
Exploration into new forms of water treatment processes and alternative water supplies must continue.
Water conscious
efforts by all can go a long way toward
ensuring that there is far less pollution in the coming years.