Facts about water pollution

Water pollution is broad term that includes contamination of different water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans, and groundwater.

Water pollution is caused by pollutants, mostly in form of different chemicals that are discharged either directly or indirectly into the water bodies without the adequate treatment to remove their harmful effects.

Water pollution is not only huge ecological problem but also huge health problem. It is believed that water pollution is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases responsible for around 15,000 deaths each day.

Water pollution is especially serious issue in two fast growing economies, China and India. Some latest reports suggest that more than 500 million Chinese lack access to safe drinking water while in India 700 million people have no access to proper toilet.

The two main causes of water pollution are waste water and sewage waste. Each year the world generates around 400 billion tons of industrial waste, and lot of this waste gets discharged into different water bodies causing serious water pollution problem.

To determine the level of water pollution science usually takes samples that are afterwards analyzed by different chemical, biological and physical testing.

Several studies have confirmed the link between the water pollution and high miscarriage rates. Water pollution is also connected with the lower IQ rates among affected population.

Diarrhea, caused by water pollution, is worldwide responsible for 1,5 million deaths of children each year.

Recent studies have showed that close to one billion people lack access to safe drinking water while more than 2,5 billion people live without adequate sanitation systems.

Water pollution is one of the main reasons why freshwater resources are constantly in decline (despite being renewable resource), and since only 3% of water on our planet is freshwater world could experience global water shortage much sooner than expected.