How to best prevent water pollution?

Water pollution is a serious health, social, and environmental issue in many parts of the world, especially developing countries. There are currently more than one billion people in the world without the access to safe drinking water, and this issue is soon to become even worse because many scientists expect major droughts (as a result of increasing climate change impact) that will further limit already scarce water resources in many parts of the world.

Harmful chemical and biological pollutants, many of which come from the industry and agriculture, are mostly to blame for excessive water pollution in many countries of the world. The increased industrial and agricultural activity still fails to find an eye to eye with a sustainable management of freshwater resources, and this is something that will require a special attention.

Water is one of the most precious resources on our planet. This means that water pollution issue must reach global level in terms of involving all countries in the world in a joint effort to find the best possible solution(s) to stop further rise of water pollution worldwide.

Water pollution is often characterized with excessive level of different pollutants into rivers. Cleaning these rivers from pollution requires huge funds, and since most of these incidents happen in developing countries there is often not enough money available for these funds.

Stopping poverty is one of the best ways to tackle water pollution issue. Poor, uneducated people will fail to prevent water pollution, as they in general care very little for our environment.

The industries that pollute water bodies and the responsible people in these industries should be strictly punished for the pollution they cause so they would think twice before again dumping waste into rivers and other water bodies. This also requires frequent monitoring of water bodies in order to prevent further spreading of the pollution, and also reducing eventual cleaning costs as much as possible. Chemical, biological and physical testing of water bodies should be done on regular level.

Water purification methods could be also used to decrease the levels of water pollution in many countries of the world. Water purification methods refer to different processes that are used to remove harmful chemicals and other pollutants from water bodies so water could be used for safe drinking.

The science could well be the one that will decide the final outcome of our battle against water pollution. The numerous ongoing scientific studies search for possible solutions that would cheaply and effectively clean water pollution, and there have been some very interesting proposals (such as for instance using carbon nanotubes to clean polluted water).

We mustn't forget that water pollution leads to different waterborne diseases that are causing the deaths of million people all over the world. Diarrhea alone causes approximately 1.5 million deaths of children worldwide each year.