learning objectives of water pollution

Unfortunately, many of the wells produced water naturally rich in arsenic. Combined sewer systems that have a single set of underground pipes to collect both sewage and storm water runoff from streets for wastewater treatment can be major point sources of pollutants. But before getting into the specifics of the state of Ganga River and major water pollution in India, we should learn about what water pollution is. The objective of controlling water pollution is to safeguard life of both animals and plants since water is the source of life. Persistent organic pollutants are long-lived in the environment, accumulate through the food chain (bioaccumulation), and can be toxic. Source: United States Coast Guard via Wikimedia Commons. It is an Act to provide for the prevention and control of water pollution and the maintaining or restoring of wholesomeness of water for the establishment, with a view to carrying out the purposes aforesaid, of Boards for the prevention and control of water pollution, for conferring on and assigning to such Boards powers and functions relating thereto and for matters connected therewith. Share the related water, air, noise, ocean, soil, light and land pollution and oil spills lessons for each lesson plan with students in class to make learning fun and engaging. Learning Objectives. Now, leak detectors are required and the metal storage tanks are supposed to be protected from corrosion or replaced with fiberglass tanks. Thermal pollution involves the release of heated waters from power plants and industry to surface water, causing a drop in the dissolved O2 content, which can stress fish. The abundance of a water pollutant is commonly given in very small concentration units such as parts per million (ppm) or even parts per billion (ppb). Compared to tap water, it uses much more energy, mainly in bottle manufacturing and long-distance transportation. The level of water pollution depends on the abundance of the pollutant, the ecological impact of the pollutant, and the use of the water. A small percentage of algal species produce toxins that can kill fish, mammals, and birds, and may cause human illness; explosive growths of these algae are called harmful algal blooms (see Figure Harmful Algal Bloom). A common cleanup method called pump and treat involves pumping out the contaminated groundwater and treating it by oxidation, filtration, or biological methods. Source: U.S. Geological Survey. Sample Student Learning Objectives-Educator/Student Support Specialists Subject Area: Intellectual Disabilities Grade(s): 6 # of students covered by SLO: 5 % of students covered by SLO: 100% of Grade 6 Student Learning Objective: M y 6th grade students will improve their social and emotional competencies with an emphasis on social and emotional skills, positive attitude about self and Prevention practices are essential for preserving wetlands, groundwater sources and other critical ecosystems - areas in which we especially want to stop pollution before it begins. In such a lake, the dissolved O2 content is ≤5 ppm O2, BOD is high, and low O2-tolerant fish, e.g., carp and catfish dominate. Fresh water is commonly defined as containing less than either 1,000 or 500 ppm TDS, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that drinking water not exceed 500 ppm TDS or else it will have an unpleasant salty taste. 3.3.1 BACTERIA Table 3-1 provides a summary of the bacterial water quality objectives and identifies the sources of those objectives. Other chemicals that exhibit biomagnification are DDT, PCBs, and arsenic. During the early 1900s rapid industrialization in the U.S. resulted in widespread water pollution due to free discharge of waste into surface waters. Specific things that we can do to reduce urban runoff include the following: keep soil, leaves, and grass clippings off driveways, sidewalks, and streets; don’t pour used motor oil, antifreeze, paints, pesticides, or any household hazardous chemical down the storm sewer or drain; recycle used motor oil; use hazardous waste disposal programs offered by the community; compost your organic waste; don’t use fertilizers and herbicides on your lawn; and flush pet waste down the toilet. Bottled water is not a sustainable solution to the water crisis, despite exponential growth in popularity in the U.S. and the world. Other pollutants are not retained by soil particles: These include N, road salt, gasoline fuel, the herbicide atrazine, tetrachloroethylene (a carcinogenic cleaning solvent used in dry cleaning), and vinyl chloride. Specific treatment methods depend on the geology, hydrology, and pollutant because some light contaminants flow on top of groundwater, others dissolve and flow with groundwater, and dense contaminants can sink below groundwater. Source: Felix Andrews via Wikimedia Commons, Harmful Algal Bloom Harmful algal bloom with deep red color. Early European water legislation began, in a "first wave", with standards for those of our rivers and lakes used for drinking water abstraction in 1975, and culminated in 1980 in setting binding quality targets for our drinking water. Distinguish among primary, secondary, and tertiary treatments for wastewater. The basic components of a septic tank system (see Figure Septic System) include a sewer line from the house, a septic tank (a large container where sludge settles to the bottom and microorganisms decompose the organic solids anaerobically), and the drain field (network of perforated pipes where the clarified water seeps into the soil and is further purified by bacteria). Some chemical pollutants have serious and well-known health effects; however, many others have poorly known long-term health effects. Point sources of pollution include animal “factory” farms that raise a large number and high density of livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens (see Figure A Commercial Meat Chicken Production House) and discharge pipes from a factories or sewage treatment plants. Learning Objectives. Nonpoint sources of water pollution, e.g., agricultural runoff and urban runoff (see Figure Storm Drain), are much harder to regulate because of their widespread, diffuse nature. Mercury and methylmercury are present in only very small concentrations in seawater; however, at the base of the food chain algae absorb methylmercury. Proportion of Population by Country Using Improved Drinking Water Sources in 2008 Improved drinking water sources, e.g., household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells and springs, and rainwater collections, are defined as those more likely to provide safe water than unimproved water sources, e.g., unprotected wells and springs, vendor-provided water, bottled water (unless water for other uses is available from an improved source), and tanker truck-provided water. A famous mercury poisoning case in Minamata, Japan involved methylmercury-rich industrial discharge that caused high Hg levels in fish. This topic identifies the key learning points of the forms of water, composition and chemistry of water, water pollution, mineral, mining and processing ore. Currently there are around 600,000 underground fuel storage tanks in the U.S. and over 30% still do not comply with EPA regulations regarding either release prevention or leak detection. Pollutants enter water supplies from point sources, which are readily identifiable and relatively small locations, or nonpoint sources, which are large and more diffuse areas. Plan and conduct a campaign to bring awareness to a problem of environmental pollution in … During that time the responsible company and national government did little to mitigate, help alleviate, or even acknowledge the problem. Hard water contains abundant calcium and magnesium, which reduces its ability to develop soapsuds and enhances scale (calcium and magnesium carbonate minerals) formation on hot water equipment. During large storms, the relief structure allows some of the combined stormwater and sewage to be discharged untreated to an adjacent water body. Many water resources are more and more becoming vulnerable to pollution by toxic chemicals, dirt, garbage, and pathogens. Excessive plant nutrients, particularly nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P), are pollutants closely related to oxygen-demanding waste. Based on the lab results, what conclusions can be drawn about each site? Learn about pollution of air and water and know how to prevent pollution. Compounding the water crisis is the issue of social justice; poor people more commonly lack clean water and sanitation than wealthy people in similar areas. Most surface water in contact with the atmosphere has a small amount of dissolved oxygen, which is needed by aquatic organisms for cellular respiration. In other cases, slow groundwater flow can allow bacteria to decompose dead organic matter and certain pesticides. Pollution is damaging or contaminating our environment due to the human actions or natural disasters. Foundational Knowledge Key information: 1.1 | Understand that water is both available and contaminated through the hydrological cycle. Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation. People in the local fishing villages ate fish up to three times per day for over 30 years, which resulted in over 2,000 deaths. Then, small fish eat the algae, large fish and other organisms higher in the food chain eat the small fish, and so on. Marine (ocean) pollution as a subset of surface water pollution 3. It also included quality objective legislation on fish waters, shellfish waters, bathing waters and groundwaters. Fish and other aquatic organisms absorb methylmercury rapidly but eliminate it slowly from the body. Much of the sediment in water bodies is derived from the erosion of soil, so it also represents a loss of agricultural productivity. Steps at a Sewage Treatment Plant The numerous processing steps at a conventional sewage treatment plant include pretreatment (screening and removal of sand and gravel), primary treatment (settling or floatation to remove organic solids, fat, and grease), secondary treatment (aerobic bacterial decomposition of organic solids), tertiary treatment (bacterial decomposition of nutrients and filtration), disinfection (treatment with chlorine, ozone, ultraviolet light, or bleach), and either discharge to surface waters (usually a local river) or reuse for some other purpose, such as irrigation, habitat preservation, and artificial groundwater recharge. Water pollution is one of the major environmental issues in India. Pathogens enter water primarily from human and animal fecal waste due to inadequate sewage treatment. Pathogens are the major cause of the water pollution crisis discussed at the beginning of this section. An unpolluted water body with respect to oxygen is a turbulent river that flows through a natural forest. In Gallup public polls conducted over the past decade Americans consistently put water pollution and water supply as the top environmental concerns over issues such as air pollution, deforestation, species extinction, and global warming. In underdeveloped countries, raw sewage is dumped into the same water that people drink and bathe in. Source: United States Geological Survey. State the purpose of the fecal coliform test. In-situ treatment methods include adding chemicals to immobilize heavy metals, creating a permeable reaction zone with metallic iron that can destroy organic solvents, or using bioremediation by adding oxygen or nutrients to stimulate growth of microorganisms. The main purpose of a sewage treatment plant is to remove organic matter (oxygen-demanding waste) and kill bacteria; special methods also can be used to remove plant nutrients and other pollutants. Discuss how sewage is related to eutrophication, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and dissolved oxygen. The objectives of this review were to ... and increasing pollutant loads from climate and land use changes into freshwater ecosystems. Another alternative is to use constructed wetlands technology (marshes built to treat contaminated water), which is simpler and cheaper than a conventional sewage treatment plant. Most groundwater contamination occurs in shallow, unconfined aquifers located near the contamination source. Water for Life: Making it Happen (2005) World Health Organization and UNICEF. Total dissolved solids (TDS) represent the total amount of dissolved material in water. Hard water develops naturally from the dissolution of calcium and magnesium carbonate minerals in soil; it does not have negative health effects in people. Arsenic and mercury are discussed in more detail below. In this module, the following topics will be covered: 1) water pollutants and how they degrade water quality, 2) the lack of safe drinking water in some parts of the world , 3) sewage treatment 4) the difficult process to remediate groundwater pollution, and 5) solutions for the crisis involving water pollution. Water softeners remove calcium and magnesium, which allows the water to lather easily and resist scale formation. The numerous processing steps at a conventional sewage treatment plant (see Figure Steps at a Sewage Treatment Plant) include pretreatment (screening and removal of sand and gravel), primary treatment (settling or floatation to remove organic solids, fat, and grease), secondary treatment (aerobic bacterial decomposition of organic solids), tertiary treatment (bacterial decomposition of nutrients and filtration), disinfection (treatment with chlorine, ozone, ultraviolet light, or bleach), and either discharge to surface waters (usually a local river) or reuse for some other purpose, such as irrigation, habitat preservation, and artificial groundwater recharge. The World Health Organization has called it the largest mass poisoning of a population in history. Water pollutants can move through different water reservoirs, as the water carrying them progresses through stages of the water cycle (see Figure Sources of Water Contamination). Arsenic (As) has been famous as an agent of death for many centuries. For example, Solanki et al. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/waterforlife.pdf, World Health Statistics (2010) World Health Organization. This separation of the electrical charge within a water molecule results in hydrogen bonds with other water molecules, mineral surfaces (hydrogen bonding produces the water films on minerals in the unsaturated zone of the subsurface), and dissolved ions (atoms with a negative or positive charge). Similarly, at the international level the World Health Organization has drinking water standards for a variety of contaminants. Source: Stephen Codrington at Wikimedia Commons, Sources of Water Contamination Sources of some water pollutants and movement of pollutants into different water reservoirs of the water cycle. Our Water Pollution lesson plan introduces students to water pollution, with a summary related to overall pollution. Biomagnification An illustrative example of biomagnification of mercury from water through the food chain and into a bird’s egg. As discussed in Module Climate Processes; External and Internal Controls, the most important processes that affect the salinity of natural waters are evaporation, which distills nearly pure water and leaves the dissolved ions in the original water, and chemical weathering, which involves mineral dissolution that adds dissolved ions to water. Aquatic plants require about 15 nutrients for growth, most of which are plentiful in water. After the rain stops, the stored water goes to the sewage treatment plant for processing. Another concern is protecting groundwater quality, which is not yet addressed sufficiently by federal law. Water Pollution Obvious water pollution in the form of floating debris; invisible water pollutants sometimes can be much more harmful than visible ones. Express to the children how the environment cannot survive without clean air, water, and land. Bacteria decompose dead organic matter (chemically represented in a simplified way as CH2O) and remove dissolved oxygen (O2) according to the following reaction: Too much decaying organic matter in water is a pollutant because it removes oxygen from water, which can kill fish, shellfish, and aquatic insects. The largest marine oil spill was the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which began with a natural gas explosion (see Figure Deepwater Horizon Explosion) at an oil well 65 km offshore of Louisiana and flowed for 3 months in 2010, releasing an estimated 200 million gallons of oil. Although natural processes such as volcanic eruptions or evaporation sometimes can cause water pollution, most pollution is derived from human, land-based activities (see Figure Water Pollution). Mass poisoning of a population in history others can be air, water, and Asia are negatively impacted cultural! 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