Water Pollution: Global Hotspots And Their Impact

Water pollution is a pressing issue worldwide, with a recent study revealing that certain regions are more susceptible to water pollution due to poor waste management. While water accessibility is improving globally, billions of people still lack access to clean drinking water, and water-related diseases are taking their toll on communities. The interplay between waste management and aquatic pollution is critical to understand, as it underpins the primary function of waste management systems: protecting human health and the environment. The crisis is fuelled by the skyrocketing amount of waste generated by modern societies, with land-based waste, including plastic waste, being a primary source of marine litter.

Poor waste management

The agricultural sector is a major contributor to water pollution, with farming and livestock production accounting for about 70% of global freshwater consumption. Fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste from farms wash nutrients and pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, into waterways. Nutrient pollution, caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus, is the leading threat to water quality and can lead to harmful algal blooms.

Inadequate wastewater treatment further exacerbates the problem. According to the United Nations, over 80% of global wastewater is released back into the environment without proper treatment, with the figure exceeding 95% in some underdeveloped nations. Aging and overwhelmed sewage systems can also lead to the release of untreated wastewater, contributing to water pollution.

The interplay between waste management practices and aquatic pollution underlines the urgency of implementing improved waste management systems. This includes establishing standardized frameworks to monitor waste generation, composition, and flows, as well as reducing consumption and promoting reuse practices. By addressing these issues, we can protect human health and the environment from the detrimental effects of water pollution caused by poor waste management.

Water stress

According to the World Resources Institute, 25 countries, housing a quarter of the world's population, face extremely high water stress. These countries regularly use up almost their entire water supply, and at least 50% of the world's population, approximately 4 billion people, experience high water stress for at least one month each year. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the most vulnerable to physical water stress, with 83% of its population exposed to extremely high water stress. This is due to low rainfall and rapidly growing, densely populated urban centres. By 2050, the entire MENA population is projected to experience extremely high water stress.

Several countries are facing critical water stress, including Jordan, where major cities like Amman have limited access to running water, and Libya, where access to water has been weaponized during conflicts. The five most water-stressed countries are Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Oman. These countries are characterized by low supply and high demand for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use.

In sub-Saharan Africa, over half of the population lacks safely managed drinking water, and countries like Niger, the largest in West Africa, struggle with water shortages and frequent droughts. East African countries like Eritrea have made significant progress in providing access to clean water and sanitation, but water-related diseases remain a concern, especially for children and mothers. Rapid population growth and urbanization are also straining water systems in countries like Mozambique.

To address water stress, countries need to implement more sustainable and innovative practices, improve water governance, and enhance international cooperation on water management. Without intervention, water stress will continue to intensify, jeopardizing people's lives, livelihoods, and global goals.

Water treatment facilities

However, the sheer volume of water processed by the industry poses challenges. The contaminated water discharged untreated into waterways has detrimental effects on both human health and ecosystems. This untreated wastewater contributes to the creation of noxious algal blooms, known as eutrophication, which drastically reduce oxygen levels, suffocating plants and animals and forming "dead zones."

To address this issue, several countries have implemented successful strategies to treat and reuse wastewater. For example, Singapore has limited water resources but carefully monitors its water quality, ensuring that tap water meets the country's regulations. Similarly, Las Vegas, despite its water scarcity, employs techniques like grass removal, desalination, and wastewater treatment and reuse to thrive under challenging conditions.

While water treatment facilities play a crucial role in combating water pollution, the challenge lies in ensuring that treated water is safely returned to natural ecosystems without causing further contamination. This requires proper treatment, efficient management, and responsible discharge practices to protect both human health and the environment.

Agriculture

Farming and livestock management are the most significant contributors to water pollution within the agricultural sector. The use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in farming, coupled with the waste from livestock, washes chemicals, bacteria, and viruses into nearby waterways. The waste from livestock farming is now a more significant source of organic pollution than that of urban areas. The use of antibiotics, vaccines, and hormonal growth promoters on farms has also led to a new class of pollutants that travel through water into ecosystems and drinking water sources.

Monocropping, a farming method that focuses on mass-producing a single cash crop, suppresses nutrient regeneration in the soil, creating the need for synthetic fertilizers. The lack of biodiversity in a monocropped area also increases the need for pesticides, fungicides, and antibiotics, which eventually make their way into freshwater sources.

In the US, agriculture is the top source of pollution in rivers and streams and a strong contributing factor to the pollution of wetlands and lakes. It is the second-largest source of pollution in wetlands and the third in lakes. In the European Union, 38% of water bodies are under pressure from agricultural pollution. In China, agriculture is responsible for a large share of surface-water pollution and is almost exclusively responsible for groundwater pollution by nitrogen.

Water pollution from agriculture poses a serious risk to human health and the planet's ecosystems. High levels of nitrates in water can cause "blue baby syndrome", a potentially fatal illness in infants. In OECD countries, the environmental and social costs of water pollution caused by agriculture are estimated to exceed billions of dollars annually.

Industrial waste

One notable incident of industrial water pollution occurred in 1978 at Love Canal in New York state, where toxic waste bubbled up into a residential area, causing a national outcry over the dangers of industrial contamination. This led to the creation of the Superfund program, which helps pay for cleanup when the polluting companies are unable or unwilling to admit fault or afford the cleanup process.

Another example of industrial waste polluting water sources is the Hanford nuclear weapons production site in Washington. The decommissioning of this site required the disposal of 56 million gallons of radioactive waste, a process expected to cost over $100 billion and take until 2060 to complete. By 1998, around a third of the underground tanks storing radioactive waste at Hanford had leaked into the surrounding soil and groundwater, with further leaks reported in 2013 and 2017.

In Europe, industrial releases of pollutants damaging to human health and the environment declined overall between 2010 and 2022. However, data gaps make it challenging to fully assess the impact of industry on water pollution in the region. Heavy metals, nutrients, and organic matter released by industrial activities have detrimental effects on both the environment and human health. While wastewater treatment plants aim to reduce pollution, they are not always completely effective, and the remaining pollution they release into water ecosystems needs to be addressed.

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