Polluting the Hydrosphere

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Polluting the Hydrosphere

• Continued

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Main Types of Water Pollution

• Direct Direct dumping/leaking of
  wastes/chemicals/heated water.
• Indirect
• Air pollution-leading to acid rain
• Farming-fertilizer/pesticide runoff

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Agricultural Runoff

• Farms that grow crop plants use large amounts of
  fertilizers and pesticides in order to increase
  the amount and quality of their plants.

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How It Gets In The Water

• When it rains, these pesticides and fertilizers
  can be washed into waterways or seep into ground
  water.

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What Do They Do?

• Fertilizers contain large amounts of nitrogen and
  phosphorous.
• When too much of these elements get into bodies
  of water it causes something called
  Eutrophication.
• Eutrophication means that aquatic plants (like
  algae) over-grow. They prevent oxygen from
  mixing into water on surface and increase the
  amount of rotting matter on the bottom of the
  lake. This causes increases bacteria and less
  oxygen.
• This can suffocate aquatic animals.

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Eutrophication
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Pesticide Effects

• Pesticides can kill animals that live in the
  water or animals that eat animals that live in
  the water.
• Pesticides tend to build up in an animals system
  over time, poisoning it.
• Besides killing animals, pesticides can cause
  birth defects, reduced birth rate, cancers,
  immune diseases etc.

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How Can We Stop It?

• -Use less fertilizer, pesticides
• -Use slow release fertilizers (do not dissolve as
  fast)
• -crop rotation-give soil a break and plant
  legumes/clover. These naturally return nitrogen
  to the soil.
• -Use natural pesticides-ex. If a type of
  caterpillar is killing your crops, apply a bug
  that eats the caterpillar.

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Direct pollution of water

• Factories that release wastes directly into
  waterways.
• Leakage from landfills/dumping wastes into water.
• Thermal pollution.

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Effects

• Direct dumping of chemicals/waste introduces
  unnatural chemicals into waterways that can kill
  wildlife.
• Thermal pollution prevents natural aquatic life
  that is not adapted to the unnatural higher
  temperatures.