Determining the Water Quality of a Body of Water Essay

Not only is pollution the cause of the death of many organisms essential to ecological balance, but human drinking water has also been affected.

Over the years Carbon Dioxide has been significantly increasing from human activity. CO2 has a concentration of about 400 ppmv (parts per million volume). Its concentration in the atmosphere was about 280 ppmv before the Industrial Revolution, now it has increased immensely to about 380 ppmv in 2006. Many have said Carbon Dioxide has been the main reason or cause of global warming; saying that if we produce too much of this greenhouse gas it can create a global climate change. Even though carbon dioxide affects the temperature of the atmosphere it also affects the acidity of water specifically in the ocean.

Sediments are the main source of water pollution, contributing to turbidity issues as well as irregular or harmful nitrite/nitrate, phosphorus, and pH levels. This contributes to the death of marine organisms and can also change which organisms can survive in the body of water as its conditions change due to runoff. Anthropogenic runoff is also a contributor of adverse water effects, such as cultural eutrophication from fertilizer runoff, and also results in the death of aquatic animals and shifts in which organisms are more prominent in the ecosystem. This lab will address the effects soil will have on variables concerning water quality. There is also the option of including fish and/or aquatic plants in the water column, which are independent variables as well as the soil. The pH, ammonia levels, nitrite levels, temperature, D.O., and physical attributes are the dependent variables that will be measured during the lab. The qualitative physical tests (turbidity and odor) will portray the physical state and cleanliness of the water, as well as the level of runoff from the soil.

It is surprising how many ways humans use chlorine. One way humans use chlorine is to kill bacteria and germs in pools. It cleanses the pool so when people go swimming, they will not get sick. Chlorine is also used to make paper. Scientists use it to drain all the color to make it white. Chlorine is also used in the water purification process. It kills bacteria in the water system before it enters a house. Chlorine is also found in many common things like, bleach. Bleach makes clothes white to take out at the stains. The salt many people have on their table is composed up of one sodium and one chlorine atom. There are not natural sources of chlorine in its pure element (gas) form. But it is mostly found in the earth's crust along with sodium, potassium, and manganese chlorides. The impacts chlorine has on the environment depends on how long it is the environment and how much of the substance is present. Sometimes chlorine combines to form harmful chemicals that gets into water

It is very important for that water quality is monitored in water supplies and natural aquatic systems

The city of Stockton’s water cleaning company uses “chloramines which are not as chemically active as chlorine” to filter their tap water system (recordnet.com). However, due to the drought and lack of water many of the chloramines compounded together and became toxic. Moving on, Chloramine is a compound made up of very low concentration of chlorine and ammonia. However, large quantity of chloramine can be harmful since the chlorine can compound onto each other, which develops trichloramine (recordnet.com). Trichloramine can cause redness in the eye, irritation of the skin, and if ingested in large quantity, the respiratory system can be damaged. Moving on, the water contamination in Stockton effects all the residents in North Stockton only. Despite that the water contamination is only in North Stockton, the residents are taking precaution to using their tap water due to the unsure effects of ingesting the contaminated

The pollutants affecting water quality is a major issue affecting every community on a global scale. Whether individuals suffer from lack of

The way chlorine kills the bacteria is because chlorine splits into different chemicals like HOCI (Hypochlorous acid) and OCI (Hypochlorite ion). HOCI and OCI both dissolve in water. These two chemicals kills bacteria and they do that by attacking the lipids in the cell. HOCI is able to oxidise (loss of electrons) organisms in seconds and OCI is able to oxidise (loss of electrons) organisms in about 30 minutes. This means that chlorine kills bacteria straight away because of the HOCI but then the OCI kills bacteria later for example people who go into the swimming later. Also chlorine does not harm us humans but maybe you get some dry skin or hair. This is really effective because HOCI and OCI in the chlorine kills bacteria which can make

All around the world, countries are fighting to keep their drinking water clean. Whether it’s streams, rivers, or lakes, countries have taken great measures to maintain high quality drinking water for both human consumption and animal consumption. Countries must first understand the sources of the polltion, then determine the best methods to eliminate the pollution. Clean drinking water is a valuable resource and a the key to human survival. Plants and animals also depend on water for their growth, so all water must be kept clean. The major contributors to water pollution can be classified in three categories, industrial, agricultural and municipal.

The main focus for this report is the disinfection section. During the disinfection process different chlorine products are added to the filtered water to remove harmful microorganisms. When the disinfectant is added “free

Anthropogenic activity has led to greatly increased emissions of greenhouses gases. Increased temperatures, acidification and stratification are all affected by increased carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. These symptoms of climate change have direct and indirect effects on to marine ecosystems, all of which start at the major primary producers of the oceans: phytoplankton.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that we exhale in our daily lives. Plants use carbon dioxide to create oxygen that all mammals use. However, carbon dioxide can also change the chemistry of the ocean, this is often referred to as ocean acidification. The excess carbon dissolves into oxygen in the water, producing a chemical called carbonic acid. This acid causes the ocean to become more acidic. In the eighteenth century, the pH was 8.07 which was slightly basic. Currently, the pH is around 8.01 this is about a twenty-five percent increase in acidity. (National geographic) While this slight change may not seem outrageous, it is causing multiple marine life struggles. The acid melts the shells of pteropods causing a low supply of food that would support larger fish.

Abstract: Plants undergo photosynthesis using a process that involves water (H₂O) reacting with carbon dioxide (CO₂) to produce oxygen gas and a carbohydrate. Global warming has changed the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere and, as a result, affected the rate of photosynthesis that plants undertake. Aquatic plants (Elodea Densa) were used in an experiment to test how the rate of photosynthesis changed as the plants were exposed to different concentration of carbon dioxide. The experiment was performed to question how the amount of carbon present will affect the rate of photosynthesis in an aquatic plant. The experiment was tested by using an aquatic plant and manipulating the concentrations of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) which was also the source of CO₂ in this experiment. The rate of photosynthesis was measured by using the rate of oxygen production. The results confirmed that when the concentration of sodium bicarbonate was either 0.70% or 1%, there was a larger rate of photosynthesis production. The evidence suggests that the concentration of carbon dioxide directly influences the rate of photosynthesis production.

Drinking water quality was not a concern until the last century when the use of chemicals was greatly expanded. Chemicals are used to kill weeds, insects, and other pests. Chemicals are typically sprayed on an area and are designed not to harm the crop, grass, or other plants that you want to remain. This mass application procedure allows much-unutilized chemical to soak into the soil and eventually leach into the

Water pollution affects plants and organisms living in these bodies of water; and, in almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and populations, but also to the natural biological communities.