Groundwater Pollution In The United States

When you think of problems in the world today, water pollution isn’t one that would normally come up. In fact it is one of the worst problems in the world today. Water pollution, by definition, is the contamination of streams, lakes, underground water, bays, or oceans by any substances harmful to living things. All living things contain water and most need water to survive, so water pollution is a big problem. If severe, the pollution can kill off birds, fish, and any animals that use the water source. In some cases even killing an entire species.

The almost total development of California was made possible only because of two main water sources: surface water, or water that gathers on the ground, such as rivers and streams; and the groundwater, which is pumped out from the ground. The area also ignites interest on producing a small amount of desalinated water, which is still too expensive to be widely applied.

Since I live in the Texoma area the majority of our drinking water comes from Lake Texoma. I think the three sources of groundwater contamination that might affect groundwater in my area would be human-made materials that are littered into the lake, agricultural activities, and human/animal wastes. There are a lot of people in the area who like to go fishing near the lake and drinking alcoholic beverages. These people throw their beer cans and all of their trash into the lake. They also urinate and defecate into the lake as well. There are many nearby farms and ranches to the lake and with all of the flooding water has run-off from these areas back into the lake.

There are two sources of drinking water, surface water and ground water and they are each managed, monitored and regulated differently even though the actual water systems are interrelated and integrated. The state of Missouri has historically had plenty of high-quality fresh water sources; in the northern half of the state most of the drinking water comes from surface water while the majority of the southern population gets water from underground aquifers (Missouri Department of Natural Resources, 2010). The Missouri River and its alluvium wells provide more than half of the state’s residents with drinking water as most of the urban centers in the state are located along its course. Water from wells located adjacent to the Missouri River

If one decision could save the water we need to thrive and survive would you do it? According to Financial Times , “ ...At least 1,300 people have lost their water in and around Porterville…”(California ).The state should pass down a legislation limiting the amount of water taken from the ground.

The American consumer market is twenty nine per cent of world market aside from the basic essentials we need to sustain life. We need to breathe, eat and drink water but we consume a large amount of other resources and services that eventually contaminate the soil we live on. There are so many new inventions and with everyone trying to have the next best thing that allows us to pollute more and waste more into the soil. In this paper I will focus on: What is soil contamination, the type of toxins found in soil contaminated areas and solutions on how to lower the chances of soil contamination.

Throughout this field study there are many concerns that revolve around superfund and landfill sites that can cause disruption within our water systems and its negative impact on air quality. In the article “Policy Implementation and the Environmental Protection Agency: What Factors Influence Remediation at Superfund Sites?” by Dorothy M. and David F. Layton, they stated, “The impact of contaminant mixtures on human health remains largely unknown; however, substances commonly found at Superfund sites have been linked to a variety of human health problems, such as birth defects, infertility, cancer, and changes in neurobehavioral functions (Hall, Price-Green, Dhara, & Kaye, 1995; Johnson, 1995; and Johnson & DeRosa, 1997).”(Pg. 375) This shows

Water pollution and pollution in general is a problem that people don’t like to deal with. Water pollution can cause so much damage to people and to the animals that live in that body of water. The laws that we have are doing what they need to but we need to monitor the water more closely because if we don’t catch the pollution when it happens it could have a disastrous impact on the environment. It could kill all of the plant and animal life that lives in the water. Some of the pollutions that occur are very hard to clean up and the Eco-system may never fully recover. To clean something up it takes a lot of hours and a lot of man power to get this mess taken care of. Water pollution could be the cause of some animals being endangered.

Groundwater pollution occurs when pollutants get into the water under the ground.You should not drink if it is polluted. Animals should also not consume it. Some of the pollution comes from the air. A lot of the pollutants comes from chemicals and nuclear waste

From a geological perspective, our future water supply is limited since the human influences on the issue is making it harder and harder for us to get fresh drinking water. Fresh water, or drinking water, can be found at the surface of various landscapes. It can also be found below the surface of the earth in creviced rocks, saturated zones of groundwater, and underground caverns, or wells. We often take water for granted since many view it as an ever renewable resource.

Groundwater contamination may not seem important to our society, but one may not realize that ground water is the basis for our livelihood. The health of our natural environment which is relying on this groundwater. When water quality is corrupted with contaminates and deluded that is very bad. It can be very costly to correct and could be harmful for living beings that are in contact with that type of water.

Groundwater pollution is a prominent problem in most areas of the world. High nitrate concentrations have been identified as one of the main culprits of groundwater pollution. Agriculture is a primary anthropogenic source involved in the spreading and distribution of nitrates in rural areas. China is considered one of the largest in terms of agricultural production. As the population of China increased over time, the recycling of plant nutrients could no longer renew the loss of nutrients from harvesting. The famine between 1960 and 1970 caused radical changes when it came to policies about population control and large efforts were made to increase agricultural yields. This was encouraged by increasing the application rate of chemical fertilizers, especially ones that were nitrogen based (Emteryd, Lu and Nykyist, 1998). However, higher irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer inputs results in decreased water and nitrogen use efficiency (Hu, Li, and Chen, 2010). Currently China is the leading producer of rice, wheat onion cabbage and the second largest producer of corn (See Appendix). Presently the average annual nitrogen fertilizer application is 200 kg N/ha in China (Zhang, Xu, XIaomin, Dong and Ballantine, 2013). As a result of this, China unsurprisingly suffers from large amounts of nitrate pollution in its groundwater, especially in northern China. The main focus of this paper will therefore be on the North China Plain and the provinces surrounding the Yangtze River as

Firstly, Goal #6 on the United Nations list is Clean Water and Sanitation which directly states that, “unsafe management of fecal waste and wastewater continues to present a major risk to public health” (Sustainability Goal #6 Target). This is imbedded in the article, as it is speaking to the health implications of contaminated water and the larger question, of what and how is our water is getting like this. Additionally, the other aspect that is worth looking at is Sustainability Goal #3, Good Health and Well-Being, and in this case how it relates to groundwater. Healthy living and well-being for all ages, is the main statement for this goal and health is discussed many times in this article, the poor health affects it may have as well preventative measures for us to stay healthy. More on the health aspects of water contamination and another Sustainable Development Goal will

Groundwater samples were collected and reported by Sultan et al. (2011) from Sinai for isotopic analyses of H and O from open and productive wells tapping three types of aquifers: (1) fractured basement, (2) Nubian Sandstone unconfined aquifer cropping out at the foothills of the basement outcrops, and (3) alluvial. They believed that the unconfined and alluvial aquifers fed by a fractured basement aquifer through discharging into the overlying sediments. The δD and δ18O isotopic compositions of the groundwater samples from the unconfined Nubian Sandstone aquifers in the recharge areas cropping out at the foothills of the basement outcrops are somewhat depleted (δD: -22.7 to -32.8‰; δ18O: -4.47 to -5.22‰) compared to those from fractured basement outcrops (δD: -19.9 to -23.2‰; δ18O: -3.77 to -5.05‰) and those from alluvial aquifers (δD: -22.7 to -23.4‰; δ18O: -4.53 to -5.01‰), but they are less depleted than those reported from the Gulf of Suez (Sturchio et al., 1996). The isotopic compositions of the samples from the fractured basement and alluvial aquifers are similar to those of average modern precipitation from Al Arish and Rafah (Fig. 3). The unconfined aquifer shows a mixing between fossil waters of the Western Desert, formed in pluvial period, and modern precipitation deposited in dry and warm climatic conditions (Sultan et al., 1997, 2011).

Water quality for different usages depends on type and concentration of dissolved materials in it. So, while a sample is deemed appropriate for drinking usage it may not be employed for other usages in industry or agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has published the water quality guidelines for agriculture. The agriculture sector consumes about 94 percent of total annual water in Iran as the biggest stakeholder (Alizadeh and Keshavarz, 2005). Given the effects of irrigation water on soil and crops, monitoring and assessment of groundwater quality are very important. Therefore, groundwater quality assessment is one of the most important environmental issues across the world for decision makers.