Water Pollution

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the definitions, sources, types, and biological impacts of water pollution based on the lecture notes.

Water pollution

The contamination of water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans, and groundwater, often by human activities, involving changes in physical, chemical, and biological properties with detrimental consequences on living things.

Point source

Sources that discharge water pollutants directly into the water from specific locations, such as factories, power plants, oil wells, and underground coal mines.

Non-Point source

Pollution sources that do not have a specific location for discharging pollutants, including run-offs from agricultural fields, gardens, construction sites, and streets.

Nutrients Pollution

Contamination caused by high levels of nutrients in wastewater, fertilizers, and sewage that encourage algae and weed growth, leading to oxygen starvation for aquatic organisms.

Surface water pollution

The contamination of natural water found on the earth's surface, like rivers, lakes, lagoons, and oceans, through contact with hazardous substances that dissolve or mix with the water.

Oxygen Depleting

A process where excess biodegradable matter encourages microorganism growth that uses up oxygen, leading to the death of aerobic organisms and the growth of anaerobic organisms that produce toxins like ammonia and sulfides.

Ground water pollution

Pollution occurring when pesticides and chemicals applied to soil are washed deep into the ground by rain water, reaching underground water tables and wells.

Suspended Matter (Particulate matter)

Substances, particles, and chemicals that do not easily dissolve in water and may eventually settle at the bottom of water bodies, harming aquatic life on the floor.

Chemical Water Pollution

Contamination from industrial metals, solvents, and agricultural chemicals used to control weeds, insects, and pests that can be poisonous or cause infertility in aquatic life.

Oil Spillage

Pollution that can spread for miles, causing death to fish and sticking to the feathers of seabirds, which leads to a loss of their ability to fly.

Eutrophication

The enrichment of water with nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates that triggers the fast growth of green algae (algal bloom), which depletes dissolved oxygen upon decomposition.

Biomagnification

The entry of harmful non-biodegradable chemicals into a food chain at small concentrations and their accumulation in greater concentrations at each successive trophic level.

DDT

A non-biodegradable pesticide used for crop protection that can cause adverse effects like weak egg shells in birds as it concentrates through the food chain from $0.2\,ppm$ to as high as $1700\,ppm$ in top consumers.

Toxic Pollutants

Substances consisting of heavy metals, pesticides, and xenobiotic pollutants; while some metals like $Mn$, $Zn$, and $Cu$ are important in trace quantities, others cause severe toxicological effects.

Anaerobic organisms

Microorganisms that grow in the absence of oxygen and produce harmful toxins such as ammonia and sulfides once oxygen is depleted in a water body.