Soil Parts

SOIL POLLUTION (terrestrial pollution)

Soil pollution is defined as the build-up in soils of persistent toxic compounds, chemicals, salts, radioactive materials, or disease causing agents, which have adverse effects on plant growth and animal health.

The wars that hit the earth are probably the immediate cause of soil pollution. Not talking in the sense of how many people died but in that it is through this period that many countries found the necessity to improve their living standards. After the world war two, many countries suffered from food shortage and this facilitated the interaction of fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals. Although KNP [Potassium, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus] fertilizers have not led to soil pollution, the application of trace elements has.

Pesticides such as DDT [dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane] a colorless chemical pesticide, which is a potent nerve poison in insects, was first widely used to combat diseases such as yellow fever and malaria. It was later used to control and/ or eradicate disease carrying and crop eating insects. DDT was later on discovered to cause endangerment of species in the same food chain as the

controlled insects, particularly birds. DDT prevents the shelling of bird eggs and in humans causes health threats.

In yet another famous war of Vietnam in 1970's was introduced another Chemical substance which had a more adverse effect than that of DDT, Dioxin a chemical impurity resulting from the production of the auxin 2, 4,5T. Dioxin is a toxic chemical and was used as a defoliant by the American army. Dioxin was a major constituent of argent orange which was applied on trees which would then fall off revealing enemy camps. After the war it was found that the chemical cause congenital deformalities and mental effects to the children born to the American soldiers and in the area over which it was applied. In minute amount dioxin has the ability to cause cancer, chloracne, miscarriage, and fetal abnormalities.

Glass industries have also been responsible of soil pollution. The glass industry uses Arsenic to eliminate a green color caused by impurities of iron compounds. Because arsenic is a violent poison, yet it is widely used and therefore is a frequent contaminant. James Marsh, supplies a simple method for detecting traces of arsenic so minute that they would escape discovery in ordinary analysis. Arsenic is sometimes added to lead to harden it and is also used in the manufacture of such military poison gases as lewisite and adamsite. Until the introduction of penicillin, arsenic was of great importance in the treatment of syphilis. In other medicinal uses, it has been displaced by sulpha drugs or antibiotics. Lead arsenate, calcium arsenate, and Paris green are used extensively as insecticides. Pollution of land by heavy metals is a result of the mining of ores to extract metals such as tin, silver, nickel, lead, iron, chromium and copper. Most of these metals occur naturally as ions in the soils. Though some metals, such as copper, iron, and zinc, are necessary for plant growth. It is the high concentration if these ions that renders the land unsuitable for plant growth. Soil pollution is widely linked to chemical substances but irrigation. is somehow linked to it as well.

CONTROL

Soil pollution has been slightly controlled by putting regulations on the use of DDT and introduction of alternatives to it. However the task of eliminating completely soil pollution is not easy, third some third world countries still utilize pollutants such as DDT as pesticides. Mining cannot be stopped because we are in constant need for mineral ores for different applications.

WATER POLLUTION!

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DEFINITION:

Water Pollution, contamination of water by foreign matter such as micro-organisms, chemicals, and industrial or other wastes, or sewage. Such matter deteriorates the quality of the water and renders it unfit for its intended uses.

Water is a major constituent of every organism and thus the most important resource to man. The pollution of water makes some rivers and lake unsafe to drink or use. Water shortage could cause devastating effects on human existence. Major water pollutants come from industries rather than domestic use.

In the U.S.A water pollution has reached a higher level than any other parts of the world in fact not a single river in the States of America is safe to drink from!

Our life has now been simplified and as a result made it more leisure. Our improved way of living has introduced systems such as the municipal, industrial and agricultural systems. Though these systems are of advantage and therefore important to us for the continuity of healthy living they have side effects on us too.

Sewage, Infectious agents, Exotic organic chemicals such as pesticides, Inorganic minerals and chemical compounds, are all considered to be major water pollutants. Excess mineral salts from farm lands are washed away by rain water or rivers. These salts cause an artificial enrichment of salt levels in the water, this in turns provide a suitable environment for the growth of microoraganisms particularly the blue algae resulting to what is know as eutrophication . These algae's flourish and cover the water surface, since they are anaerobic. Their existence results to oxygen depletion in the water and a subsequent most of the aquatic plants and animals in such water die off. These dead organisms are then decomposed causing a further decrease in oxygen levels. The process of eutrophication can produce aesthetic problems such as bad tastes and odor and other chemical changes such as precipitation of calcium carbonate in hard waters. .

Sewage and other oxygen demanding wastes contribute to oxygen depletion as well and unsightly green scrums of algae, as well as dense growth of rooted plants, oxygen depletion in the deeper waters

Water pollution

A change in the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological quality of water that is injurious to its existing, intended, or potential uses (for example, boating, waterskiing, swimming, the consumption of fish, and the health of aquatic organisms and ecosystems). The term "water pollution" generally refers to human-induced (anthropogenic) changes to water quality. Thus, the discharge of toxic chemicals from a pipe or the release of livestock waste into a nearby water body is considered pollution. Conversely, nutrients that originate