Ground water pollution
Written by admin on October 11th, 2008 in Ground water pollution.
Ground water pollution
Ground water pollution is one of the serious problems which the mankind faces today. Though the availability of under ground water is inadequate, its pollution due to human activities such as contamination, over extraction, discharge of industrial wastes etc makes the situation worse. The Ground water pollution caused by human activities usually classified into two categories namely point-source pollution and nonpoint-source pollution. The pollution of Point-source refers to the contamination occurring from a single tank, disposal etc. The discharges of industrial wastes, leakage of storage tanks of gasoline, and the discharges or the embankments are other such examples of the point sources pollution. Chemicals used in agriculture such as manures, pesticides, and weed killers are examples of pollution of nonpoint-source because they are wide through broad sectors.
Since substances of nonpoint-source are employed above great sectors, they collectively can have a greater impact on the general quality of water in an aquifer than to direct the sources, in particular when these chemicals are employed in the sectors which cover the aquifers which are vulnerable to pollution. If the impacts from specific pollution sources such as the septic field drain system which occurs over the great sectors, they often are collectively treated as nonpoint source of pollution. Many factories deliberately inject the untreated effluents directly in to the ground, polluting the underground aquifers.
The sea water is denser than fresh water. The fresh water which “floats” above deeper sea water in a kind of balance gets affected because of disturbed pumping. The change in pressure due to pumping also causes coning where the sea water starts to mix with the fresh water table. Water becomes brackish, affecting a vast area. Drinking Water market which depends entirely on ground water is a profitable business which extends from the private suppliers selling water, the water tankers and the large companies producing bottled waters. This surplus extraction quickly exhausts the water tables as well as the quality of water gets deteriorated in majority of the cities.
Not all the ground water problems are caused by the excess extraction of water. The pollutants discharged on the ground can affect the quality of ground water. The movement of water and dispersion with the aquifer spreads the pollutant over a broader sector, which will mix with the ground water wells or again finds their way in surface water, making the water supplies unsafe. The mingling of the ground water contamination with surface water is examined by means of the hydrology transport models.
The stratigraphy of the sector plays an important part in the transport of these pollutants. A sector can have layers of sandy soil, of broken bed rock, clay, or hardpan. The states of water table are of great importance for the provision of drinking water, irrigation for agriculture, waste disposal, and other ecological problems. The ground water contamination occurs when the synthetic products such as the gasoline, oil, road salts and the chemicals enter ground waters and make them unfit for drinking. Some of the principal sources of these products, called the contaminants, are embankments, septic systems, storage tanks, dangerous waste sites, and the widespread use of salts and chemicals of road.
The storage tanks can contain the chemicals, oils, gasoline, or other types of the liquids and they can be located above or below the ground. The septic systems can be another serious source of contamination. The septic systems are for the houses, the offices or other buildings which are not connected to a sewage system of city. Septic systems are conceived in such a way that human wastes are drained to the underground at a slow and inoffensive rate. A septic system incorrectly conceived, placed, built, or maintained can flee of the bacteria, viruses, household chemicals, and other contaminants in ground waters posing of the serious problems. The widespread use of road salts and chemicals is another source of potential ground water contamination. Landfills are the places where our garbage are dumped or buried. Landfills are supposed to have a protective sub-base to prevent contaminants from entering the water table.