Essay Example on Water is a Vital Substance

Subcategory:

Category:

Words:

450

Pages:

2

Views:

1229
Water is a precious commodity that once available almost free of cost hence water is a vital substance and of great importance in all natural and anthropogenic activities It regenerates seas rivers lakes and forests, therefore, it is becoming part of the identity of environments and landscapes and of paramount importance for the development of ecosystems and human life Jayalakshmi et al 2017 Most of the earth water is seawater The world consists of a major portion about 71 of water but fresh water contributes to only a minor fraction of 2 5 Availability of fresh water the nature's gift controls the major part of the world economy However more than 60 billion m3 a year of freshwater is needed for a person cope with the annual global population growth of 80 million people In Asia alone urban populations can be expected to double in the year 2000 2030 Martine 2007 About 2 5 of the water is fresh water that does not contain significant levels of dissolved minerals or salt and two third of that is frozen in ice caps and glaciers Only 0 01 of the total water of the planet are accessible for consumption Fresh water is a finite resource essential for use in agriculture industry propagation of wildlife fisheries and for human existence Water recycling provides a great opportunity to conserve one of our natural resources that is essential for the survival of mankind

Water is of fundamental importance for life on earth The synthesis and structure of cell constituents and transport of nutrients into the cells as well as body metabolism depend on water contaminants present in water disturbs the spontaneity of the mechanism and result in long or short term diseases Sharma and Bhattacharya 2017 Contaminated water and poor treatment are linked to transmission of various diseases such as diarrhea typhoid dysentery cholera hepatitis A etc Unsuitable managed water and sanitation services expose individuals to preventable health risks Globally 15 or more of patients developed an infection during a hospital stay for a long time with the proportion much greater in low economic countries Diarrhea is the most widely known disease linked to contaminated food and water but there are other hazards Almost 240 million people are affected by schistosomiasis an acute and chronic parasitic disease caused by Schistoma WHO 2017 Contaminants are man made by products of industry and agriculture including heavy metals like mercury Hg copper Cu chromium Cr lead Pb and hazardous chemicals dyes and compounds like insecticides and fertilizers Sharma and Bhattacharya 2017 In India the majority population still lives in villages and small towns These rural tribal communities do not have access to public water supplies This population obtains their water supply from unprotected sources such as open dug wells or small Streams and ponds which are polluted The treatment of water in these areas has a unique problem Therefore there is an urgent need for development and widespread promotion of simple treatment techniques in rural tribal areas The most water polluting sources are the city sewage and industrial waste discharged into the rivers The facilities to treat wastewater are not adequate in any city of the India Discharged wastewater possesses color biochemical oxygen demand BOD chemical oxygen demand COD pH temperature turbidity and toxic chemicals etc

The direct discharge of this wastewater into the water bodies like lakes rivers etc pollutes the water and affects the flora and fauna therefore responsible for destroying the beauty of the lakes and rivers The wastewater produced from different kinds of industries normally contains very fine suspended solids dissolved solids inorganic and organic particles metals and other impurities Due to very small size of the particles and the presence of surface charge the task to bring these particles closer to make heavier mass for settling and filtration becomes challenging Bratby 2006 Hence removal of these colloidal particles from the wastewater becomes a serious challenge for the industries Divakaran et al 2001 Nasser and James 2006 Various traditional and advanced techniques are utilized to remove pollutants from wastewater such as ion exchange membrane filtration solvent extraction adsorption and coagulation flocculation methods etc Radoiu et al 2004 Among those methods coagulation flocculation is one of the most widely used for liquid solid separation for the removal of suspended and dissolved solids DS colloids and organic matter present in wastewater Renault et al 2009 The modern use of coagulants for water treatment used more than 100 years ago when ferric chloride FeCl 3 and aluminum sulfate alum were used as coagulants in full scale water treatment works The coagulation mechanism was firstly explained by the Schultz Hardy rule and the Smoluchowski s particle collision function which form the theoretic basis of coagulant demand and changes in particle number in the flocculation process Jiang 2015 It is an easy and effective method for removal of pollutant form wastewater and it has been extensively used for the treatment of various types of wastewater such as pulp and paper industry palm oil mill effluent textile wastewater sanitary landfill leachates automobile effluent Ahmad et al 2005 The coagulant selection is difficult at first sight since different coagulants show many similar results Thus a decision has to be made according to different criteria and not only evaluating the pollutant removal efficiency Flocculation is a physical and chemical process hence it is used for the removal of the small sediments and material from water which makes it a colloidal solution It can be done through agitation or by flocculating agents

Write and Proofread Your Essay
With Noplag Writing Assistance App

Plagiarism Checker

Spell Checker

Virtual Writing Assistant

Grammar Checker

Citation Assistance

Smart Online Editor

Start Writing Now

Start Writing like a PRO

Start