Water: the basis for lifeWater: the basis for life

Chiara Gozzi.

Università degli studi di Milano, Scienze Umane dell'ambiente, del Territorio e del Paesaggio.

Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.

Liberal Sciences of Land, Landscape and the Environment.University of Milan.

Water's molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms

They are connected by covalent bonds (chemical bonding characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms).

Water co-exists on Earth in is:

SOLID STATE

LIQUID STATE

GASEOUS STATE

Water covers 70.9% of the Earth's surface

the 97% of it it's saline water

only 3% is considered

suitable for human

consumption.

Water on Earth moves continually through a cycle of evapotranspiration, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea.

Clean drinking water is essential to humans and other

lifeforms.

Numerous human activities act upon water's chemical properties

we call this kind of affection:

WATER POLLUTIONWATER POLLUTION

Water bodiesWater bodies

Oceans,lakes, river and Oceans,lakes, river and groundwatergroundwater

Can be contaminated by...Can be contaminated by...

SEWAGE AND SEWAGE AND WASTEWATERWASTEWATER

a major problem in developing countries as many people in these areas don’t have access to sanitary conditions and clean water.

In developed countries, sewage often causes problems when people flush chemical and

pharmaceutical substances.

Wastewater often contains faeces, urine and laundry waste

and can contaminate the environment; causingdiseases such as diarrhoea.

Sewage carries harmful viruses and bacteria into the environment causing health problems.

Contaminated waste water pours into a public canal in Thailand from a industrial treatment plant.

MARINE DUMPINGMARINE DUMPING

Litter items such as ring packaging can get caught in marine animals and may result in death. Different items take different lengths of time to

degrade in water.

Industrial Industrial WaterWater

Industry produces pollutants that are extremely harmful to people and the environment.

Many industrial facilities use freshwater to carry away waste from the plant and into rivers, lakes and oceans.

NUCLEAR WASTENUCLEAR WASTE

produced from industrial, medical and scientific

processes that use radioactive material.

Nuclear waste can have detrimental effects on marine habitats.

OIL POLLUTIONOIL POLLUTION

from oil spills

routine shipping

run-offs and dumping

They cause a very localized problem that can be catastrophic to local marine wildlife.

Oil forms a thick sludge in the water. This suffocates fish, gets caught in the feathers of marine birds stopping them from flying and blocks light from photosynthetic aquatic plants.

Marine life off the coast of Louisiana has been devastated by

the BP oil spill

Underground Underground storage leakagesstorage leakages

tanks with, at least, 10% of its volume underground, they often store substances such as petroleum

ATMOSPHERIC ATMOSPHERIC DEPOSITIONDEPOSITION

caused by air pollution.

In the atmosphere, water particles mix with carbon dioxide sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, this forms a weak acid.

When it rains the water is polluted with these gases, this is called acid rain.It pollutes marine habitats and aquatic life is harmed.

ACID RAIN EFFECTSacid rain harm buildings, it damages trees and kills aquatic life and other organisms.

Wind and rain have always had an effect on buildings, but the main cause of deterioration is pollutionpollution

Acid rain has dissolved part of this artwork (statue located in Westphalia, Germany)

Photos from 1908 and 1968

GLOBAL WARMINGGLOBAL WARMING

The process where the average global temperature increases due to the greenhouse effect.

An increase in water temperature can result in the death of the acquatic wildlife.

a rise in water temperatures causes coral bleaching of reefs

that's when the coral expels the microorganisms of which it is dependent on.

Photograph of a bleaching hard coral (goniopora sp)Pohnpei, Micronesia. Photo taken by J Hoogesteger.

EUTROPHICATIONEUTROPHICATION

Phytoplankton grows and reproduce more rapidly, resulting

in algal blooms.

the environment becomes over-enriched with nutrients

Algal blooms disrupts normal ecosystem functioning: algae use up all the oxygen in the water, they also block sunlight from photosynthetic marine plants under the water surface; some algae even produce toxins that are harmful to higher forms of life

Thank you for your kind attention to this

matter.Please feel free to

contact me for further informations.

Following: Sustainable Water Management