Essay on Effect of Plastics to the Movement of Water Animals

The first way in which water pollution causes the death of water animals is through the use of pesticides and fertilizers (Zhang et al., 2013). Environmental experts posit that chemical runoff from farms is the causal agent of about 400 dead zones in the world. There is significant increase in the number of dead zones because there has been a tremendous increase in the use of fertilizers and pesticides on farms 26 fold over the last 50 years. This has led to serious environmental effects and death of water animals. The process starts with the chemical runoff from farms that get leached into the rivers and streams, groundwater and waterways thereby killing thousands of fish and insects. Moreover, the presence of fertilizers in the contaminants that enter the water bodies also alters the nutrient systems leading to the tremendous growth of algae thereby producing harmful toxins and depleting oxygen in water (Bao et al., 2012). Lack of enough oxygen in water therefore leads to the death of water animals.

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The second cause of death to the water animals is noise pollution. Pollution in water is not physical at all times and this is because there are sound waves from sonar devices, ships and oils rigs that travel at very long distances without interference (Ridoutt & Pfister, 2013). Such cases of noise pollution affect the water animals in various ways as they disrupt their migration; this also affects their communication, reproduction and hunting patterns. Additionally, noise pollution from exploration of oil and gas also causes the same effects on the sea animals among them being reckless diving, chronic stress, mass strandings and the difficulty of finding food. Researchers submit that extreme noise pollution can kill hundreds of dolphins and whales at a single time. The challenge is that such species of sea animals that easily succumb to noise pollution are at the verge of extinction in the modern society (Lescot, Bordenave, Petit & Leccia, 2013). This calls for environmental agencies to step up efforts to contain the many cases of noise and water pollution.

A Dead Whale as a Result of Water Noise Pollution in Water (Abigail, 2014)

The fourth cause of death of water animals is the dumping of wastewater and sewage on daily basis from the cruise ships. It is estimated that cruise ships dump more than 250,000 gallons of waters into the seas and oceans daily (Postel & Richter, 2012). The cause of environmental effects is an impact of the lax laws that allow the ships to operate with minimal environmental regulations. The weak laws governing the operation of ships in the deep seas is the causal agent of the widespread pollution of water in the oceans and seas; this is because the current laws and regulations allow cruise ships to dump untreated sewage among other wastes provided the ships are 3 miles from the shore (Rozell & Reaven, 2012). In this case, the toxic that is mostly dumped into the oceans comprise the medical waste, detergents, bacteria, oils, pathogens, heavy metals among other harmful substances that put aquatic life to a greater risk of survival and extinction.

Death of Fish due to Water Pollution (Michael, 2013)

The final cause of death of water animals is acid rain; this is because acid rain discharges huge amounts of aluminium into the water system (Glibert, 2014). Acid rain forms from the mixing of water in the atmosphere with certain chemicals, especially those that are not used in the burning of fossil fuels. There are various negative effects of acid rain on the aquatic ecosystem that requires the efforts of environmental experts to mitigate. When toxic compounds such as aluminium become discharged into water, it alters the pH leading to the death of various kinds of water organisms (Alabaster & Lloyd, 2013). This increases the dangers to which water organisms are exposed and leads to higher probability of extinction. In order to save the water animals, there should be a collective force to help in eliminating otherwise reducing the cases of water pollution in the modern society. Every individual needs to take initiative of protecting the environment and specifically the water animals that face various threats in their ecosystem.

References

Alabaster, J. S., & Lloyd, R. S. (2013). Water quality criteria for freshwater fish (No. 3117). Elsevier.Bao, L. J., Maruya, K. A., Snyder, S. A., & Zeng, E. Y. (2012). China's water pollution by persistent organic pollutants. Environmental Pollution, 163, 100-108.

Ebenstein, A. (2012). The consequences of industrialization: evidence from water pollution and digestive cancers in China. Review of Economics and Statistics, 94(1), 186-201.

Glibert, P. (2014). Harmful Algal Blooms in Asia: an insidious and escalating water pollution phenomenon with effects on ecological and human health. ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, 21(1).

Lescot, J. M., Bordenave, P., Petit, K., & Leccia, O. (2013). A spatially-distributed cost-effectiveness analysis framework for controlling water pollution. Environmental modelling & software, 41, 107-122.Postel, S., & Richter, B. (2012). Rivers for life: managing water for people and nature. Island Press.Ridoutt, B. G., & Pfister, S. (2013). A new water footprint calculation method integrating consumptive and degradative water use into a single stand-alone weighted indicator. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 18(1), 204-207.

Rozell, D. J., & Reaven, S. J. (2012). Water pollution risk associated with natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale. Risk Analysis, 32(8), 1382-1393.

Stauffer, J. (2013). The water crisis: Constructing solutions to freshwater pollution. Routledge.Zhang, Y., Wu, Y., Yu, H., Dong, Z., & Zhang, B. (2013). Trade-offs in designing water pollution trading policy with multiple objectives: A case study in the Tai Lake Basin, China. Environmental science & policy, 33, 295-307.