Tag: geography

Organic and inorganic industrial wastes and effluents discharged into rivers and water bodies causes water pollution.

• Though industrial development in India caused enormous improvement in India’s economy, it also proved disastrous to the environment.
  
• Industries cause air pollution due to the smoke released from factories.
  
• They also cause water pollution due to the draining of industrial wastes into water bodies causing problems to marine and human life.
  
• Industries create high decibel noises paving a way to noise pollution creating anxiety, hypertension especially among old people and patients.
  

• Environmental pollution is caused by many factors one of the main reason is indiscriminate use of resources.  For example excess use of forest products results in deforestation thereby increasing pollution.
  
• Production of hydroelectricity, canal irrigation and plantation agriculture do not cause pollution.
  

Ozone is a protective blanket that is present in stratosphere which protects earth from harmful effects of UV radiations that are present in sun light.

Chlorofluorocarbons and other halogenated compounds cause ozone depletion.

Chlorofluorocarbons are anthropogenic and are released from air-conditioning, refrigeration, blowing agents in foams, insulation and packing materials, propellants in aerosol cans, and as solvents.

The presence of high coliform counts in water indicate contamination by human wastes.

Coliform bacteria or Escherichia coli is a bacteria that is present in human intestine. It is a useful bacteria. When people discharge fecal matter near water bodies these microorganisms enter water.

Water contamination test is done by counting the number of coliform- bacteria E. coli colonies per 100 mL of water. The test is known as coliform microbial density. The water quality standards are that drinking water should not have any colonies, bathing and swimming pool water can have about 200 colonies, and recreational (fishing and boating) water about 1000 colonies

Atmosphere consists of many different  gases like nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide etc. Of all these gases nitrogen constitutes the major portion. Earth has 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide and other gases in minute proportion.

Trapping of sun’s heat in the lower atmosphere due to the presence of gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane is called greenhouse effect.

Sun’s radiation is partly absorbed by earth and rest of the radiations are reflected back to the atmosphere which are escaped. But the greenhouse gases form blanket in the atmosphere and trap the radiation from escaping. This causes an increase in earth’s temperature resulting in Global warming.

Secondary treatment is a waste water management technique which uses physical phase separation and a biological process.

Physical phase separation removes suspended solids. Biological process is employed to remove organic matter. 

Example: Bacteria and protozoa consume biodegradable soluble organic contaminants

Living organisms that respond to the change in environment are called bioindicators. Lichens are useful bioindicators for air and water pollution specially for sulphur dioxide pollution. They are also useful in the detection of toxic elemental pollutants and radioactive metals.

Noise pollution is a physical form of pollution that affects the receiver directly. dB (decibel) is a standard abbreviation used for the quantitative expression of noise. Noise or pollutant sound has a value of 80 dB and above, it harms hearing system. The WHO has fixed 45 dB as the safe noise level for a city.