Water resource challenge

Essay by w1l50ngalCollege, UndergraduateA, December 2008

download word file, 7 pages 5.0

Water covers three fourths of our planet. It's a main component of life for all creatures, and without water life would cease to exist. The main source of water is within the oceans, which houses millions of marine plants and animals. Billions of people living in the world depend on fish as a primary source for protein. Oceans also affect directly the earth's temperature and keep it in balance. Oceans are also considered as one of the primary oxygen sources. Many nations like the Arabian Gulf countries rely on ocean water to produce drinking water because the water table has been depleted. However, there are a lot of dangerous threats to our oceans, one of which is ocean pollution.

There is not necessarily one type of pollution that's worse than other pollution. In fact, society has come to realize the effects that pollution is having on our oceans. In the past it was perceived that the world's oceans had a huge capacity for absorbing our nations waste.

Recently, we have come to realize that our waste, even in small quantities, have huge effects on ocean communities and species.

Some of the pollutants that are affecting the oceans are oil, sewage, garbage, and chemicals. These substances diffuse through large volumes of water, which makes them less concentrated and more dispersed. Marine animals concentrate toxins in their tissues, and over time, the toxins can accumulate and be held in the animal's bodies and eventually kill the animals.

Another big pollutant in the ocean is plastic. Plastics decompose very slowly, so each bit we produce and do not recycle contributes to the enormous quantity of plastics in the trash humans produce daily, some of which makes it out into the environment. Also, the production of plastics involves many noxious and polluting chemicals. Since...