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To ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Target: 6.3, by 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, having the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe use globally. The main reason most countries don’t have access to clean and safe water is because of water pollution. Water pollution is a huge global issue due to it having large negative ecological and human consequences. It has enormous health impacts which can usually lead to death of a human or animal. My SDG goal and target tries to eliminate the pollution in the water, for which to happen we also need to eliminate the pollution in the atmosphere, and provide easy access to safe water.
Uganda, being a country with a drastically high population of approximately 42 million residents, has stressed the water and sanitation services. 61 percent of Ugandans lack access to safe water and 75 percent of Ugandans don’t have improved sanitation facilities.Why is this issue occurring here?
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Uganda, being a small and poor country, face many environmental problems. The three most important being deforestation, land degradation and water pollution. Land degradation and water pollution are a result of the least important problem which is deforestation. Deforestation causes land degradation, which then causes water pollution. If there are no trees to protect and hold the soil in place, when the rain comes, the soil washes away with the rain into the rivers or lakes, which pollutes the water and makes it unsafe to use or drink.
Impact #1
Heavy metals, industrial waste, organic matter, microbial pollutants, sulfate particles and suspended particles are all types of pollutants that are usually found in the water and harm marine life very intensely. Usually it results in the death or reduction of marine species in large numbers which mess up food chains outside and inside of the marine life. Animal species are not only dying, but some which are alive, have to deal with abnormal growth and growth of diseases in their bodies. This will also mess up the marine food chain because if an individual eats another individual with a disease/pollutant in it, it now has those cells in itself and it can bioaccumulate which is very harmful because most of the pollutants are not biodegradable and stay there forever.
Impact #2
Acid rain is a type of pollutant that is formed when compound like sulfur and nitrogen oxide are released into the atmosphere. These compound are released due to our own mistakes but we do not produce the acid rain which makes it a part of physical geography. Acid rain is a major pollutant in the water, it contains of the particles, sulfur and nitric acid. These acids can damage leaves, bark and
Why is this issue occurring here?
Uganda, being a small and poor country, face many environmental problems. The three most important being deforestation, land degradation and water pollution. Land degradation and water pollution are a result of the least important problem which is deforestation. Deforestation causes land degradation, which then causes water pollution. If there are no trees to protect and hold the soil in place, when the rain comes, the soil washes away with the rain into the rivers or lakes, which pollutes the water and makes it unsafe to use or drink.
Impact #1
Heavy metals, industrial waste, organic matter, microbial pollutants, sulfate particles and suspended particles are all types of pollutants that are usually found in the water and harm marine life very intensely. Usually it results in the death or reduction of marine species in large numbers which mess up food chains outside and inside of the marine life. Animal species are not only dying, but some which are alive, have to deal with abnormal growth and growth of diseases in their bodies. This will also mess up the marine food chain because if an individual eats another individual with a disease/pollutant in it, it now has those cells in itself and it can bioaccumulate which is very harmful because most of the pollutants are not biodegradable and stay there forever.
Impact #2:
Acid rain is a type of pollutant that is formed when compound like sulfur and nitrogen oxide are released into the atmosphere. These compound are released due to our own mistakes but we do not produce the acid rain which makes it a part of physical geography. Acid rain is a major pollutant in the water, it contains of the particles, sulfur and nitric acid. These acids can damage leaves, bark and fine root hairs of most plants. Plants need fine root hairs to absorb water and in order to survive plants need to be able to absorb water.
Water pollution disturbs the process of photosynthesis for plants as well. Photosynthesis is the process in which plants, using the energy of the sun, convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen. However, when the water is polluted, the amount of water that is able to dissolve in gases such as carbon dioxide is affected negatively. Plants that grow in or around water, depend on the process of photosynthesis to survive and any interference in photosynthesis can kill them. Water pollution also affects the quality of the soil.
When the water in the ground is polluted, the important nutrients, such as iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium ions, that the plants need get washed away. Without these nutrients, droughts, fungal infections and insects become more relevant. Water pollution also leaves large amounts of aluminum in the soil, which is very harmful to the plants. Plants are a very important source of food for a lot of animals and if they are not healthy, or even there, herbivores would not have any food to eat, which would mess up the food chain.
Overall, I feel like Water pollution and not having clean water to drink, has a lot of negative impacts on the food chain.
Impact #1
According to a study (The Lancet, 2015), water pollution had caused 1.8 million deaths in 2015. When the water is contaminated, it causes severe illnesses as well, every year approximately 1 billion people are examined to be ill due to contaminated water. Contaminated water spreads diseases such as cholera, giardia, and typhoid.
Low income communities are usually the most at risk of having contaminated water in their taps because they often live close to the polluted industries. Even in wealthy communities, accidental or illegal release of pollutants causes contaminated water in the water pathways. Every year 3.5 million US citizens report to have health issues such as skin rashes, pink eye, respiratory infections and and hepatitis. Once chemicals and heavy metals such as aluminum and mercury are ingested, it can cause cancer or hormone disruption. Children and pregnant women are most at risk.
Impact #2
Us humans have a lot to contribute to when it come to the reason for how or why our water get polluted. Our lifestyle in general is a big reason. The amount of pollution we add to the atmosphere on a daily basis is drastically high, which we do by driving cars, heating houses, cooling houses, using electricity and etc. This pollution only brings acid rain into the water, as I explained earlier. Farms, factories and industries all throw their chemical and toxic waste into the ocean, as they produce so much every day, they don’t have space on land store that waste.
Local effects
Water pollution is a problem that has a lot of effects, all of them being negative. At a local level, it mostly affects humans and animals. Uganda being a small country with large size rivers, one of them being the world’s largest Nile river, would have a lot of polluted water. The chemicals and toxic materials bioaccumulate in the marine animals. A lot of poor Ugandan residents rely on rivers for food and for water. If they eat those marine animals or drink that water, slowly and slowly those chemicals will bioaccumulate in us as well which can slowly lead to death.
National effects
Increase in pollutants means increase in water treatment costs. As there is more water that is polluted, you will need more water treatment plants. A water treatment plant costs up to 1.5 million dollars. In 2016, Canada had around 12 000 wastewater treatment plants, which costs around 20 billion dollars. On top of that there are maintenance costs as well. If a country like Uganda is known to have polluted water that carry diseases, there will be a loss of tourists, which loses the government a lot of money.
The tourism industry loses approximately 1 billion dollars mostly through fishing and boating activities. There are also real estate losses when the water is mostly polluted. The value of homes that are nearby clean water or get clean water in their taps, goes up by almost 25 percent. Homes that are near bodies of water that are polluted get a huge decline in their value, which messes everything up.
Global effects
As we know, pollution in general is killing our planet day by day. It is causing problems such as global warming. Global warming is warming our planet and it is rising sea levels.
