Impact on Water

We, as humans, have an impact on the world's water everyday, from something as simple as leaving the water running too long, to something as extreme as dumping waste into the ocean. People should know how they are changing the Earth in a bad way, and learn how to change it back to the oasis it was. There are many different ways to destroy the lakes, rivers, and oceans, and I know that I can't cover all of them, but I will try to spread the awareness of the power of human impact, good and bad.

Pollution

Trash is one of the main sources of pollution. Trash from landfills, littering, and debris flowing through water ways dirty the oceans everyday. Marine debris are pieces of manufactured product that ends up in the tides and currents of the oceans and lakes. It hurts the animals who mistake it for food, or get entangled in the nasty trash. Plastics are also a big part of the oceans problems, scientists estimate that it can take up to 600 years for some plastics to decompose in the ocean 16 . The small organisms that consume micro plastics eventually get eaten by larger organisms, and larger organism, and larger organisms, until the food we eat have micro plastics inside 1.

Chemical is the other main source of pollution. Fertilizer and discharge from water treatment runoff into our oceans. Runoff is chemicals that flow through the ground, rivers, and lakes that then ends up in the oceans. Runoff is considered non-point pollutants, which is many sources of pollution. An oil spill in the ocean is thought as a point source pollutant, which is only one source 2.

The solution of pollution in the ocean is really simple. There are two things that can bring the ocean back from this problem, prevention and clean up 2. Preventing pollution means reusing silicone and glass, and recycling what plastic and paper we use. Cleaning up is pretty self explanatory, cleaning the beaches and water of all of the trash will help save the oceans.


Overfishing

Overfishing is yet another man made problem that is causing the disappearance of beautiful species of fish. Every year one trillion fish are slaughtered for human food, now think about how much of that goes to waste. Overfishing is removing a species of fish from the water at a rate that the species cannot replenish what has been lost. This destructive fishing is dangerous and quite illegal17, and yet we still find it a problem. Just imagine how many fish are lost because of this, fish of glorious colors, shapes, sizes, and all having an important role in the waters. We cannot afford to lose these beauties.

There are both physiological and psychological effects on fish. Fishing increases the amount of stress in the fish, and results in bodily injuries from embedded fish hooks, which can also result in death. 17

Nets scanning the ocean floor often catch the wrong marine life. Every year there are 250,000+ Loggerhead and Leatherback turtles get killed from bycatch (wrong sea life caught in a net along with the desired fish). 100 million+ sharks and 300,000+ small whales and dolphins also are killed each year from bycatch. All of this is directly caused by overfishing. 17

Bottom trawling causes a another big problem to the oceans. Bottom trawling is dragging weighted nets across the sea floor to catch a large amount of fish at once. This method of fishing destroys deep sea corals. These corals are not only home to fish, starfish, crabs, sea urchins, brittle stars, mollusks, sponges, and worms but are also vital stops for migratory species like whales.17

"About 25% of the ocean's fish depend on healthy coral reefs" (NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).17

It is not easy to stop overfishing since most of it is caused from commercial businesses, but there are a few ways to help. Catching fish only to throw them back into the water is not helpful and causes the physiological and psychological problems previously discussed18. Spreading the world will also change people's views of overfishing. If you can physically stop commercial overfishing that would be amazing, but I know that is not a common privilege.

Top photo from: https://wallpapersafari.com/beautiful-ocean-scenes-wallpaper/