Water Health

The main sources of water pollution include both inorganic and organic wastes, heat from industries, petroleum compounds, urban wastes, agricultural wastes, pesticides, and acid mine drainage. Among these pollutants mercury, perflouoroalkyls (PFAs e.g. perchlorate), tributyiltin, dioxins and polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) are present.

Water pollution may affect health since many of them are highly lipophilic, and bioaccumulate along the food chain. Moreover, since water is an important raw material in the fresh produce chain, it may contaminate food through irrigation and application of pesticides and fertilizers, but also as a transport medium and for cooling and washing in postharvest practices.

For this reason it is essential to monitor water quality at each step in the food chain.

What we would like you to do

Please share any thoughts that you have about water pollution in the discussion area below.

Remember that at each step you can ‘like’ comments made by other learners that you find interesting, or you can ask your Educators or Mentors if you have any questions.