Human pollution is called... Types of environmental pollution

1. ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION.................................................... .4

1.1. Air pollution........................................................ ........................... 4

1.2. Soil pollution........................................................ ................................... 8

1.3. Water pollution........................................................ .................................... 10

2. THE SCALE OF THE IMPACT OF NATURAL POLLUTION ON THE ENVIRONMENT ....................................................... .......... 14

CONCLUSION................................................. ............................................... 16

LIST OF REFERENCES.................................................................... 18

APPLICATION................................................. ............................................... 19

INTRODUCTION

In my work I will consider the topic “Main types of environmental pollution.”

Environmental pollution has a history almost as long as the history of humanity itself. For a long time primitive man was not much different from other species of animals and, in an ecological sense, was in balance with the environment. Moreover, the human population was small.

Over time, as a result of the development of the biological organization of people and their mental abilities, the human race stood out from other species: the first species of living beings arose, the impact of which on all living things represents a potential threat to the balance in nature.

It can be considered that “human intervention in natural processes during this time has increased by at least 5000 times, if this intervention can be assessed at all.”

At all stages of his development, man was closely connected with the world around him. But since the emergence of a highly industrialized society, dangerous human intervention in nature has sharply intensified, the scope of this intervention has expanded, it began to express various manifestations and now threatens to become a global danger to humanity. Man has to increasingly intervene in the economy of the biosphere - that part of our planet in which life exists. The Earth's biosphere is currently subject to increasing anthropogenic impact.

Due to the importance of the question posed, the author of this work will try, after analyzing the current environmental situation in the world, to consider the main types of natural pollution, their impact and the scale of impact on the environment, as well as possible ways to solve the problem under consideration.

1. ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Environmental pollution should be understood as “a change in the properties of the environment (chemical, mechanical, physical, biological and related information) occurring as a result of natural or artificial processes and leading to a deterioration in the functions of the environment in relation to any biological or technological object.” Using various elements of the environment in his activities, a person changes its quality. Often these changes are expressed in an unfavorable form of pollution.

Environmental pollution is the entry into it of harmful substances that can harm human health, inorganic nature, flora and fauna, or become an obstacle to certain human activities. Of course, pollution caused by human activity (they are called anthropogenic) must be distinguished from natural pollution. Usually, when talking about pollution, they mean anthropogenic pollution and evaluate it by comparing the power of natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution.

Because of large quantities With the waste of human activity entering the environment, the environment's ability to self-purify is at its limit. A significant part of this waste is alien to the natural environment: it is either toxic to microorganisms that destroy complex organic substances and transforms them into simple inorganic compounds, or they are not destroyed at all and therefore accumulate in various parts of the environment. Even those substances that are familiar to the environment, entering it in too large quantities, can change its qualities and affect ecological systems.

Human influence on nature is felt almost everywhere. Appendix 1 shows a list of the main biosphere pollutants according to UNESCO. Next, we will consider in more detail natural pollution that has an extremely negative impact on the biosphere.

1.1. Air pollution

There are two main sources of air pollution: natural and anthropogenic.

Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms, weathering, forest fires, and decomposition processes of plants and animals.

Anthropogenic, mainly divided into three main sources of air pollution: industry, domestic boiler houses, transport. The contribution of each of these sources to total air pollution varies greatly depending on location.

It is now generally accepted that industrial production produces the most air pollution. Sources of pollution are thermal power plants, which, along with smoke, emit sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the air; metallurgical enterprises, especially non-ferrous metallurgy, which emit nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, fluorine, ammonia, phosphorus compounds, particles and compounds of mercury and arsenic into the air; chemical and cement plants. Harmful gases enter the air as a result of burning fuel for industrial needs, heating homes, operating transport, burning and processing household and industrial waste.

According to scientists (1990), every year in the world as a result of human activity, 25.5 billion tons of carbon oxides, 190 million tons of sulfur oxides, 65 million tons of nitrogen oxides, 1.4 million tons of nitrogen oxides enter the atmosphere. chlorofluorocarbons (freons), organic lead compounds, hydrocarbons, including carcinogenic ones (causing cancer).

The most common air pollutants enter the atmosphere mainly in two forms: either in the form of suspended particles (aerosols) or in the form of gases. By weight, the lion's share - 80-90 percent - of all emissions into the atmosphere due to human activities are gaseous emissions. There are 3 main sources of gaseous pollution: combustion of combustible materials, industrial production processes and natural sources.

Let's consider the main harmful impurities of anthropogenic origin.

Carbon monoxide. It is produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous substances. It enters the air as a result of the combustion of solid waste, exhaust gases and emissions from industrial enterprises. Every year, at least 1250 million tons of this gas enter the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is a compound that actively reacts with components of the atmosphere and contributes to an increase in temperature on the planet and the creation of a greenhouse effect.

Sulfur dioxide. It is released during the combustion of sulfur-containing fuel or the processing of sulfur ores (up to 170 million tons per year). Some sulfur compounds are released during the combustion of organic residues in mining dumps. US only total quantity sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere amounted to 65% of global emissions.

Sulfuric anhydride. Formed by the oxidation of sulfur dioxide. The final product of the reaction is an aerosol or solution of sulfuric acid in rainwater, which acidifies the soil and aggravates diseases of the human respiratory tract. The fallout of sulfuric acid aerosol from smoke flares of chemical plants is observed under low cloudiness and high air humidity. Leaf blades of plants growing at a distance of less than 11 km. from such enterprises are usually densely dotted with small necrotic spots formed in places where drops of sulfuric acid settled. Pyrometallurgical enterprises of non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy, as well as thermal power plants, annually emit tens of millions of tons of sulfuric anhydride into the atmosphere.

Hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide. They enter the atmosphere separately or together with other sulfur compounds. The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing artificial fiber, sugar, coke plants, oil refineries, and oil fields. In the atmosphere, when interacting with other pollutants, they undergo slow oxidation to sulfuric anhydride.

Nitrogen oxides. The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing nitrogen fertilizers, nitric acid and nitrates, aniline dyes, nitro compounds, viscose silk, and celluloid. The amount of nitrogen oxides entering the atmosphere is 20 million tons per year.

Fluorine compounds. Sources of pollution are enterprises producing aluminum, enamels, glass, ceramics, steel, and phosphate fertilizers. Fluorine-containing substances enter the atmosphere in the form of gaseous compounds - hydrogen fluoride or sodium and calcium fluoride dust. The compounds are characterized by a toxic effect. Fluorine derivatives are strong insecticides.

Chlorine compounds. They enter the atmosphere from chemical plants producing hydrochloric acid, chlorine-containing pesticides, organic dyes, hydrolytic alcohol, bleach, and soda. In the atmosphere they are found as impurities of chlorine molecules and hydrochloric acid vapors. The toxicity of chlorine is determined by the type of compounds and their concentration. In the metallurgical industry, when smelting cast iron and processing it into steel, various heavy metals and toxic gases are released into the atmosphere. So, per 1 ton of pig iron, 12.7 kg is released. sulfur dioxide and 14.5 kg of dust particles, which determine the amount of compounds of arsenic, phosphorus, antimony, lead, mercury vapor and rare metals, resin substances and hydrogen cyanide.

In addition to gaseous pollutants, large amounts of particulate matter are released into the atmosphere. This is dust, soot and soot. Pollution of the natural environment with heavy metals poses a great danger. Lead, cadmium, mercury, copper, nickel, zinc, chromium, and vanadium have become almost constant components of the air in industrial centers.

At all stages of development, man was closely connected with nature. But with the emergence and formation of industrial society, it is increasingly a problem modern world becomes environmental pollution.

The types of pollution are quite diverse in their impact and are characterized by the danger of spreading in the air, as well as in the water element and through the soil.

Natural causes

There are two types of sources of harmful emissions into the atmosphere - natural and anthropogenic. These are precisely its main types. the diagram of which is given below is an important problem that needs to be solved.

The first type has nothing to do with human activity and occurs according to certain laws of nature. It should be noted that this type of pollution took place long before humanity appeared, so the environment copes well with such “waste”.

This is due to the fact that natural disasters (storms, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, decomposition of dead animals and plants). Natural pollution can be considered as biological pollution of the environment. Types of pollution of this kind include, first of all, waste products of nature itself as a whole.

Natural pollution can be illustrated by the following examples:

Death Valley. At the foot of the Kikhpinych volcano (Kamchatka) there is a valley filled with volcanic hydrogen sulfide gases. In the absence of wind above ground level, gas accumulates, and all animals and birds that enter this area die. Scientists studying Death Valley not only study this phenomenon, but also clear the area of corpses. This is necessary to prevent scavengers from coming into the valley, which can harm not only living animals, but also spread infection from dead animals. Thus, this type of pollution has quite clear signs that similar types of environmental pollution have.

- "Red Tide". A brown coating forms on the surface of the seas, strongly reminiscent of blood. This occurs due to the proliferation of a certain type of algae, which is very toxic in nature. Toxic substances get through the food chain into the inhabitants of the sea, causing the latter to die.

There are known cases where crews of ships sailing in such areas received severe poisoning after eating fish or shellfish caught in “poisonous” places. Scientists associate the appearance of toxic algae with large amounts of chemical emissions into the ocean waters.

Anthropogenic sources

The saturation of nature with harmful substances by humans deserve special attention, since they are not limited to decomposition or fires caused by people. The classification of types of environmental pollution in this case may be as follows:

Fallout;

Inorganic water pollution;

Organic;

Thermal types;

Soil pollution;

Saturation with pesticides;

- (as a result of the relationship with the water cycle in nature).

All of the above methods are types of anthropogenic environmental pollution, that is, the result of human activity.

Aerosol emissions

Due to the functioning of humanity, there is a mass of impurities in the atmosphere that can be called man-made dust. It is expressed in the form of fog, haze or ordinary smoke. As a result of the combustion of certain substances in production, toxic fumes and carcinogenic compounds are released into the environment.

The main sources of man-made dust are metallurgical plants, oil refineries, soot plants and others that use heat treatment of raw materials. Also, the main types of environmental pollution by aerosol include the release of dust and toxic substances in the mining industry.

When forming artificial embankments (dumps) from overburden rocks during mining, huge amount processing results. Harmful particles are released into the environment during blasting operations.

For example, an explosion of average power releases up to 2 thousand cubic meters of carbon monoxide and about 150 tons of dust. During the technological processes of processing semi-finished products for cement production, mass is also released into the air chemicals and technological dust.

Types of environmental pollution from transport can also be called aerosol. As a result of combustion of a substance (gasoline or diesel fuel) gases are released: carbon oxides, hydrocarbons and nitrogen. The duration of these mixtures being in the atmosphere before their natural decomposition ranges from several hours to several years.

Photochemical fog

Smog is formed by combining harmful chemical emissions into the atmosphere with solar radiation energy. As a result, a photochemical reaction of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and other harmful substances occurs.

Fog, thus, represents a category of saturation with harmful substances that contains types of chemical pollution of the environment.

The chain reaction of nitrogen dioxide converting into nitric oxide and atomic oxygen should result in ozone (a compound of molecular and atomic oxygen). The oxidation reaction of nitrogen with this compound should produce molecular oxygen and, as a result, nitrogen dioxide. However, when ozone occurs, it immediately reacts with exhaust gases in the atmosphere, resulting in the formation of a certain number of combined oxygen atoms and molecules.

This compound, reacting with impurities in the air, forms oxidants and free radicals, which are characteristic of smog. The compounds with which the air is literally saturated have an extremely negative effect on the circulatory and respiratory systems of residents, as a result of which a person can die.

Fallout

This type of pollution is the most dangerous for humanity and for all living things in the world. Precipitation that contains radioactive particles consists of atmospheric moisture and dust.

The heaviest particles of radioactive elements settle immediately on the surface of the earth, while lighter ones tend to linger in the atmosphere and be transported over fairly long distances.

Due to this, radionucleotides contained in the air fall to the ground in the form of rain, snow or fog.

When such precipitation gets on human skin, radioactive atoms penetrate into the body, gradually destroying it from the inside.

Inorganic types

Types of environmental pollution are also represented by inorganic “methods”.

In connection with the development of industry, waste that is generated during the activities of factories and enterprises for the procurement and processing of timber, during work in mines, in mines, as well as as a result of the use of transport, enters the water.

For example, wastewater that then ends up in water bodies contains large amounts of synthetic detergent residues. These elements, when entering the water treatment system, are not removed and are returned to the water supply.

Types of chemical environmental pollution include, in this case, pollution of wastewater with compounds of elements such as cadmium, arsenic, lead, mercury and other equally dangerous substances.

These compounds are absorbed by low-level inhabitants of water bodies and transmitted along the food chain to highly organized organisms.

Chemical contaminants tend to change the pH of water to a state where the inhabitants of the aquatic environment cannot live and reproduce in such water.

However, many invertebrate organisms inhabiting water element, are capable of accumulating radioactive elements and poisons. That is why they serve as an indicator of what main types of environmental pollution caused the pollution of the reservoir.

Despite the fact that water has the property of self-purification, due to the ingress of a large number of chemical compounds into it, the organisms that provide purification die. Accordingly, additional methods are required to separate harmful particles from water, but, unfortunately, this is not enough.

Organic "garbage"

Types of pollution in the human environment include their organic nature. These include oil, consisting mainly of saturated hydrocarbons.

If there is water on the surface, the inhabitants of the seas, as well as animals and plants of the coastal zone, die.

This is due to the fact that oil, falling on fish or waterfowl, envelops them in a thin black-brown film, and therefore the natural streamlining of the surface of the birds' plumage (or fish scales) is disrupted.

Long before people learned to extract this natural resource, oil also reached the surface of the water. However, in the seas and oceans there are microscopic bacteria that can process “black gold” by feeding on it. Gradually, the stain disappears from the surface, and the bacteria become food for highly organized creatures.

The difficulty today in the natural destruction of spills is the huge amount of oil that spills out during tanker crashes or accidents on platforms. Bacteria do not have time to process it, and the flammable substance can flow into other bodies of water, spreading throughout the World Ocean.

Thermal type

Releases of temperature-unstable wastewater into rivers and lakes by power plants - this example illustrates such a category as types of energy pollution of the environment.

At first glance, a slight increase in water temperature should not harm the ecosystem as a whole. However, the amount of such runoff and the constant change and instability of liquid temperature in reservoirs leads to an artificial limitation of water exchange between the surface and the bottom.

Since the circulation necessary for the rational functioning of phytoplankton and algae is disrupted, the species constancy of the water structure changes.

Soil pollution

The Earth's soil is the most important component of the biosphere. This shell accumulates not only organic substances, but also energy. The existence of soil as an element of the biosphere is one of the important links in its functioning. Therefore, the problems of pollution of the earth's surface with chemicals (organic and inorganic), as well as special types of substances (pesticides), require special attention from scientists.

Pesticide pollution

Since special pesticides for treating plants are produced and used by humans, it can be said that soil contamination with these elements can illustrate the types of environment.

Despite the fact that this group chemicals is an important element in agriculture for large-scale cultivation plant products nutrition, such poisons pose a huge danger to the soil.

Pesticides tend to accumulate in the body into which they enter and, like radioactive elements, destroy human health from the inside, and also lead to the death of many microorganisms. Disruption of the natural course of the evolutionary process occurs, among other reasons, also due to the fact that environmental pollution is observed.

Types of pollution, which include saturation with pesticides, cause an imbalance and, as a consequence, natural selection. Chemicals penetrate the human body through the food chain and are found not only in the internal organs of adults, but also in newborns. This means that pesticides accumulated during life can be transmitted vertically from mother to child.

Today, chemicals are being developed and tested that, after use, having had the necessary effect, independently decompose into safe elements. In this case, it is important to observe the order of the chemical reaction, excluding the presence of catalysts that could disrupt the natural course of the decomposition of harmful substances into elementary ones.

Acid rain

As a result of human functioning, large amounts of oxides of chemical elements are released into the atmosphere, which causes environmental pollution. Types of pollution can be roughly defined as domestic and industrial.

When combustible materials intended for domestic and industrial needs are burned, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur, carbon and hydrogen sulfide are released. When interacting with moisture contained in the atmosphere, these mixtures degenerate into acids, which then fall out as precipitation.

If there is a threat of such anomalies, it is necessary to be extremely careful, since the effect of acid on people, even in small concentrations, causes a chemical burn. If exposed to acid rain, a person can not only lose part of his hair or ruin his headdress, but also get a burn to his face or entire body.

When acid falls out, it harms not only people, but also the soil, that is, it causes environmental pollution. Types of pollution that are associated with the peculiarities of water circulation in nature cause oversaturation of the earth with these compounds. The soil is no longer able to retain beneficial natural properties. If vegetation appears on such soil and is then eaten, it can harm human health.

In addition, acidic rainwater, penetrating deep into the soil, ends up in groundwater. They are the ones who spread chemical compounds over long distances, which can further harm even those areas that are located quite far from the area where acid precipitation occurred.

Noise pollution

A person cannot live in absolute silence, just as he cannot live with fairly loud sounds. This imbalance changes intracranial pressure and can lead to disruption of the entire body.

In connection with these features of human essence, one can distinguish the environment, which cannot be seen.

The noise produced by numerous factories, equipment, trains, cars has an extremely negative effect on residents of large cities or people who are forced to be close to such “noisy” achievements of mankind.

Exposure to such sounds disrupts the natural functioning of internal organs, blood vessels, etc., which in the worst case can lead to premature aging and death.

Ways to fight

The types of sources of environmental pollution are quite diverse. However, it can be noted that they are all related to human activity. Some sources directly pollute the atmosphere, soil or water with toxic substances, while others only disrupt the natural course of events in nature. At the same time, quite often the system weakens, important food and other chains are broken, and mutations occur.

Genetically modified organisms are individuals that are fully adapted to survive in conditions of severe environmental pollution. With each attack by pesticides, the cells changed so much that they could (already in future generations) resist the destructive effects of the most powerful substances.

But we should not forget that our Earth is not adapted to absorb the “conveniences” of civilization, therefore, today, development is underway not of new chemically hazardous substances, but of their neutralizers.

The newest preparations or cultures of microorganisms are designed not only not to cause harm, but also to facilitate the rapid decomposition into safe elements of the substances that are planned to be used.

Sakhalin buckwheat

The natural properties of plants and organisms are identified and used in the fight for a clean planet. For example, Sakhalin buckwheat has an excellent property - it can germinate and bloom in soil that is saturated with heavy metals.

According to the results of numerous experiments, such plants can “take” up to 1 kg of cadmium, 24 kg of lead and 322 kg of zinc from the soil in just 1 year. And an experiment at one of the military training grounds where chemical weapons were tested showed that 2 years after planting buckwheat in the ground, the soil was completely clean.

"LENINGRAD STATE UNIVERSITY

named after A.S. PUSHKIN"

On the topic:

on ecology

Completed by: Lazareva D.A.

Student of group No. 116

Specialty: State Medical University

Saint Petersburg

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..…..3 pp.

Types of environmental pollution……………………………………4 – 8 pp.

Conclusion………………………………………………………….….... 9 p.

List of used literature……………………………………………………10 pages.

Introduction

Environmental pollution is an undesirable change in its properties, which leads or may lead to harmful effects on humans or natural systems. The most well-known type of pollution is chemical (the release of harmful substances and compounds into the environment), but such types of pollution as radioactive, thermal (uncontrolled release of heat into the environment can lead to global changes in the natural climate), and noise pose no less potential threat. Environmental pollution is mainly associated with human economic activity (anthropogenic environmental pollution), but pollution may occur as a result of natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteorite falls and others. All shells of the Earth are subject to pollution.

The lithosphere (as well as the soil cover) becomes polluted as a result of the influx of heavy metal compounds, fertilizers, and pesticides into it. Up to 12 billion tons of waste from large cities alone are removed annually. Mining developments lead to the destruction of natural soil cover over vast areas.
The hydrosphere is polluted by wastewater from industrial enterprises (especially chemical and metallurgical enterprises), runoff from fields and livestock farms, and domestic wastewater from cities. Oil pollution is especially dangerous - up to 15 million tons of oil and oil products enter the waters of the World Ocean every year.
The atmosphere is polluted mainly as a result of the annual burning of huge amounts of mineral fuel and emissions from the metallurgical and chemical industries. The main pollutants are carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and radioactive compounds.

Due to the large amount of human waste entering the environment, the environment's ability to cleanse itself is at its limit. A significant part of this waste is alien to the natural environment: they are either toxic to microorganisms: they destroy complex organic substances and transform them into simple inorganic compounds, or they are not destroyed at all and therefore accumulate in various parts of the environment. Even those substances that are familiar to the environment, entering it in too large quantities, can change its qualities and affect ecological systems.

Types of environmental pollution

Sources of biosphere pollution are usually divided into natural and industrial. Natural sources of pollution are caused by natural processes (volcanic eruptions, soil dust, etc.); such sources, as a rule, are localized and are not decisive for the biosphere as a whole. Industrial sources of biosphere pollution can have a long-term destructive effect. These sources are divided into material (substances), including mechanical, chemical and biological pollution, and energy (physical).

The direct objects of pollution are the main habitats of the biotic community: atmosphere, water, soil. The victims of pollution are the components of the biocenosis: plants, animals, microorganisms. Any pollution, as a rule, is not always felt immediately and is often of a hidden nature, and it may not necessarily be a direct release of harmful substances into the natural environment. For example, such a “harmless process as the removal of water from reservoirs for various economic needs leads to a change in the natural temperature regime (thermal pollution), which affects a whole series interrelated processes characterizing a given ecological system, up to its complete destruction (for example, the Aral Sea disaster). Dangerous if you change anything ecological system is the appearance of substances that are not characteristic of it.

Air pollution

Man has been polluting the atmosphere for thousands of years, but the consequences of the use of fire, which he used throughout this period, were insignificant. I had to put up with the fact that the smoke interfered with breathing and that the soot lay as a black cover on the ceiling and walls of the home. The resulting heat was more important to humans than clean air and smoke-free cave walls. This initial air pollution was not a problem, since people then lived in small groups, occupying an immeasurably vast, untouched natural environment. And even a significant concentration of people in a relatively small area, as was the case in classical antiquity, was not yet accompanied by serious consequences. This was the case until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Only over the last hundred years has the development of industry “given” us such production processes, the consequences of which at first people could not yet imagine. Millionaire cities have emerged whose growth cannot be stopped. All this is the result of great inventions and conquests of man. There are basically three main sources of air pollution: industry, domestic boilers, and transport. The contribution of each of these sources to total air pollution varies greatly from place to place. It is now generally accepted that industrial production produces the most air pollution. Sources of pollution are thermal power plants, which, along with smoke, emit sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the air; metallurgical enterprises, especially non-ferrous metallurgy, which emit nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, fluorine, ammonia, phosphorus compounds, particles and compounds of mercury and arsenic into the air; chemical and cement plants. Harmful gases enter the air as a result of burning fuel for industrial needs, heating homes, operating transport, burning and processing household and industrial waste.

Atmospheric pollutants are divided into primary, which enter directly into the atmosphere, and secondary, which are the result of the transformation of the latter. Thus, sulfur dioxide gas entering the atmosphere is oxidized to sulfuric anhydride, which reacts with water vapor and forms droplets of sulfuric acid. When sulfuric anhydride reacts with ammonia, ammonium sulfate crystals are formed. Similarly, as a result of chemical, photochemical, physicochemical reactions between pollutants and atmospheric components, other secondary characteristics are formed. The main sources of pyrogenic pollution on the planet are thermal power plants, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, and boiler plants, which consume more than 70% of the annually produced solid and liquid fuel.

Soil pollution

The soil cover of the Earth is essential component biosphere of the Earth. It is the soil shell that determines many of the processes occurring in the biosphere. The most important importance of soils is the accumulation of organic matter, various chemical elements, and energy. Soil cover functions as a biological absorber, destroyer and neutralizer of various pollutants. If this link of the biosphere is destroyed, then the existing functioning of the biosphere will be irreversibly disrupted. That is why it is extremely important to study the global biochemical significance of the soil cover, its current state and changes due to anthropogenic activities.

Under normal natural conditions, all processes occurring in the soil are in balance. But often people are to blame for disturbing the equilibrium state of the soil. As a result of development economic activity human contamination occurs, changes in the composition of the soil and even its destruction. Currently, there is less than one hectare of arable land for every inhabitant of our planet. And these small areas continue to shrink due to inept human economic activities.

Huge areas of fertile land are destroyed during mining operations and during the construction of enterprises and cities. Destruction of forests and natural grass cover, repeated plowing of the land without following the rules of agricultural technology leads to soil erosion - destruction and washing away of the fertile layer by water and wind. Erosion has now become a worldwide evil. It is estimated that over the last century alone, 2 billion hectares of fertile land for active agricultural use have been lost on the planet as a result of water and wind erosion.

The most dangerous soil pollutants include mercury and its compounds. Mercury enters the environment with pesticides and industrial waste containing metallic mercury and its various compounds.

Soil contamination with lead is even more widespread and dangerous. It is known that when one ton of lead is smelted, up to 25 kg of lead is released into the environment with waste. Lead compounds are used as additives in gasoline, so motor vehicles are a serious source of lead pollution. Lead is especially high in soils along major highways.

Radioactive elements can enter the soil and accumulate in it as a result of precipitation from atomic explosions or when removing liquid and solid waste from industrial enterprises, nuclear power plants or research institutions related to the study and use of atomic energy. Radioactive substances from soils enter plants, then into the bodies of animals and humans, and accumulate in them.

Modern agriculture, which widely uses fertilizers and various chemicals to control pests, weeds and plant diseases, has a significant impact on the chemical composition of soils. Currently, the amount of substances involved in the cycle during agricultural activities is approximately the same as in the process industrial production. At the same time, the production and use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture increases every year. Their inept and uncontrolled use leads to disruption of the cycle of substances in the biosphere.

Particularly dangerous are persistent organic compounds used as pesticides. They accumulate in soil, water, and bottom sediments of reservoirs. But the most important thing is that they are included in ecological food chains, pass from soil and water to plants, then to animals, and ultimately enter the human body with food.

Water pollution

In most cases, freshwater pollution remains invisible because the pollutants are dissolved in the water. But there are exceptions: foaming detergents, as well as oil products floating on the surface and raw sewage. There are several natural pollutants. Aluminum compounds found in the ground enter the fresh water system as a result of chemical reactions. Floods wash out magnesium compounds from the soil of meadows, which cause enormous damage to fish stocks. However, the amount of natural pollutants is negligible compared to those produced by humans. Every year, thousands of chemicals with unpredictable effects enter waterways, many of which are new chemical compounds. Increased concentrations of toxic heavy metals (such as cadmium, mercury, lead, chromium), pesticides, nitrates and phosphates, petroleum products, and surfactants can be found in water.

As is known, up to 12 million tons of oil enter the seas and oceans every year. Acid rain also makes a certain contribution to the increase in the concentration of heavy metals in water. They are able to dissolve minerals in the soil, which leads to an increase in the content of heavy metal ions in the water. Nuclear power plants release radioactive waste into the natural water cycle. Discharge of untreated wastewater into water sources leads to microbiological contamination of water. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of diseases in the world are caused by poor quality and unsanitary water. In rural areas, the problem of water quality is especially acute - about 90% of all rural residents in the world constantly use contaminated water for drinking and bathing.

Solid and liquid pollutants move from the soil into water supplies as a result of the so-called. leaching. Small amounts of waste dumped on the ground are dissolved by rain and flow into groundwater and then into local streams and rivers. Liquid waste reaches sources faster fresh water. Crop spray solutions either lose their potency upon contact with the soil, end up in local rivers, or leach into the ground and seep into groundwater. Up to 80% of such solutions are wasted, as they end up not on the sprayed object, but in the soil.

The time required for contaminants (nitrates or phosphates) to penetrate from soil into groundwater is not known exactly, but in many cases the process can take tens of thousands of years. Pollutants entering the environment from industrial enterprises are called industrial effluents and emissions.

Groundwater pollution is becoming increasingly important. By using modern technologies people are increasingly using groundwater, depleting and polluting it. Around the cities, private construction of housing and small enterprises with autonomous water supply is rapidly developing. For example, in the Moscow region, from 50 to 200 wells of varying depths are drilled daily. For various reasons (for example, ignorance), the vast majority of wells are operated without following the rules for using such water sources. This leads to rapid local contamination of groundwater in this region.

Contamination can be indicated by signs such as dead fish, but there are more sophisticated methods for detecting it. Freshwater pollution is measured in terms of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) - that is, how much oxygen the pollutant absorbs from the water. This indicator allows you to assess the degree of oxygen starvation of aquatic organisms.

Conclusion

As a result of growing environmental pollution, many environmental problems arise, both locally and regional levels(in large industrial areas and urban agglomerations), and globally (global warming, reduction of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, depletion of natural resources). The main ways to solve environmental problems can be not only the construction of various treatment plants and devices, but also the introduction of new low-waste technologies, repurposing production, moving them to a new location in order to reduce the “concentration” of pressure on nature.

IN lately More and more often in the press, on radio, and television, environmental issues are becoming one of the main topics. The general public, aware of the critical state of the environment, must take active action. “Greenization” of the legislative and executive powers is now especially important, since the primary task is to make environmentally friendly production profitable and, conversely, any neglect of environmental standards economically unprofitable. Without this, calls to ordinary citizens to protect nature will look demagogic and are unlikely to achieve their goal. At the same time, the broadest educational work among citizens of all ages is also necessary.

List of used literature

2. Demina T. A. Ecology, environmental management, environmental protection:

A manual for high school students of general education institutions. – M.: Aspect Press, 1998.

3. Kormilitsyn V.I. Fundamentals of ecology - M.: INTERSTYLE, 1997.

4. Snakin V.V. Ecology and nature conservation: Dictionary-reference book. - M.: AKADEMIA, 2000

The most common type of negative human impact on the biosphere is pollution, which is associated in one way or another with the most acute environmental situations. Pollution call the entry into the natural environment of any solid, liquid, gaseous substances, microorganisms, energy (in the form sound waves, radiation) in quantities harmful to human health, animals, the condition of plants and other forms of life.

polluter- this is a substance, physical factor, biological species found in the environment in quantities beyond the limits of their natural content in nature. In other words, a pollutant is everything that is present in the environment in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong quantity.

Any substance or factor can become a pollutant under certain circumstances. For example, sodium cations are necessary for the body to maintain electrolytic balance, conduct nerve impulses, and activate digestive enzymes. However, in large quantities, sodium salts are poisonous; Thus, 250 g of table salt is a lethal dose for humans.

Consequences of pollution of any type can become:

– disruption of life support systems at the local, regional, global levels: climate change, reduction in the natural rate of circulation of substances and energy necessary for the normal functioning of humans and other living beings;

– harm to human health: spread of infectious diseases, irritation and diseases of the respiratory tract, changes at the genetic level, changes in reproductive function, cancerous degeneration of cells;

– damage to vegetation and wildlife; decreased productivity of forests and food crops, harmful effects on animals, which leads to their extinction;

– damage to property: corrosion of metals, chemical and physical destruction of materials, buildings, monuments;

– unpleasant and aesthetically unacceptable effects: unpleasant smell and taste, decreased visibility in the atmosphere, soiling of clothing.

Pollution of the natural environment can be controlled at the input and output. Input controls prevent a potential pollutant from entering the environment or dramatically reduce its entry. For example, sulfur impurities can be removed from coal before it is burned, which will prevent or dramatically reduce the release of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which is harmful to plants and the respiratory system. Output control aims to eliminate waste that has already entered the environment.

Classification of pollutants

Distinguish natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution. Natural pollution is associated with the activity of volcanoes, forest fires, mudflows, and the release of polymetallic ores to the surface of the earth; the release of gases from the bowels of the earth, the activity of microorganisms, plants, animals. Anthropogenic pollution is associated with human economic activities.

Classification of anthropogenic (technogenic) impacts caused by environmental pollution includes the main categories:

1.Material and energy characteristics of impacts: mechanical, physical (thermal, electromagnetic, radiation, acoustic), chemical, biological factors and agents, their various combinations. In most cases, such agents are emissions (i.e. emissions - emissions, sinks, radiation, etc.) from various technical sources.

2.Quantitative characteristics of impact: strength and degree of danger (intensity of factors and effects, mass, concentration, characteristics of the “dose-effect” type, toxicity, permissibility according to environmental and sanitary standards); spatial scales, prevalence (local, regional, global).

3.Temporal parameters of impacts according to the nature of the effects: short-term and long-term, persistent and unstable, direct and indirect, having pronounced or hidden trace effects, reversible and irreversible, actual and potential, threshold effects.

4.Impact categories: various living recipients (capable of perceiving and reacting) - people, animals, plants, as well as environmental components, which include: the environment of settlements and premises, natural landscapes, soil, water bodies, atmosphere, near-Earth space; structures.

Within each of these categories, a certain ranking of the environmental significance of factors, characteristics and objects is possible. In general, in terms of the nature and scale of current impacts, chemical pollution is the most significant, and the greatest potential threat is associated with radiation. Recently, a particular danger has been posed not only by the growth of pollution, but also by their total impact, which often exceeds the final effect of a simple summation of impacts, which has a “peak” effect - synergy. As for the objects of influence, the person comes first.

Sources anthropogenic environmental pollution is caused by industrial enterprises, energy, agriculture, construction, transport, food production and consumption, and the use of household items.

Sources of technogenic emissions can be organized And unorganized, stationary and mobile. Organized sources are equipped with special devices for the directed removal of emissions (chimneys, ventilation shafts, discharge channels), emissions from unorganized sources are arbitrary. Sources also differ in geometric characteristics (point, linear, area) and in operating mode - continuous, periodic, burst.

The sources of chemical and thermal pollution are thermochemical processes in the energy sector - fuel combustion and associated thermal and chemical processes. Associated reactions are associated with the content of various impurities in the fuel, with the oxidation of nitrogen in the air and with secondary reactions already in the environment.

All these reactions accompany the operation of thermal stations, industrial furnaces, internal combustion engines, gas turbine and jet engines, metallurgy processes, and roasting of mineral raw materials. The largest contribution to energy-dependent environmental pollution comes from energy and transport. On average, in the fuel thermal power industry, about 150 kg of pollutants are emitted per 1 ton of standard fuel.

Let's consider the balance of substances of an “average” passenger car with a fuel consumption of 8 liters (6 kg) per 100 km. With optimal engine operation, combustion of 1 kg of gasoline is accompanied by the consumption of 13.5 kg of air and the emission of 14.5 kg of waste substances. Up to 200 compounds are recorded in emissions. The total mass of pollution - on average about 270 g per 1 kg of burned gasoline, in terms of the entire volume of fuel consumed by passenger cars in the world, will be about 340 million tons; for all road transport – up to 400 million tons.

By scale pollution may be local, local, characterized by a high content of pollutants in small areas (city, industrial enterprise); regional when large areas are affected (river basin, state); global when pollution is detected anywhere on the planet (biosphere pollution) and cosmic(garbage, spent spacecraft stages).

As a rule, many anthropogenic pollutants are no different from natural ones, with the exception of xenobiotics, substances alien to nature. These are artificial and synthetic compounds produced by the chemical industry: polymers, surfactants. In nature there are no agents for their decomposition and absorption, so they accumulate in the environment.

Distinguish primary and secondary pollution. At primary In pollution, harmful substances are formed directly during natural or anthropogenic processes. At secondary pollution, harmful substances are synthesized in the environment from primary substances; The formation of secondary pollutants is often catalyzed by sunlight (a photochemical process). As a rule, secondary pollutants are more toxic than primary pollutants (phosgene is formed from chlorine and carbon monoxide).

All types of environmental pollution can be combined into groups: chemical, physical, physicochemical, biological, mechanical, informational and complex.

Chemical pollution associated with the release of chemicals into the environment. Physical pollution associated with changes in the physical parameters of the environment: temperature (thermal pollution), wave parameters (light, noise, electromagnetic); radiation parameters (radiation and radioactive). Shape physical and chemical pollution is aerosol (smog, smoke).

Biological contamination is associated with the introduction and reproduction of organisms undesirable for humans into the environment, with the penetration or introduction of new species into natural systems, which causes negative changes in biocenoses. Contamination of the environment with materials that have an adverse mechanical effect without physical and chemical consequences (garbage) is called mechanical contamination. Complex pollution environment – thermal and and informational, caused by the combined effect of various types of pollution .

Some pollutants acquire toxic properties after entering the body through the process of chemical transformations that occur there. The same substance or factor can cause multiple effects on the body.

The effect of pollutants on the human body manifests itself in different ways. Poisons act on the liver, kidneys, hematopoietic systems, blood, and respiratory organs. Carcinogenic and mutagenic effects – as a result of changes in the information properties of germ and somatic cells, fibrogenic– appearance of benign tumors (fibromas); teratogenic– deformities in newborns; allergenic– causing allergic reactions: damage to the skin (eczema), respiratory tract (asthma); n neuro- and psychotropic effect associated with the effect of a toxicant on the central nervous system of the human body.

According to the mechanism of action of the pollutant on the body, they are distinguished:

– irritating substances that change the pH of the mucous membrane or irritate nerve endings;

– substances or factors that change the ratio of oxidative and reduction reactions in the body;

– substances that irreversibly bind to organic or inorganic compounds that make up tissues;

– fat-soluble substances that disrupt the functions of biological membranes;

- substances that replace chemical elements or connections in a cell;

–factors influencing electromagnetic and mechanical oscillatory processes in the body.

Environmental pollution- this is the entry into it of harmful substances that can harm human health, inorganic nature, flora and fauna, or become an obstacle to one or another human activity.

Due to the large amounts of human waste entering the environment, the environment's ability to cleanse itself is at its limit. A significant part of this waste is alien to the natural environment: it is either toxic to microorganisms that destroy complex organic substances and transforms them into simple inorganic compounds, or they are not destroyed at all and therefore accumulate in various parts of the environment.

Human influence on nature is felt almost everywhere.

Air pollution

There are two main sources of air pollution: natural and anthropogenic.

Natural source- these are volcanoes, dust storms, weathering, forest fires, decomposition processes of plants and animals.

Anthropogenic, are mainly divided into three main sources of air pollution: industry, domestic boiler houses, and transport. The contribution of each of these sources to total air pollution varies greatly depending on location.

It is now generally accepted that industrial production produces the most air pollution. Sources of pollution are thermal power plants, which emit sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the air along with smoke; metallurgical enterprises, especially non-ferrous metallurgy, which emit nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, fluorine, ammonia, phosphorus compounds, particles and compounds of mercury and arsenic into the air; chemical and cement plants. Harmful gases enter the air as a result of burning fuel for industrial needs, heating homes, operating transport, burning and processing household and industrial waste.

Let's consider the main harmful impurities of anthropogenic origin.

— Carbon monoxide . It is produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous substances. It enters the air as a result of the combustion of solid waste, exhaust gases and emissions from industrial enterprises. Every year, at least 1250 million tons of this gas enter the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is a compound that actively reacts with components of the atmosphere and contributes to an increase in temperature on the planet and the creation of a greenhouse effect.

— Sulfur dioxide . It is released during the combustion of sulfur-containing fuel or the processing of sulfur ores (up to 170 million tons per year). Some sulfur compounds are released during the combustion of organic residues in mining dumps.

— Sulfuric anhydride . Formed by the oxidation of sulfur dioxide. The final product of the reaction is an aerosol or solution of sulfuric acid in rainwater, which acidifies the soil and aggravates diseases of the human respiratory tract. The fallout of sulfuric acid aerosol from smoke flares of chemical plants is observed under low cloudiness and high air humidity. Pyrometallurgical enterprises of non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy, as well as thermal power plants, annually emit tens of millions of tons of sulfuric anhydride into the atmosphere.

— Hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide . They enter the atmosphere separately or together with other sulfur compounds. The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing artificial fiber, sugar, coke plants, oil refineries, and oil fields. In the atmosphere, when interacting with other pollutants, they undergo slow oxidation to sulfuric anhydride.

— Nitrogen oxides . The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing nitrogen fertilizers, nitric acid and nitrates, aniline dyes, nitro compounds, viscose silk, and celluloid. The amount of nitrogen oxides entering the atmosphere is 20 million tons per year.

— Fluorine compounds . Sources of pollution are enterprises producing aluminum, enamels, glass, ceramics, steel, and phosphate fertilizers. Fluorine-containing substances enter the atmosphere in the form of gaseous compounds - hydrogen fluoride or sodium and calcium fluoride dust. The compounds are characterized by a toxic effect. Fluorine derivatives are strong insecticides.

— Chlorine compounds . They come into the atmosphere from chemical plants producing hydrochloric acid, chlorine-containing pesticides, organic dyes, hydrolytic alcohol, bleach, and soda. In the atmosphere they are found as impurities of chlorine molecules and hydrochloric acid vapors. In the metallurgical industry, when smelting cast iron and processing it into steel, various heavy metals and toxic gases are released into the atmosphere. Thus, per 1 ton of pig iron, in addition to 12.7 kg of sulfur dioxide and 14.5 kg of dust particles are released, which determine the amount of compounds of arsenic, phosphorus, antimony, lead, mercury vapor and rare metals, resin substances and hydrogen cyanide.

Aerosols are solid or liquid particles suspended in the air. In some cases, solid components of aerosols are especially dangerous for organisms and cause specific diseases in people. In the atmosphere, aerosol pollution is perceived as smoke, fog, haze or haze. A significant portion of aerosols are formed in the atmosphere through the interaction of solid and liquid particles with each other or with water vapor. Medium size aerosol particles are 1-5 microns. About 1 cubic meter enters the Earth's atmosphere annually. km of dust particles of artificial origin.

The main sources of artificial aerosol air pollution are thermal power plants that consume high-ash coal, washing plants, metallurgical, cement, magnesite and soot factories. Aerosol particles from these sources have a wide variety of chemical compositions. Most often, compounds of silicon, calcium and carbon are found in their composition, and less often - metal oxides.

Constant sources of aerosol pollution are industrial dumps - artificial embankments of redeposited material, mainly overburden rocks formed during mining or from waste from processing industry enterprises, thermal power plants.

Massive blasting operations serve as a source of dust and toxic gases. So, as a result of one average explosion (250-300 tons explosives) about 2 thousand cubic meters are released into the atmosphere. m. of carbon monoxide and more than 150 tons of dust.

The production of cement and other building materials is also a source of dust pollution. Basic technological processes these industries - grinding and chemical processing of semi-finished products and resulting products in hot gas streams is always accompanied by emissions of dust and other harmful substances into the atmosphere.

The main atmospheric pollutants today are carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide.

We must not forget about freons, or chlorofluorocarbons. Freons are widely used in production and in everyday life as refrigerants, foaming agents, solvents, and also in aerosol packaging. Namely, doctors associate an increase in the number of skin cancers with a decrease in ozone content in the upper layers of the atmosphere. It is known that atmospheric ozone is formed as a result of complex photochemical reactions under the influence of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Ozone, by absorbing ultraviolet radiation, protects all life on earth from death. Freons, when entering the atmosphere, under the influence of solar radiation, decompose into a number of compounds, of which chlorine oxide most intensively destroys ozone.

Soil pollution

Almost all pollutants that are initially released into the atmosphere eventually end up on the surface of land and water. Settling aerosols may contain toxic heavy metals - lead, cadmium, mercury, copper, vanadium, cobalt, nickel. They are usually inactive and accumulate in the soil. But acids also enter the soil with rain. By combining with them, metals can transform into soluble compounds available to plants. Substances that are constantly present in soils also turn into soluble forms, which sometimes leads to the death of plants. An example is aluminum, which is very common in soils, the soluble compounds of which are absorbed by tree roots. Aluminum disease, which damages the structure of plant tissues, is fatal to trees.

On the other hand, acid rain washes away the nutrient salts containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium necessary for plants, which reduces soil fertility. An increase in soil acidity due to acid rain destroys beneficial soil microorganisms, disrupts all microbiological processes in the soil, makes it impossible for a number of plants to exist, and sometimes proves favorable for the development of weeds.

All this can be called unintentional soil pollution.

But we can also talk about deliberate soil pollution. Let's start with the use of mineral fertilizers applied to the soil specifically to increase crop yields.

It is clear that after the harvest, the soil needs to restore its fertility. But excessive use of fertilizers brings harm. It turned out that with an increase in the dose of fertilizers, the yield initially increases rapidly, but then the increase becomes less and less and there comes a moment when a further increase in the dose of fertilizers does not give any increase in yield, and in excess doses, mineral substances can be toxic to plants. The fact that the increase in yield sharply decreases indicates that the plants do not absorb excess nutrients.

Excess fertilizer it is leached and washed away from fields by melt and rainwater (and ends up in bodies of water on land and in the sea). Excess nitrogen fertilizers in the soil break down, and nitrogen gas is released into the atmosphere, and the organic matter of humus, which forms the basis of soil fertility, decomposes into carbon dioxide and water. Because organic matter is not returned to the soil, humus is depleted and soils degrade. Large grain farms that do not have livestock waste suffer especially hard (for example, in the former virgin lands of Kazakhstan, the Urals and Western Siberia).

In addition to disrupting the structure and impoverishment of soils, excess nitrates and phosphates lead to a serious deterioration in the quality of human food. Some plants (for example, spinach, lettuce) are capable of accumulating nitrates in large quantities. “Eating 250 grams of lettuce grown in an overfertilized garden bed can provide a dose of nitrates equivalent to 0.7 grams of ammonium nitrate. In the intestinal tract, nitrates are converted into toxic nitrites, which can subsequently form nitrosamines - substances with strong carcinogenic properties. In addition, in the blood, nitrites oxidize hemoglobin and deprive it of its ability to bind oxygen necessary for living tissue. The result is a special type of anemia - methemoglobinemia."

Pesticide - insecticides against harmful insects in agriculture and in everyday life, pesticides against various pests of agricultural plants, herbicides against weeds, fungicides against fungal plant diseases, defoliants for dropping leaves in cotton, zoocides against rodents, nematicides against worms, limacides against slugs have become widely used since the end of the Second World War.

All these substances are poisonous. These are very stable substances, and therefore they can accumulate in the soil and persist for decades.

The use of pesticides has undoubtedly played a significant role in increasing crop yields. Sometimes pesticides save up to 20 percent of the crop.

But soon Very negative consequences of the use of pesticides were also discovered. It turned out that their effect is much broader than their purpose. Insecticides, for example, act not only on insects, but also on warm-blooded animals and humans. By killing harmful insects, they also kill many beneficial insects, including those that are natural enemies of pests. The systematic use of pesticides began to lead not to the eradication of pests, but to the emergence of new races of pests that are not susceptible to the action of this pesticide. The destruction of competitors or enemies of one or another of the pests led to the appearance of new pests in the fields. It was necessary to increase the doses of pesticides by 2-3 times, and sometimes by ten or more times. This was also driven by the imperfection of pesticide application technology. According to some estimates, because of this, up to 90 percent of pesticides in our country are wasted and only pollute the environment, harming human health. There are often cases when, due to the negligence of chemicalizers, pesticides literally fall on the heads of people working in the fields.

Some plants (particularly root vegetables) and animals (for example, common earthworms) accumulate pesticides in their tissues in much higher concentrations than soil. As a result, pesticides enter the food chain and reach birds, wild and domestic animals, and humans. According to 1983 estimates, in developing countries, 400,000 people fell ill and about 10,000 died annually from pesticide poisoning.

Water pollution

Everyone understands how great the role of water is in the life of our planet and especially in the existence of the biosphere.

The biological need of humans and animals for water per year is 10 times greater than their own weight. Even more impressive are the domestic, industrial and agricultural needs of humans. Thus, “to produce a ton of soap requires 2 tons of water, sugar - 9, cotton products - 200, steel 250, nitrogen fertilizers or synthetic fiber - 600, grain - about 1000, paper - 1000, synthetic rubber - 2500 tons of water.”

Water used by humans ultimately returns to the natural environment. But, apart from the evaporated water, this is no longer pure water, but domestic, industrial and agricultural wastewater, usually not treated or not treated sufficiently. Thus, freshwater bodies of water - rivers, lakes, land and coastal areas of the seas - are polluted.

Modern methods of water purification, mechanical and biological, are far from perfect. almost 100 percent salts of toxic heavy metals.”

There are three types of water pollution- biological, chemical and physical.

Biological contamination created by microorganisms, including pathogens, as well as organic substances capable of fermentation. The main sources of biological pollution of land waters and coastal sea waters are domestic wastewater, which contains feces, food waste, wastewater from food industry enterprises (slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, dairy and cheese factories, sugar factories, etc.), pulp and paper and chemical plants. industry, and in rural areas - wastewater from large livestock complexes. Biological pollution can cause epidemics of cholera, typhoid, paratyphoid and other intestinal infections and various viral infections, such as hepatitis.

Chemical pollution is created by the entry of various toxic substances into water. The main sources of chemical pollution are blast furnace and steel production, non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises, mining, chemical industry and, to a large extent, extensive agriculture. In addition to direct discharges of wastewater into water bodies and surface runoff, it is also necessary to take into account the ingress of pollutants onto the surface of water directly from the air.

In recent years, the flow of nitrates into land surface waters has increased significantly due to the irrational use of nitrogen fertilizers, as well as due to increased emissions into the atmosphere from vehicle exhaust gases. The same applies to phosphates, for which, in addition to fertilizers, the source is the increasingly widespread use of various detergents. Dangerous chemical pollution is created by hydrocarbons - oil and its refined products, which enter rivers and lakes both with industrial discharges, especially during oil production and transportation, and as a result of being washed off from the soil and falling out of the atmosphere.

To make wastewater more or less suitable for use, it is subjected to repeated dilution. But it would be more correct to say that in this case, clean natural waters, which could be used for any purpose, including drinking, become less suitable for this and become polluted.

Wastewater dilution reduces the quality of water in natural bodies of water, but usually does not achieve its main goal of preventing harm to human health. The fact is that harmful impurities contained in water in negligible concentrations accumulate in some organisms that people eat. First, toxic substances enter the tissues of the smallest planktonic organisms, then they accumulate in organisms that, in the process of breathing and feeding, filter large amounts of water (molluscs, sponges, etc.) and ultimately both through the food chain and in the process of respiration concentrated in fish tissues. As a result, the concentration of poisons in fish tissues can become hundreds and even thousands of times greater than in water.

Dilution of industrial wastewater, and especially solutions of fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural fields, often occurs in natural reservoirs themselves. If the reservoir is stagnant or weakly flowing, then the discharge of organic matter and fertilizers into it leads to an excess of nutrients and overgrowing of the reservoir. First, nutrients accumulate in such a reservoir and algae grow rapidly. After they die, the biomass sinks to the bottom, where it mineralizes and consumes large amounts of oxygen. Conditions in the deep layer of such a reservoir become unsuitable for the life of fish and other organisms that require oxygen. When all the oxygen is exhausted, oxygen-free fermentation begins with the release of methane and hydrogen sulfide. Then the entire reservoir is poisoned and all living organisms die (except for some bacteria). Such an unenviable fate threatens not only lakes into which household and industrial waste is discharged, but also some closed and semi-enclosed seas.

Physical pollution water is created by dumping heat into it or radioactive substances. Thermal pollution is mainly due to the fact that the water used for cooling at thermal and nuclear power plants (and, accordingly, about 1/3 and 1/2 of the energy generated) is discharged into the same body of water. Some industrial enterprises also contribute to thermal pollution

With significant thermal pollution, the fish suffocate and die, as its need for oxygen increases and the solubility of oxygen decreases. The amount of oxygen in water also decreases because, with thermal pollution, rapid development of unicellular algae occurs: the water “blooms,” followed by rotting of the dying plant mass. In addition, thermal pollution significantly increases the toxicity of many chemical pollutants, in particular heavy metals.

Pollution of oceans and seas occurs as a result of the entry of pollutants with river runoff, their fall out from the atmosphere and, finally, due to human economic activities directly on the seas and oceans.

With river flow, the volume of which is about 36-38 thousand cubic kilometers, a huge amount of pollutants enter the oceans and seas in suspended and dissolved form. According to some estimates, more than 320 million tons of iron and up to 200 thousand tons of lead enter the ocean annually this way , 110 million tons of sulfur, up to 20 thousand tons of cadmium, from 5 to 8 thousand tons of mercury, 6.5 million tons of phosphorus, hundreds of millions of tons of organic pollutants.

Atmospheric sources of ocean pollution are comparable to river runoff for some types of pollutants.

A special place is occupied by ocean pollution with oil and petroleum products.

Natural pollution occurs as a result of oil seepage from oil-bearing layers, mainly on the shelf.

The largest contribution to ocean oil pollution is made by seaborne oil transportation. Of the 3 billion tons of oil currently produced, about 2 billion tons are transported by sea. Even with accident-free transport, oil losses occur during loading and unloading, the discharge of washing and ballast water into the ocean (with which tanks are filled after unloading oil), as well as during the discharge of so-called bilge water, which always accumulates on the floor of the engine rooms of any ships.

But the greatest damage to the environment and the biosphere is caused by sudden spills of large quantities of oil during tanker accidents, although such spills account for only 5-6 percent of total oil pollution.

In the open ocean, oil is found mainly in the form of a thin film (with a minimum thickness of up to 0.15 micrometers) and tar lumps, which are formed from heavy fractions of oil. If resin lumps primarily affect plant and animal marine organisms, then oil film, in addition, affects many physical and chemical processes occurring at the ocean-atmosphere interface and in the layers adjacent to it:

First of all, the oil film increases the share of solar energy reflected from the ocean surface and reduces the share of absorbed energy. Thus, the oil film influences the processes of heat accumulation in the ocean. Despite the decrease in the amount of incoming heat, surface temperature in the presence of an oil film, the thicker the oil film increases, the more.
The ocean is the main supplier of atmospheric moisture, on which the degree of continental humidification largely depends. The oil film makes it difficult for moisture to evaporate, and with a sufficiently large thickness (about 400 micrometers) it can reduce it to almost zero.
By smoothing out wind waves and preventing the formation of water spray, which, when evaporating, leaves tiny particles of salt in the atmosphere, the oil film changes the salt exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. It can also affect the amount of precipitation over the ocean and continents, since salt particles make up a large part of the condensation nuclei needed to form rain.

Many countries with access to the sea carry out sea burial various materials and substances (dumping), in particular soil removed during dredging, drilling slag, industrial waste, construction waste, solid waste, explosives and chemicals, radioactive waste. The volume of burials amounted to about 10% of the total mass of pollutants entering the World Ocean.

The basis for dumping at sea is the ability of the marine environment to process large quantities of organic and inorganic substances without much damage to the water. However, this ability is not unlimited.

During the discharge and passage of material through a column of water, some of the pollutants go into solution, changing the quality of the water, while others are sorbed by suspended particles and pass into bottom sediments. At the same time, the turbidity of the water increases. The presence of organic substances often leads to the rapid consumption of oxygen in water and often to its complete disappearance, dissolution of suspended matter, accumulation of metals in dissolved form, and the appearance of hydrogen sulfide.

When organizing a control system over waste discharges into the sea, the determination of dumping areas and the dynamics of pollution of sea water and bottom sediments are of decisive importance. To identify possible volumes of discharge into the sea, it is necessary to carry out calculations of all pollutants in the material discharge.

Impact of environmental pollution on human health

In recent decades, the problem of preventing the adverse effects of environmental factors on human health has risen to one of the first places among other global problems.

This is due to the rapid increase in the number of factors that are different in nature (physical, chemical, biological, social), the complex spectrum and mode of their influence, the possibility of simultaneous (combined, complex) action, as well as the variety of pathological conditions caused by these factors.

Among the complex of anthropogenic (technogenic) impacts on the environment and human health, a special place is occupied by numerous chemical compounds widely used in industry, agriculture, energy and other areas of production. Currently, more than 11 million chemical substances are known, and in economically developed countries over 100 thousand chemical compounds are produced and used, many of which have a real impact on humans and the environment.

Exposure to chemical compounds can cause almost all pathological processes and conditions known in general pathology. Moreover, as knowledge about the mechanisms of toxic effects deepens and expands, more and more new types of adverse effects are revealed (carcinogenic, mutagenic, immunotoxic and other types of effects).

There are several fundamental approaches to preventing the adverse effects of chemicals:

a complete ban on production and use, a ban on release into the environment and any impact on humans,
replacing a toxic substance with a less toxic and dangerous one,
limitation (regulation) of content in environmental objects and levels of impact on workers and the population as a whole.

Due to the fact that modern chemistry has become a determining factor in the development of key areas in the entire system of productive forces, the choice of a prevention strategy is a complex, multi-criteria task, the solution of which requires analysis as the risk of developing immediate and long-term adverse effects of a substance on the human body and its offspring , the environment, and the possible social, economic, medical and biological consequences of a ban on the production and use of a chemical compound.

The determining criterion for choosing a prevention strategy is the criterion of preventing (preventing) a harmful action. In our country and abroad, the production and use of a number of dangerous industrial carcinogens and pesticides is prohibited.

Water pollution. Water is one of the most important life-supporting natural environments formed as a result of the Earth's evolution. She is integral part biosphere and has a number of anomalous properties that affect the physical, chemical and biological processes occurring in ecosystems. Such properties include very high and maximum heat capacity of liquids, heat of fusion and heat of evaporation, surface tension, solubility and dielectric constant, transparency. In addition, water is characterized by increased migration ability, which is important for its interaction with adjacent natural environments. The above properties of water determine the potential for the accumulation of very high quantities of a wide variety of pollutants, including pathogenic microorganisms. Due to the continuously increasing pollution of surface waters, groundwater is becoming practically the only source of household and drinking water supply for the population. Therefore, their protection from pollution and depletion, and rational use are of strategic importance.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that potable groundwater lies in the uppermost, most susceptible to pollution part of artesian basins and other hydrogeological structures, and rivers and lakes make up only 0.019% of the total water volume. Water good quality required not only for drinking and cultural needs, but also for many industries. The danger of groundwater pollution lies in the fact that the underground hydrosphere (especially artesian basins) is the ultimate reservoir for the accumulation of pollutants of both surface and deep origin. Pollution of drainless water bodies on land is long-term, and in many cases irreversible. Of particular danger is contamination of drinking water by microorganisms that are pathogenic and can cause outbreaks of various epidemic diseases among the population and animals.

The most important anthropogenic processes of water pollution are runoff from industrial, urban and agricultural areas, precipitation of products of anthropogenic activity. This process pollutes not only surface waters, but also the underground hydrosphere and the World Ocean. On continents, the greatest impact is on the upper aquifers (ground and pressure), which are used for domestic and drinking water supply. Accidents of oil tankers and oil pipelines can be a significant factor in the sharp deterioration of the environmental situation on sea coasts and water areas, in inland water systems. There has been a tendency for these accidents to increase in the last decade. On the territory of the Russian Federation, the problem of pollution of surface and groundwater with nitrogen compounds is becoming increasingly urgent. Ecological and geochemical mapping of the central regions of European Russia has shown that the surface and ground waters of this territory are in many cases characterized by high concentrations of nitrates and nitrites. Regular observations indicate an increase in these concentrations over time.

A similar situation arises with the pollution of groundwater by organic substances. This is due to the fact that the underground hydrosphere is not capable of oxidizing the large mass of organic matter entering it. The consequence of this is that the pollution of hydrogeochemical systems gradually becomes irreversible.

Lithosphere pollution. As you know, land currently makes up 1/6 of the planet, the part of the planet where humans live. That is why the protection of the lithosphere is very important. Protecting soils from humans is one of the most important tasks of humans, since any harmful compounds found in the soil sooner or later enter the human body. Firstly, there is a constant leaching of contaminants into open water bodies and groundwater, which can be used by humans for drinking and other needs. Secondly, these contaminants from soil moisture, groundwater and open water bodies enter the bodies of animals and plants that consume this water, and then again enter the human body through food chains. Thirdly, many compounds harmful to the human body have the ability to accumulate in tissues, and, above all, in bones. According to researchers, about 20-30 billion tons of solid waste enter the biosphere annually, of which 50-60% are organic compounds, and about 1 billion tons in the form of acidic gas or aerosol agents. And all this is less than 6 billion people! Various soil pollution, most of which are anthropogenic, can be divided according to the source of these pollutants entering the soil.

Atmospheric precipitation: many chemical compounds (gases - oxides of sulfur and nitrogen) that enter the atmosphere as a result of the operation of the enterprise, then dissolve in droplets of atmospheric moisture and fall into the soil with precipitation. Dust and aerosols: Solid and liquid compounds in dry weather usually settle directly as dust and aerosols. With direct absorption of gaseous compounds by the soil. In dry weather, gases can be directly absorbed by the soil, especially wet soil. With plant litter: various harmful compounds, in any state of aggregation, are absorbed by leaves through stomata or deposited on the surface. Then, when the leaves fall, all these compounds enter the soil. Soil contaminants are difficult to classify; different sources give different divisions. If we generalize and highlight the main thing, then the following picture of soil pollution is observed: garbage, emissions, dumps, sludge; heavy metals; pesticides; mycotoxins; radioactive substances.

Thus, we see that the protection of the natural environment is one of the most pressing and pressing issues today. The solution to this problem can no longer be postponed; measures to eliminate it must be urgently taken.