Water Quality
Water is a very important and necessary natural
resource that all living things require. The fluids and food we
consume provides us with the three litres of water our bodies require
each day. Besides drinking water, each Albertan uses an average of 300
litres, everyday. This water is used for bathing, washing dishes
and clothes, toilet flushing and lawn watering. Even more water is
used per person if we include all the water required to manufacture the
many products we purchase.
In Canada, we have vast
water supplies that were once the lifeline of early Canadians.
Much of our history is based on the ways in which we used this natural
resource. Today, these same lakes and rivers are being used in
many other ways. Some of these activities have stressed the natural
cleansing abilities of these ecosystems to the point where there have
been dramatic changes in the quality of water. The Great Lakes for
example, have lost several different types of fish, the
result of the 360 different chemicals which have been identified in
these waters. Even so, our water systems have a remarkable ability
to recover and through positive action by Government, industry and
individual citizens, a concerted effort can reverse much of the
environmental damage.
For most Canadians access to
good quality drinking water is not a problem and is often taken for
granted. This is not the case in many other parts of the
world. Each day, 30 000 deaths are attributed to contaminated
water supplies. Many of these deaths are children under the age of
five. This poor water quality is often the result of inadequate
sanitation where drinking water supplies are not separate from other
human activities.
High quality drinking water has
dissolved gases and minerals that add to the flavour of the water as
well as providing us with some of the important minerals that we need to
survive. A fish living in an Alberta lake would not enjoy living
in pure water, or even tap water. To a fish, high quality water
would be defined differently. Fish require water with tiny organisms floating in
it, a bit of algae, and other characteristics that make the water an
important part of a healthy ecosystem. Yet, you probably would not
want to drink it! Water quality really is a matter of
perspective.
Water quality features can
be placed into one of three categories: physical,
biological, or chemical. When scientists describe a sample of water, they take
into account all three of these characteristics.
Reprinted from Focus On
Water Quality (1993) with permission of Alberta
Environment.
[Biological
Properties][Chemical
Properties][Physical
Properties]
[Changing Quality][Conservation
Need][How
to Conserve]
[Effects on Organisms][Pollution][Quality][What
Can You Do?}
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