Water Pollution

Water is essential both for life directly and for the health of the wider environment. As a valuable natural resource it spans marine, estuarine, freshwater (rivers and lakes), and groundwater environments across coastal and inland areas. Water has two closely linked dimensions: quantity and quality. Quality itself is commonly defined along four dimensions -- physical, chemical, biological, and aesthetic (appearance and smell) characteristics. A healthy aquatic environment is one where water quality is good enough to support a rich and varied community of organisms while also protecting public health; this baseline definition is what the rest of the section's discussion o …