ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION STUDIES ALONG BHAVAN S COLLEGE CAMPUS OF ANDHERI MUMBAI

Abstract

The Principal of this thesis is Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies like lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers and groundwater, which occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds thereby affecting aquatic life. Water is one of the critical inputs for the sustenance of mankind. It is used in both terrestrial and aquatic environment for various activities, balancing the ecological system of global environment. Water is the important natural source, which is abundant in nature and cover about 2/3 of earth surface. Most of our water resources are gradually becoming polluted due to the addition of foreign materials from the surroundings. These include organic matter of plant and animal origin, land surface washing, and industrial and sewage effluents. It has been reported that sewage effluents of municipal origin contain appreciable amount of major essential plant nutrients and therefore the fertility levels of the soil are improved considerably under sewage irrigation of crop fields (Sharma et al., 2004). The contamination of natural water bodies by chemical, physical, radioactive waste or pathogenic microbial substances will also results in an adverse alteration of water quality. The waste management strategies adopted in India have failed to keep pace with the industrial growth and urbanization. The water stress in this region can be attributed to extensive development of water intensive agriculture, large scale industrialization and urbanization that exerts unsustainable demand of fresh water. These rapid urbanization and industrialization with improper environmental planning has resulted in discharge of industrial and sewage effluents into the water bodies. Heavy metal pollution is an ever increasing problem of aquatic bodies. The natural aquatic systems may get extensively contaminated due to release of heavy metals from domestic, industrial and other man-made activities (Velez and Montoro, 1998; Conacher et al.