4.4 Water Pollution Part 1

Thermal Pollution

A common cause of thermal pollution is the use of water as a coolant by power plants and industrial manufacturers. Effects:Thermal pollution occurs when power plants and factories discharge hot or cold water into nearby rivers, lakes, streams, oceans or bays, causing rapidly changing water temperatures.

Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD).

A measure of the amount of dissolved oxygen required to break down the organic material in a given volume of water through aerobic biological activity

Indicator Species

An indicator species is an organism whose presence, absence or abundance reflects a specific environmental condition. Indicator species can signal a change in the biological condition of a particular ecosystem, and thus may be used as a proxy to diagnose the health of an ecosystem.

Biotic Index

It is a scale, that shows the quality of the environment by indicating the types of organisms present.

Eutrophication

excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life and death of animal life from lack of oxygen.