River Pollution

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River Pollution
Pollutants found in rivers, lakes, and streams
can eventually contaminate not only plants and
animals in the water, but crops growing on land
as well. Polluting the earth is bad news!
Unfortunately, the growing human
population in the last century has led to a rapid
decay of the Earths natural waterways. The
truth is that many of our rivers and lakes (and
even the ocean) are full of pollution.
Sometimes, though, this is hard to see. Perhaps
you have stood on the shore of a river, lake, or
even the ocean, and looked into the water. It
probably seems like the water is fresh and clean
as you look from shore. But, with the help of
satellite images, we can see that some of our
waterways contain huge amounts of pollution and
sediment that arent meant to be there. For
example, check out this picture
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Image Courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory
This is the mouth of the Volga River (in Russia)
as it empties into the Caspian Sea. The Volga is
the largest river system in Europe.
Volga River
The Delta of the Volga Looking from space,
sometimes the delta will look like a large fan,
or maybe the root system of a plant.
Sediment and Pollution into the Caspian Sea The
Caspian Sea is filling up with sediment and
industrial waste! This image lets us see how the
pollution is flowing into the sea from the river.
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Credits
Courtesy of the Treorchy Library
Courtesy of Bureau of Land Management