Environmental Risk Assessment for Water in Australia

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Water (Safe drinking water or ambient/Environmental water) in Australia.
Introduction
Natural and built-environment is a major indicator in determining the kind of environmental
health and its associated risks (Hobday & McDonald, 2014). In the year 2006, the World Health
Organization (WHO) indicated that approximately 24% of the world’s burden diseases was
because of built-environmental issue. Water was considered to be an indicator of environmental
health issue in Australia (Hsu & Zomer, 2014).
Water is an essential natural resource that is naturally available for human, plants and animal
consumptions. It is estimated that 70% of the earth surface is occupied by water. Water therefore
form part of basic requirements for human beings, plants and animals. Most of the Australians
are accessed to clean water and approximately 68% of Australians population live cities who
equally rely on safe drinking water. The human population has been steadily on the increase.
Australia has remained keen in conserving and protecting marine life and ensuring that there is
safe drinking water (Hatfield-Dodds, et al., 2015). However, there still exist quit a number of
environmental health challenges like water pollution in many parts of Australia. Dumping of
plastics wastes has made the marine life to be threatened. Further, the constant growth in
population has also led to clearing of land and forests for settlement hence negative impact on
water catchment areas.
Driving forces, pressures, state changes, exposures and effects of environmental issues in
Australia
The constant growing population (Urbanization) has put a lot of pressure on biodiversity in
Australia. This is attributed to the fact that there exists a growing need for settlement leading to

clearing of land especially water catchment areas. The population growth in Australia is highly
concentrated in outer-suburbs regions, inner regions of the cities and along coastal lines (Miller,
Shemer & Semiat, 2015). The constant expansion of cities has created a lot of pressure on social
amenities like water supply as well as its quality. About 68% of human population in Australia
live cities and are accessed to safe and reliable supply of clean water. However, this human
population increase in urban areas is associated with a number of challenges that raises a lot of
concern on the status of environmental health in Australia.
Water Pollution
Human activities have contributed a lot to the adverse effects on the existing rivers, lakes, water-
streams, ocean-waters as well as underground water (Gavrilescu, et al., 2015).
A polluted water is both unfit for human consumption as well as aquatic lives. Contaminated
water can lead to infection of waterborne diseases. This is the cause of serious illnesses hence
resulting to lost of human lives. Infectious bacteria (pathogens) like E. coli get transmitted
through this media causing serious harm to human life (Howes, et al., 2015). Further, chemical
pollutants like lead often results to discoloring of teeth and decaying of dental often leads to a lot
of suffering. This causes economic burden to the state as well as the affected victims.
An increase in the level of urbanization due to population increase in Australia has brought a
number of challenges. Several water bodies in Australia next to the urban-areas, that is, major-
towns and cities are greatly polluted (Gunady, et al., 2015). The following are some of the key
pollutants of water Australia:
Plastics wastes

Poor method of disposal of plastics has resulted to blockages of many rivers. When it rains, these
plastics are transported by the running water to the rivers or sea. Rivers get filled up with this
garbage wastes leading to blockage of river outlets hence threatening the marine lives. As a
result, water from the rivers get contaminated due to too much plastics floating on the water
surface. There are other means of transporting plastic materials from populated regions to the
ocean waters and lakes. This could include strong blowing wind, storms-drains, disposal of
sewerage systems, huge volume of flowing river waters and high-level tides.
Chemical pollutants
There is greater need to establish many water treatment plants in Australia since many of its
water sources are equally polluted by chemicals. This can be both illegal or legal industrial
effluents discharges directed from manufacturing plants to the existing rivers. In most cases,
these chemical pollutants have contributed to contamination of water sources by increasing
levels of salinity of water in Australia. Fluoride is naturally occurring in its chemical form. The
content of fluoride has created a lot of dental problem in a number of capital cities in Australia,
more among children and people having limited-access to dental facilities. Dental-problems such
as decaying of teeth and diseases associated with gum commonly found their routes in most parts
of Australia due to fluoride content in the water (Frumkin, 2016).
Additionally, Chemical pollutants like manufactures fertilizer, spraying of herbicides, detergents
and sewage with chemical contents when discharged to the ocean waters in bigger doses, lethal-
effects is most likely to take place through the process of eutrophication. This has facilitated and
promoted breeding ground for algae to flourish making water quality to reduce as well as
threatening the marine lives.