PUBH6002: Environmental Risk Assessment of Water Quality in Australia

This report provides an environmental risk assessment of water quality in Australia, focusing on the driving forces, pressures, state changes, exposures, and effects of environmental issues related to water resources. It discusses the impact of population growth and urbanization on water pollution, highlighting key pollutants such as plastic wastes and chemical pollutants. The report also examines state intervention measures to control water pollution, including water fluoridation and waste management policies. Furthermore, it addresses social-political and economic issues, governance and policy issues, and current management strategies for environmental health in Australia. The roles played by health agencies in environmental health are also explored, along with measures to address challenges in policy matters, regulations, and management. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for a commitment to environmental conservation and the implementation of effective policies for environmental protection.

ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT
[Author Name(s), First M. Last, Omit Titles and Degrees]
[Institutional Affiliation(s)]

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.

Toxic-fuels and marine-debris
Being the fact that ocean waters is known for ship transport, toxic-fuel has facilitated serious
concerns in Australian sea-waters and around it as well. The toxic-fuel emitted by the ships to
the oceans has detrimental effects in that it leads to the building-up toxic materials that
endangers aquatic lives. Further, a lot of trashes that ends-up into the ocean waters has
immensely affected marine lives.
State intervention measures to control water pollution
Previous research has shown that water fluoridation has been carried out for more than 55-years
in Australia. Fluoridated water ensures that there is reduced content of fluoride hence minimizing
dental problems especially in children. The process of water fluoridation has also ensured that
most capital cities in Australia are accessed to fluoridated water (Forouzanfar, et al., 2016).
Effective and extensive campaign to reduce production of single-use-plastics is needed in
Australia and also encourage the re-cycling of multi-use-plastics. Better methods of disposing
plastic wastes on environmental land should be adopted and creation of public awareness on
benefits of such methods (Birch, 2017). Institutions entrusted with law enforcement should be
empowered to proper enforcement of laws regarding dumping of plastic wastes hence strict
adherence to dumping Act.
Appropriate policies governing the emission of toxic-fuels should be constantly reviewed in line
world environmental protection programs.
Creation of public awareness on the importance of cleaning up the trashes deposited as marine-
debris along the coastal beaches.

The Australian government should ensure that there is strict compliance to regulations regarding
disposal of industrial effluents and proper disposal waste management.
Social-political and economic issues not captured by DPEEA-framework
The Australian government has provided for policy-framework, regulations and strategies within
which state environmental health agencies operate and to ensure healthy environment to its
people. The Council-Of-Australian Governments (COAG) also plans to establish, develop and
implement the policy reforms on environmental health issues. Policy reforms on plastic waste
management will also increase level of job creation and enabling environment for many
businesses.
Governance-and-policy issues in Australia
The Australian government has been greatly involved in coming up with strategies and measures
to keep in check this changing environmental situations. There has been an increased
environmental campaign to create awareness on environmental hazards which has surpassed it
traditional-limits and its possible effects to future generations. Efforts have been made to ensure
that there is increased environmental health surveillance to monitor the status of environment.
The government has also empowered statutory institutions like the Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare (AIHW) which is in charge of gathering statistical information relating to
environmental health issue (Suter II, 2016).
Generally, these strategies and approaches have been developed to ensure that there is
continuous access to safe and reliable drinking water in Australia especially in the future periods.
This will help in the reduction of waterborne diseases and ensure environmental conservation.

Current management on environmental health issue in Australia
Environmental health issue has become a matter of great concern in Australia since it is the basis
within which public health is founded. In Australia, management of environmental-risks is done
by state-agencies and national-council dealing with environmental-risk assessment. The
establishment of the Office of Health Protection in Australia has facilitated the collaboration
with Commonwealth agencies charged with environmental protection issue (Wei & Western,
2017). These agencies have played advisory role on environmental health matters that are related
human-health issues such as quality of water, air-quality, measures to protect environment
nationally, climate-change as well as environmental-risks.
Roles played by health-agencies in environmental-health
The health agencies like National-Environmental Health Standing-Committee (enHealth) plays a
pivotal in health policy development and goals as well as proper health program co-ordination.
They offer advisory services to the Australian government regarding environmental-health
hazards that could results to risks. They also ensure the regulations and standards set are
complied with to avoid any possible environmental risks.
This kind of exercise is carried out at state, national and local levels by various public-health-
officers who have a wide range of desired-qualifications and experiences in field work. They
ensure the community are not subjected to environmental-health hazards.
This health agency has promoted the involvement of various working-groups in Australia like
Water-Quality Working-Group (WQWG), Technical-Working Group on Environmental-Health
(TWGEH) etc. to ensure healthy environment.

Measures to address challenges on policy matters, regulations and management regarding
environmental health.
 Establishing and communicating practical-matters and evidence-based policy guidelines
to enhance the communication of environmental risks to the community.
 Developing policies regarding national-science and practice-frameworks for
environmental-health.
Conclusion
Environmental-health issue is a global concern and many countries including Australia should
therefore show a total commitment in conserving the environment. Therefore, there is need to
ensure that human population is accessed to safety and reliable clean water to relieve countries
from burden of diseases. This is achievable if environmental protection becomes everybody’s
issue. Contingency measures and plans should be put in place to keep in check these
environmental hazards in advance and urgently seek the government intervention on the
problems associated with hazards in relation to human-health issues. Australian government
should ensure that the formulated policies regarding environmental protection is fully
implemented and collaborate with Commonwealth agencies dealing with environmental
assessment and protection. This will in the end ensure the concept for sustainable development
goals can be achievable in future periods.

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