Water is Life: Care for the Aquatic Ecosystem
Seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered under water, providing adequate space for aqua animals to roam around the world and facilitate a good aqua ecosystem for the human society.
Bhubaneswar, October 15 : Seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered under water, providing adequate space for aqua animals to roam around the world and facilitate a good aqua ecosystem for the human society.
The prominent surface of the global terrain, the aquatic realm, other than providing more space to the aqua creatures, plays a significant role for the sustenance life on the land.
The water surface is the key force in maintaining hydrological cycle and wind cycle of earth. It also plays an important role in the nourishment of the human society by providing quality water to drink and other livelihood activities.
History stands testimony to the fact that the most of the important exploration activities have happened via sea route.
Before the development of land based mechanized system of transportation, barely hundred years ago, the water-based transportation system was the major player in shifting goods from one place to another.
Around two hundred years ago, the bulk shifting of goods and commodities were carried out by the water ways. Non-motorized ships of various capacities were used in shifting multiple types of goods and the sailors were using all the possible water ways like inland water and high sea route to navigate the desired destination.
In contemporary era, where the developed transportation system has occupied the air ways and the land routes in shifting the essential items from one geographical region to another, the ships have still maintained their majestic presence in heavy-duty freight.
Nonetheless, issue here is not only to highlight the provisioning services or regulating services of the water bodies but to build the case for the cultural services of the flowage.
The human society draws the essential cultural services from aqua world to reenergize their body and mind. The long stretch of these hydrographic bodies provides a sense of relief, relaxation to human mind occupied with the daily struggle of life and livelihood.
The cooling refreshing breeze coming from the lakes and large ponds also transports the human mind to the state of relaxation.
The alluring and breathtaking magnanimous ocean with foaming sensation of waves stimulates happiness vibes for which people wish to visit such places during their holidays.
The aquatic ecosystem especially the swimming fishes are a visual delight for the onlookers. Different pattern of locomotion used by various shape, size, color and pattern of marking on the fish gives a sense of pleasure, satisfaction and enchantment.
However, the increasing worrisome fact is that no more all the water bodies are bloated with healthy aquatic ecosystem. The rivers, ponds, lakes, bays, estuaries, sea, ocean etc.
all are increasingly infested with anthropogenic pollution which are impacting grossly the water environment.
Water, being the universal solvent because of its unique bipolar property, dilutes and absorbs more chemical compound than any other liquid.
Unless being tested in the lab it is difficult to ascertain the kind of chemical emulsification in the water bodies.
It has been a modern-day practice, more prominently in the post industrialization phases that to excrete all the effluent in to the water bodies, be it factory outlet or city sewage, exacerbating the water quality.
The matter is not all about the liquid discharge into water bodies only, people also treat the same as dump yard, throwing and discarding all the debris in to it.
The popular perception is either the waste matter would be diluted into liquid or it would be consumed by the aquatic animals. It is often ignored that we the human are increasingly using non-degradable materials in our daily life and it remain undigested in the digestive system of aquatic creatures, choking and suffocating their lives.
Another source of pollution of water bodies is occurring during the flooding time when the running water wash away all the extra unused chemical nutrient present in the soil to the sea. This is called nutrition pollution which is often found in the lakes and coastal areas responsible for removing dissolved oxygen from the water.
Oxygen deficient water bodies act like a dead zone forcing the marine animals to vacate the place.
On many occasions we have seen the disturbing pictures of numerous numbers of dead floating fish on the surface of lakes, ponds or lying near the coast line, brought ashore by the sea waves.
The reason might vary from one instance to the other but the impact is the same in all the cases. Water pollution is silently killing the underwater ecosystem. This has grave consequence for the humanity as a whole by disrupting the provision of fish supply and employment opportunities for small scale fisher communities.
Adulteration of water bodies is going to impact on the flow of global hydrological cycle there by ultimately impacting on the availability of safe drinking water.
There are many such “Dead Zones” under the sea, which is not at all habitable by the aquatic animals and ultimately affecting the health of the water ecology.
This serves as a wakeup call that we must care about the water bodies, so that the human society survives on this planet. As rightly said by Abraham Lincoln, “you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today” and must start acting today to care for the water bodies.
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