On the occasion of the World Water Day on March 22, Reuters published a series of aerial photos showing the global surface water pollution.
Domestic waste cloggoing the Citarum River in Bandung, Indonesia. This place is considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The Indonesian government is committed to revitalize and improve the water quality of this by 2025.
Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk region, Russia remains one of the cleanest freshwater lakes in the world. However, pollution and algae growth are damaging the lake’s microorganisms and some mollusks who are capable of filtering the water in the lake. Pollution is still widespread even though the Baikal paper mill near the lake closed seven years ago.
A large amount of untreated solid and liquid waste empties into the estuary at Hann Bay, on the eastern edge of the Dakar peninsula each year. People living in the spinal cord suffer from illness because their family is in direct contact with this water and high-density waste.
The drainage canal system around Mexico City, Mexico is heavily polluted by wastewater and rubbish from nearby communities. In extremely poor areas, it is difficult for people to access decent quality water supply.
A report by the University of Manchester (UK) in 2018 showed that the section of the Tame River near Denton had the most severe microplastic pollution ever recorded in the world at that time.
At the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian government promised to continue cleaning up Guanabara Bay. After more than four years, the situation got even worse, according to data from the Inea State Institute of Environment. Brazilian biologist Mario Moscatelli says the deterioration of the water quality in Rio de Janeiro is putting both local ecosystems and public health at risk. Every day, hundreds of tons of wastewater and untreated domestic waste are dumped directly into the city’s Tiete River. More than 100 km of river would consequently stinks. The river is almost “dead” or too polluted for most aquatic life. This river is considered a stain of the richest city in Brazil.
Tons of rubbish floating on the Potpecko artificial lake in Serbia, causing a dam across the lake to be almost blocked. According to environemtal activists, the Lim River supplying water to the lake has carried more than 20,000 cubic meters of plastic from landfills along the river banks from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. Since the waste also threatens the operation of hydroelectric plants, the authorities of Belgrade ordered the cleaning of the lake. About 100 cubic meters of trash is being removed per day, then transported to a landfill about 80 kilometers away.
Sewage wastewater flows into the Euphrates River, near Najaf, Iraq.
Pollution of the Pisang Batu River on the outskirts of Jakarta has become a hot topic across Indonesia since 2019. Garbage from nearby households completely covers 1.5 km of the river’s surface. Despite being renovated, the river water is still black and reeks of poluted water.
From Reuters
