What are the negative effects of environmental pollution?
1 Answer
Environmental pollution degrades the quality of air, water, soil, etc. Thus, it greatly influences ecosystem on the earth. Environmental pollution will also be responsible for break in food chain resulting imbalance of floras and faunas. Negative effects of environmental pollution can be broadly classified in five different categories.
- Effects on Humans
Humans are very prone to direct effects of environmental pollution. Air pollution can cause severe respiratory problems and diseases to people living mainly on cities, water pollution can cause various water borne diseases. Sound pollution as well as visual pollution can cause mental problems. It is important to realize that environmental problems has been proven to be major cause of cancer development.
- Effects on Animals.
Wild animals are in danger of losing their habitat and food because of environmental pollution.It also makes the air and water toxic. Acid rains can degrade the quality of water in rivers and sea making them toxic for aquatic animals. Also, soil pollution will cause harm and sometimes even the destruction of micro-organisms which can have dramatic effect of killing the first layer of the primary food chain.
- Effects on Plants.
Major challenge for plants because of environmental pollution is the acid rains. Depletion of ozone in the lower atmosphere block the plant respiration, and harmful pollutants can be absorbed from the water or soil which cause either death of plants or low productivity.
- Effects on the Eco-system
Environmental pollution caused by human activities has heavy negative effect on the ecosystem, destroying crucial layers of it. Food chain breaks, animals tends to migrate to usual location because of food scarcity and inhabitable environment.
- Effects on Climate Change
Air pollution mainly causes green house effects, which eventually result in climate change.