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Water Quality
In Canada, we have vast water supplies that were once the lifeline of early Canadians. Much of our history is based on the ways in which we used this natural resource. Today, these same lakes and rivers are being used in many other ways. Some of these activities have stressed the natural cleansing abilities of these ecosystems to the point where there have been dramatic changes in the quality of water. The Great Lakes for example, have lost several different types of fish, the result of the 360 different chemicals which have been identified in these waters. Even so, our water systems have a remarkable ability to recover and through positive action by Government, industry and individual citizens, a concerted effort can reverse much of the environmental damage. For most Canadians access to good quality drinking water is not a problem and is often taken for granted. This is not the case in many other parts of the world. Each day, 30 000 deaths are attributed to contaminated water supplies. Many of these deaths are children under the age of five. This poor water quality is often the result of inadequate sanitation where drinking water supplies are not separate from other human activities.
Water quality features can be placed into one of three categories: physical, biological, or chemical. When scientists describe a sample of water, they take into account all three of these characteristics. Reprinted from Focus On Water Quality (1993) with permission of Alberta Environment. |
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Updated August 14th, 2001 by KP |