Waste is Polluting Cities, Bacterium is Polluting Rivers - The Knock-On Effects Are Everywhere

Paris, this year, saw the second-most days of rain than any year since 1950, surpassed only by 2016, with a lot of bacteria-suffused raw wastewater and stormwater flowing into the Seine rather than into treatment plants, the situation fuelled by at least eighty rainy days, about two-and-a-half weeks more than normal.

Every year,  the Citarum river in West Java, Indonesia sees changes in its hydrological regime, due to variations in rainfall and heat, a situation complicated with no less than 20,000 tons of waste and 340,000 tons of wastewater dumped in it, most from 2,000 textile factories, with its surface covered entirely by an unimaginable quantity of waste, trash, and dead animals.

The Ganges in India sees a reduction of low flows in the recent past, together with an increase in water temperature, a situation worsened by 764 industries discharging into the river, 475 of them located in the Kanpur region, making the industrialized stretch of the river upstream and downstream the most polluted stretch of the water.

In other words, industrial plants worsen the pollution of many rivers today, but climate change plays an even more dangerous part, through the reduction of low flows in the recent past, the increase in temperature levels, as well as increasing the presence of fecal coliforms through the rising incidence of heavy rainfalls.

Last week, a sample  taken at six in the morning at Point Alexandra on the River Seine showed high levels of E. Coliform and enterococci pollution, to the tune of 249 units per 100 milliliters, far above 126 units per 100 milliliters, the limit recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for bathing, an indication of fecal and sewage pollution.

Back in 2019, a study on Khagra in the Berhampur in West Bengal on the Ganges river showed high levels of fecal coliform, to the tune of 12 times the permissible level and more than 60 times the desired limit.

Six years earlier, findings by the Asian Development Bank on the Citarum river showed high levels of fecal coliform bacteria, more than 5,000 times over the mandatory limit, lead levels more than 1,000 times the drinking standard in the United States, the levels of other heavy metals such as aluminum, iron, and manganese above the international average.

River Seine, the Ganges, and the Citarum reveal a common trend, because, according to a recent research, the problem of pollution affects more than 40 percent of 75,000 bodies of water in 89 countries, with over three billion people facing the risk of diseases from the coliform and other kinds of pollution in lakes, rivers and groundwater.

Paris recorded  its current temperature record of 42.6 degrees Celsius in 2019, but this could increase by eight degrees Celsius by 2050, just when rainfall erosivity in Europe could rise by an estimated 18 percent.

Indonesia's current temperature record stands at 40.06 degrees Celsius, but global warming could increase this figure by 0.8 to 1.4 degrees Celsius by 2050, with the rainfall in the western and southern areas set to increase, as well as more extreme rainfall events.

India’s current temperature record of 52.9 degrees Celsius occurred in May 29 this year, but this could rise by 1.2 to 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, when rainfall could be seeing a 15 to 30 percent relative rise.

This means that climate change effects through rising temperatures and rainfalls could worsen, and this can only increase the pollution of not only the Ganges, Seine, and Citarum, but also complicate the fortunes of countless other rivers on a worldwide basis, leading to illness and death in the process.

Wastewater treatments could minimize river pollution, but addressing the root causes of climate change through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable transportation can help mitigate the effects of climate change on water resources.

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