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Water management is the process of planning, developing, and managing water resources across all water applications, in terms of both quantity and quality." Water management is supported and guided by institutions, infrastructure, incentives, and information systems [39] The issue of the depletion of fresh water has stimulated increased efforts ...
Ecocide (from Greek oikos "home" and Latin cadere "to kill") is the destruction of the environment by humans. [1] Ecocide threatens all human populations who are dependent on natural resources for maintaining ecosystems and ensuring their ability to support future generations.
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable.
Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. [154] Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource. Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. [155]
Water damage describes various possible losses caused by water intruding where it will enable attack of a material or system by destructive processes such as rotting of wood, mold growth, bacteria growth, rusting of steel, swelling of composite woods, de-laminating of materials such as plywood, short-circuiting of electrical devices, etc.
Another non-renewable resource humans exploit is subsoil minerals, such as precious metals, mainly used to produce industrial commodities. Intensive agriculture is an example of a mode of production that hinders many aspects of the natural environment , for example the degradation of forests in a terrestrial ecosystem and water pollution in an ...
Habitat destruction can vastly increase an area's vulnerability to natural disasters like flood and drought, crop failure, spread of disease, and water contamination. [16] [page needed] On the other hand, a healthy ecosystem with good management practices can reduce the chance of these events happening, or will at least mitigate adverse impacts ...
Fish and other organisms adapted to particular temperature range can be killed by an abrupt change in water temperature (either a rapid increase or decrease) known as "thermal shock". Warm coolant water can also have long term effects on water temperature, increasing the overall temperature of water bodies, including deep water.