Water Pollution: Causes, Effects, and Solutions Introduction Water is one of the most vital natural resources on Earth. It is essential for all forms of life and plays a crucial role in the environment, economy, and society. Despite its importance, water pollution has become a major global issue that threatens the health of humans, ecosystems, and economies. Water pollution occurs when harmful substances contaminate water bodies such as rivers, lakes, oceans, and groundwater. These pollutants can originate from a variety of sources, including industrial waste, agricultural runoff, and domestic sewage. This essay explores the causes, effects, and potential solutions to water pollution, aiming to raise awareness and promote sustainable practices for preserving water quality. Causes of Water Pollution Water pollution results from both natural and human-made sources, with anthropogenic activities being the dominant contributors. The following are some of the primary causes of water pollution: Industrial Waste: Factories and manufacturing plants often discharge pollutants directly into nearby water bodies. These pollutants may include heavy metals, toxins, chemicals, and radioactive waste. Inadequate treatment of industrial effluents can lead to severe contamination of freshwater sources. Agricultural Runoff: The use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides in agriculture can result in runoff during rainfall. These chemicals enter rivers and streams, leading to nutrient pollution, which promotes excessive growth of algae and disrupts aquatic ecosystems. Sewage and Wastewater: Domestic sewage and untreated wastewater from households and municipalities are significant sources of water pollution. When not properly treated, this waste introduces pathogens, nutrients, and organic matter into water bodies, leading to oxygen depletion and health hazards. Oil Spills: Accidental or deliberate discharges of oil into oceans and seas can cause extensive damage to marine life. Oil creates a coating on the surface of the water, preventing oxygen exchange and harming aquatic organisms. Plastic Pollution: Plastics and microplastics are increasingly found in oceans, rivers, and lakes. These non-biodegradable materials pose a threat to aquatic animals that ingest or become entangled in plastic debris. Mining Activities: Mining processes generate large amounts of waste, including heavy metals and acidic water. These pollutants can leach into nearby water bodies, contaminating water supplies and harming aquatic life. Marine Dumping: The disposal of solid waste, including garbage and chemicals, into oceans is another form of pollution. This practice disrupts marine ecosystems and introduces toxic substances into the food chain. Thermal Pollution: Industries and power plants often use water as a coolant and discharge heated water back into natural water bodies. This sudden change in temperature can affect the metabolism and reproduction of aquatic organisms.

1. Safety Engineering
CE1400
ENVIRONMENT AND SAFETY ENGINEERING
Lecture 16
Dr. Soukat Das
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology Rourkela

2. Safety Engineering:
Introduction: Background, Benefits of safety in Industry, Safety Terms and
Definitions. Safety Mathematics and Reliability Basics: Basic Statistics, Set
Algebra, Probability, Reliability.
Workplace Accidents and Safety: Accident Causation Theories (Domino
Theory, Human Factor Theory), Accident Investigation and Reporting. Legal
Aspects of Safety: Factories Act 1948, Other International Codes (OSHA Laws
& Regulations).
Hazards Related to Various Industries: Chemical, Electrical, Mining, and
Construction Safety and Risk Management: Safety Management Principles,
Safety Program Plan, Safety Committees, Safety Performance Measures, Risk
Assessment, Risk Management. Safety Analysis Methods: FMEA, FTA, Markov
Method, HAZOP, JHA, Control Charts.
Human Factors in Safety: Job Stress, Ergonomics, Human behaviour; Personal
Protective Equipment; Safety Costing; Safety Cost Estimation Methods, Safety
Cost Estimation.

3. Safety is the state of being "safe" (from French sauf),
the condition of being protected from harm or other
non-desirable outcomes.
Safety can also refer to
the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an
acceptable level of risk.
Safety has been replaced by “loss prevention”.
Safety

4. Safety Organization

5. WORKPLACE OPERATIONS REQUIRING SAFETY
The operations performed by workers in their workplace are of
different nature but they involve some machine, equipment and
material.
The safety precautions are adopted for machines and operations
performed on them.
Many operations require hazardous material or material in
hazardous state.
 Electrical assembly and fabrication
 Electronic assembly and cleaning
 Use of electrical tools
 Use of chemical agents and chemical treatments
 Use of biological materials and treatments
 Use of acidic and alkaline materialsToxic vapour applications
 Use and production of mists, dust Use of boiler and
 use of compressed air and gas
 Use of combustible and toxic gases and liquids
 Processing of radioactive sources and treatments
 Painting and mixing of paints

6. Spraying of paints and liquid metals
Welding gas and electric, brazing and soldering
Wood cutting and working
Sawing metal and wood Sanding
Sand blasting and shot peening
Burning and furnace application
Casting and foundry practice
Digging
Climbing
Masonry work
Hoisting and lifting
Machining on lathes and mills
Shearing
Cutting
Drilling
Jointing

7. Term Definition
Accident (mishap)
An unplanned event or sequence of events which results in human
death or injury, damage to property, or to the environment. An
overdose of insulin is an example of an accident.
Hazard
A condition with the potential for causing or contributing to an
accident.
Damage
A measure of the loss resulting from a mishap. Damage can range
from many people being killed as a result of an accident to minor
injury or property damage.
Hazard severity
An assessment of the worst possible damage that could result from a
particular hazard. Hazard severity can range from catastrophic, where
many people are killed, to minor, where only minor damage results.
Hazard probability
The probability of the events occurring which create a hazard.
Probability values tend to be arbitrary but range from 'probable' (e.g.
1/100 chance of a hazard occurring) to 'implausible' (no conceivable
situations are likely in which the hazard could occur).
Risk
This is a measure of the probability that the system will cause an
accident. The risk is assessed by considering the hazard probability,
the hazard severity, and the probability that the hazard will lead to an
accident.

8. SAFETY BENEFITS
 An industry or a company that follows safety programmes is benefitted in
several ways.
 The benefits are shared between employer and employees directly and
consumers are indirectly benefitted.
 A sound safety policy will avoid or reduce greatly the accidents whereby the
employer will save cost of lost man-hours and down-machine time.
 The employer will also save on paying compensation and replacement or
repair of equipment.
 The employees feeling safe to work will show better productivity.
 Also since a sound safety policy will guarantee an adequate compensation, the
employees will work without apprehension and psychological pressure.
 The latter factor often causes accidents .
 The increased productivity and quality conciousness will produce goods
which will be to the liking of the customer.

9.  Safety, hazard, and risk are frequently used terms in chemical
process safety.
 Safety or loss prevention: the prevention of accidents through
the use of appropriate technologies to identify the hazards of a
chemical plant and eliminate them before an accident occurs.
 Hazard: a chemical or physical condition that has the potential
to cause damage to people, property, or the environment.
 Risk: a measure of human injury, environmental damage, or
economic loss in terms of both the incident likelihood and the
magnitude of the loss or injury
Safety, hazard, and risk

10. HAZARD
 A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or
environment.
 These hazards are also very dangerous for human and animal life.
 A hazardous situation that has come to pass is called an incident.
 Hazard and possibility interact together to create risk.
 Identification of hazard risks is the first step in performing a risk assessment.
Hazards are sometimes classified into three mode.
 Dormant—The situation environment is currently affected. For instance, a
hillside may be unstable, with the potential for a landslide, but there is nothing
below or on the hillside that could be affected.
 Armed—People, property, or environment are in potential harm's way.
 Active—A harmful incident involving the hazard has actually occurred. Often
this is referred to not as an "active hazard" but as an accident, emergency,
incident, or disaster.

11. Hazard-Risk-Accident
Hazard: Hazard is anything, situation or condition which has the
potential to cause harm to people, equipment and environment.
Risk: Risk is the probability/likelihood that an incident will
occur and the severity of the outcome. Risk is graded into low,
medium and high.
Accident: Accident is an unexpected and unwanted occurrence
which could result to injury to persons, damage to equipment,
materials or environment.

13. Risk and Hazard

14. Examples of Hazard

15. Six types of Hazards

16. Effects of Hazard in workplace

17. Hazard Management Process

23. Incidents and Accidents
 Accidents are defined as: ...an unexpected event that may
result in property damage, and does result in an injury or
illness to an employee.
 Incidents, on the other hand, are:... an unexpected event
that may result in property damage, but does not result in
an injury or illness. Incidents are also called, "near misses,"
or "near hits."

26. Identify Hazard, Incident and Accident

27. Examples- Incidents but not Accidents
1. Incident: a 50 kg carton falls off the top shelf of a 12 ft
high rack and lands near the worker. The event is
unplanned, unwanted, and has the potential to cause
damage to the floor or injury to the worker.
2. Let’s say you bump into another car but it leaves no
damage whatsoever. That is not an accident. This is an
incident.
3. If three people were arrested after fighting in a bar, that
is an incident (but not an accident – because the fight
was not by chance; they intended to fight).

28. Examples- Accidents are also incidents
1. If a drunk driver runs his car into a group of people, that is
an accident (he did not intend to do it; it was caused by
alcohol and chance).
2. It could also be described as an incident (“The incident
occurred on Main Street at around 2:30 AM”).

32. Unsafe Conditions
It is a condition in the work place that is likely to cause property damage or injury.
Unsafe condition is a substandard provision matter and unsafe act is a behavior matter.
Example -A worker working on a damage working platform
Categories:
 Inadequate Guarding
 Unguarded Machinery
 Defective, rough, sharp, slippery, decayed, cracked surfaces
 Unsafely designed equipment
 Poor Housekeeping conditions
 Inadequate lightening
 Inadequate ventilation, contaminated air
 Unsafe Clothing or PPE
 Unsafe processes
 Hot, Humid or noisy environment
 Defective tools, equipment and supplies
 Inadequate supports or guards
 Congestion in workplace
 Inadequate warning systems
 Fire and Explosion hazards

33. Unsafe Acts
 It is something that someone does that results in or could result in an accident
 It can be active or passive.
Example -A worker deliberately remove machine guard
Categories:
o Operating Without Clearance, Qualification or authorization
o Operating at unsafe speed
o Failure to warn (sign, signals, tags etc.)
o Bypass or removal of safety devices
o Using unsafe equipment or using it unsafely
o Unsafe methods (loading, carrying, mixing)
o Adopting unsafe position or posture
o Working on moving or dangerous equipment
o Horseplay (distracting, teasing, starling)

34. Safety achievement strategies
 Hazard avoidance
 The system is designed so that some classes of hazard simply cannot arise.
 Hazard detection and removal
 The system is designed so that hazards are detected and removed before they
result in an accident.
 Damage limitation
 The system includes protection features that minimize the damage that may
result from an accident.
 Accidents in complex systems rarely have a single cause as these systems
are designed to be resilient to a single point of failure.
 Almost all accidents are a result of combinations of malfunctions rather than
single failures.
 It is probably the case that anticipating all problem combinations, especially,
in software controlled systems is impossible so achieving complete safety is
impossible.
 However, accidents are inevitable.

35. Accident and Loss Statistics
 Accident and loss statistics are important measures of the effectiveness of
safety programs.
 These statistics are valuable for determining whether a process is safe or
whether a safety procedure is working effectively.
 Many statistical methods are available to characterize accident and loss
performance.
 These statistics must be used carefully. Like most statistics they are only
averages and do not reflect the potential for single episodes involving
substantial losses.
 Unfortunately, no single method is capable of measuring all required aspects.
 The three systems considered here are
• OSHA incidence rate,
• Fatal accident rate (FAR), and
• Fatality rate, or deaths per person per year
All three methods report the number of accidents and/or fatalities for a fixed
number of workers during a specified period.
OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the
United States

36. Thank you