River Pollution Pollutants found in rivers, lakes, and streams can eventually contaminate not only plants and animals in the water, but crops growing on land as well. Polluting the earth is bad news! Unfortunately, the growing human population in the last century has led to a rapid decay of the Earth’s natural waterways. The truth is that many of our rivers and lakes (and even the ocean) are full of pollution. Sometimes, though, this is hard to see. Perhaps you have stood on the shore of a river, lake, or even the ocean, and looked into the water. It probably seems like the water is fresh and clean as you look from shore. But, with the help of satellite images, we can see that some of our waterways contain huge amounts of pollution and sediment that aren’t meant to be there. For example, check out this picture…

Volga River The Delta of the Volga Looking from space, sometimes the delta will look like a large fan, or maybe the root system of a plant. Sediment and Pollution into the Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is filling up with sediment and industrial waste! This image lets us see how the pollution is flowing into the sea from the river. This is the mouth of the Volga River (in Russia) as it empties into the Caspian Sea. The Volga is the largest river system in Europe. Image Courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory

Courtesy of the Treorchy Library Courtesy of Bureau of Land Management Credits