The Water Crisis in the 21st Century
Water is an everyday necessity that we simply cannot replace with anything else. Water
crisis can be described as the shortage of water, which leads to difficulty in gathering fresh
water and creating new diseases that are carried throughout the water. With this being said,
it is evident that we must take care of our water in order to survive. In Alex Prud’homme’s,
The Ripple Effect, begins to describe the types of diseases that are brought upon all
different kinds of marine life due to water pollution.
From the Chickens to the Crabs (Chapter 7) explains how throughout the 1970’s to present
date there have been high levels of estrogen in the water, which impacted the fish
population of rivers and lakes to decrease by 30%. Most synthetic estrogens are from both
agricultural runoff and industrial runoff laced with plastics. This causes the marine life to
suffer from lesions, cancer, even causes health problems such as intersexual fish.
Prud’homme uses examples in order to demonstrate the real problems that are happening
throughout marine life and how it eventually also effects human society. As pollution
spreads and increases, so does the water crisis. A “dead zone” is created in the Chesapeake
Bay where algae growth is super simulated. Prud’homme claims this site to be a “dead
zone” because oxygen levels are low and hypoxia conduction caused by excess nutrients is