Namibia - CountryWatch

Environmental Overview Global Environmental Concepts
In general, it is much easier to get a pollutant into water than to retrieve it out. Gasoline additives, dry
cleaning chemicals, other industrial toxins, and in a few areas radionucleides have all been found in
water sources intended for human use. The complexity and long time scale of subterranean hydrological
movements essentially assures that pollutants already deposited in aquifers will continue to turn up
for decades to come. Sophisticated water treatment processes are available, albeit expensive, to
reclaim degraded water and render it fit for human consumption. Yet source protection is unquestionably
a more desirable alternative.
In much of the developing world, and even some low-income rural enclaves of the developed world,
the population lacks ready access to safe water. Surface water and shallow groundwater supplies are
susceptible to contamination from untreated wastewater and failing septic tanks, as well as chemical
hazards. The occurrence of waterborne disease is almost certainly greatly underreported.
Marine Resources:
Coastal areas have always been desirable places for human habitation, and population pressure on
them continues to increase. Many types of water degradation that affect lakes and rivers also affect
coastal zones: industrial effluents, untreated or partially treated sewage, nutrient load from agriculture
figure prominently in both cases. Prospects for more extreme storms as a result of global warming, as
well as the pervasiveness of poorly planned development in many coastal areas, forebode that catastrophic
hurricanes and landslides may increase in frequency in the future. Ongoing rise in sea levels
will force remedial measures and in some cases abandonment of currently valuable coastal property.
Fisheries over much of the globe have been overharvested, and immediate conservation measures are
required to preserve stocks of many species. Many governments subsidized factory-scale fishing fleets
in the 1970s and 1980s, and the resultant catch increase evidently surpassed a sustainable level. It is
uncertain how much of the current decline in fish stocks stems from overharvesting and how much
from environmental pollution. The deep ocean remains relatively unaffected by human activity, but
continental shelves near coastlines are frequently seriously polluted, and these close-to-shore areas are
the major biological nurseries for food fish and the smaller organisms they feed on.
6. Environmental Toxins
Toxic chemical pollution exploded on the public consciousness with disclosure of spectacularly polluted
industrial areas such as Love Canal near Buffalo, New York. There is no question that pollutants
such as organophosphates or radionucleides can be highly deleterious to health, but evidence to date
suggests that seriously affected areas are a localized rather than universal problem.
While some explore the possibilities for a lifestyle that fully eschews use of modern industrial chemicals,
the most prevalent remediative approach is to focus on more judicious use. The most efficient
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