Cleaning up our oceans and conserving their biodiversity is a huge concern for many who study and work with the environment. Talking about measuring water quality can seem like a vague, complicated scientific process, but much water quality study is done in the field by both researchers and activists. Environmental awareness is not exclusive to the researchers who study it, and so determining the contamination levels of many bodies of water has become important for everyone.
When ocean water is tested for quality, researchers are often looking for contaminants and bacteria that can cause serious illness. These bacteria can come from pollutants that enter into the ocean through sewage or trash dumps that humans initiate. Contaminating the water in this way is an easily preventable phenomenon that more people need to be made aware of so that we can work together to contain ocean pollution.
The first step to solving a problem is to recognize that there is one; with ocean water quality, that means making people aware of the devastation to our oceans caused by human activity. Polluting the ocean is but one step in a chain of degrading actions that can affect all life, including humans, on the planet. Not only can we be made sick by polluted water in our oceans, but our environment can also be irreparably damaged in the future by actions from today.