Thermal pollution is the degradation of water quality by any process that changes ambient water temperature.
A common cause of thermal pollution is the use of water as a coolant, stormwater by power plants and industrial manufacturers. When water used as a coolant is returned to the natural environment at a higher temperature, the change in temperature decreases oxygen supply, and affects ecosystem composition. Urban runoff–stormwater discharged to surface waters from roads and parking lots–can also be a source of elevated water temperatures.
When a power plant first opens or shuts down for repair or other causes, fish and other organisms adapted to particular temperature range can be killed by the abrupt change in water temperature known as "thermal shock."
Famous quotes containing the word pollution:
“Like the effects of industrial pollution ... the AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)