Before we can dive into the main topic, water pollution. We must know a little bit of things about Vietnam or officially known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country located in Southeast Asia, or more specifically, the eastern portion of Southeast Asia. The capital city is Hanoi, located on the Red River. The country has an enormous population of more than 99 million in a land area of just more than 331, 000 km2 (Britannica, 2022). Despite the lack of land area, Vietnam has around 2360 rivers and just the three river basins, the Thai Binh, Mekong delta and Dong Nai are the homes to nearly two-thirds of the country’s population. This may seem like Vietnam has enough or even more than enough supply of water to satisfy the nation’s population, but this is not the case (The Water Project).

A) Definition

So what exactly is water pollution? Well, water pollution is a phenomenon that occurs when bodies of water are contaminated, which makes the water unusable for cooking, swimming, and other activities that involve water. Water pollution can affect any large body of water that has been contaminated, such as rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. (O T.H., Britannica). In addition to this, water bodies could be polluted by different types of pollutants, ranging from harmful microorganisms to petroleum, to fertilizers and plant nutrients, etc. (Britannica, 2022)

B) Groundwater pollution

One of examples of different types of water pollution is groundwater pollution. This is when unnatural or man-made products like road salts, gasoline, and chemicals seep into groundwater and cause it to be unsafe for human use. Furthermore, materials from the surface, like pesticides and fertilizers, could also move through the soil and into the ground ( Groundwater Foundation, 2022).

C) Nutrient pollution

Another type of water pollution is nutrient pollution. This is also a type of water pollution. While other types of water pollution destroy the water by polluting the nutrients, nutrient pollution occurs when there are too many nutrients from different types of minerals such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) flowing into the water. This causes an excessive amount of algae to grow, which is good at first because fish will have food to eat, but as time passes, algae will continue to grow, causing the body of water to lose oxygen, causing marine life to suffer (Ocean National Service).