Chapter 2-
Problems of Acid Rain

Introduction

Even though acid rain looks, feels and tastes like normal, clean rain, it is in fact harmful to our health and the environment. In this chapter, we will talk about what health and environmental problems that are caused by acid rain.

 
From this graph, we can see that amount of sulphur
dioxide has been increasing in the past century.

 Health Problems of Acid Rain On Humans

Acid rain would not harm people directly, yet pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide, in acid rain may bring about serious health problems to human beings. These pollutants can interact with the air and form fine sulphate particles, which are harmful to us. These fine particles can penetrate indoors. If they are inhaled, they will cause lung diseases such as bronchitis and asthma. Moreover, pollutants in acid rain also cause ozone depletion, which eventually lead to diseases like emphysema and lungs inflammation. Acid rain also indirectly causes eye, nose, and throat irritations, dry coughs, headaches. It also affects our livers.

Environmental Problems of Acid Rain

Obviously, acid rain can destroy outdoor places, such as forests, lakes and streams as well as the buildings that we built everywhere.

1.      Forests:

Growth of trees in forests would, for sure, be affected by acid rain. Because the acid rain will get into the soil, thus would be absorbed by the trees through their roots. As a result their growth rate will be lowered, this will also cause a decrease in number of trees of certain species that cannot resist the pollutants in the acid rain. The needles and leaves of the trees turn brown and fall off; they will also suffer from stunted growth. Their bark and leaves would be damaged, hence making them vulnerable to bad weather, germs and insects.

Forest being affected by acid rain

2.      Lakes and Streams:

Acid rain directly affects fishes in lakes and
streams. When the acidity of the water is high,
the fishes will die, and this removes the main
source of food of certain kinds of birds. Birds
can also be killed if they eat toxic fishes in the
lakes. Moreover, the eggs that are laid by the
fish will be destroyed by acid rain, and the
entire generation can be killed. With lower
acidity, the fish will suffer from stunted growth, and their ability to reproduce will be affected badly.

3.      Building Materials & Architecture

Pollutants in the acid rain react with minerals in building materials (mainly sandstone and limestone), and form a powdery substance called gypsum, which can be washed away by rainwater. As a result, buildings will be damaged. Acid rain also can destroy stained glass, underground water pipes, airplanes, steel bridge, and railway lines.

Conclusion

As we can all see, acid rain brings us with a lot of health problems as well as environmental problems, so we have to conserve our environment and try our very best to reduce pollutions. Solutions to acid will be discussed in the next chapter.

By Mandy Ma (23)