1) The rhine river is considered the Industrial Heartland because it is one of the longest rivers in Europe and flows through six countries. It is heavily utilized for transportation of transportation of goods and raw materials throughout the continent. The river facilitates the connection between Rotterdam(largest seaport in the world)and Duisburg(largest inland port). The river is the source of drinking water for over 20 million people, supports a diversely thriving ecosystem, utilized for energy, and carries away municipal wastewater. The Rust Belt region has been formerly referred to as the industrial heartland of North America due to the presence of the great lakes.
2)Human activity has lead to this river being known as one of the most polluted in Europe. One signifiant accident affecting the river involved a chemical spill in 1986 that made it heavily contaminated. Contamination and pollution is minimally tolerated by salmon and combined with overfishing, there was a significant loss of salmon-population. After the second world war, there was a significant amount of waste contaminating the river (pesticides, heavy metals, organic chlorine compounds, hydrocarbons).The upper rhine was also straightened for navigation purposes.
3) In solving the river's problems with pollution, it would be beneficial to have less chemical plants and factories built near the river to prevent future waste-accidents. There should not be so many nuclear power plants/chemical industries around a large boy of crucial water. This would be difficult to implement as there are already many built around the river and raw materials for the power plant/ chemical industries will take longer to arrive and be more difficult to transport. Furthermore,
Furthermore, there could be more fish-habitat restoring programs to attempt to restore the ecosystem. This would be difficult as the river is already heavily polluted.
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