Water Supplies

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Water Supplies

• Strategies and Techniques to Meet Growing Demands

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Could water be the limiting factor?

• Beijing water table dropping at a rate of 1-2 m
  per year
• Tucson and Phoenix have had to buy 250,000 acres
  of irrigated cropland as a water farm
• Projected losses of between 10 and 30 of
  cropland in the western US if global warming
  increases temperatures by 2C.
• Jordan River supplies Israel, Jordan and Syria,
  95 of water to Israel, primarily used for
  irrigation
• How do humans alter the water cycle?
• Transport
• Discharge/altered recharge
• Movement between watersheds
• Evaporation
• Contamination

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UNDP Conclusion

• 20 liters of water per day is a basic human right

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Properties of Water

• Importance of changes in density as water changes
  state
• Solvent properties salt and fresh water
• Purification of water during the
  evapotranspirative process

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Groundwater shallow or unconfined aquifer
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Groundwater artesian or confined aquifer
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Watersheds
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Managing Water
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Demand for Water

• Agricultural
• Industrial
• Commercial/Residential
• Ecological
• Waste Disposal
• Cultural and Religious Purposes

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Regional Patterns of Water Use
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Domestic Water Use
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Methods of increasing supplies

• Conservation
• Surface Waters
• Ground Waters
• Cloud Seeding
• Reuse and Purification
• Desalinization
• Prevention of Contamination

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Issues with Dams I

• lack of sites
• impacts to downstream users
• impacts to fisheries
• concentration of contaminants, especially near
  urban centers

Aswan High Dam -- Egypt
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Issues with Dams II

• wildlife habitats
• increased rates of evaporation and salinization
• issue of siltation focus on watershed effects
• waterlogging
• loss of agricultural lands (review the complex
  soil questions will this create new lands?)
• current conflicts with wetlands protection
  legislation
• effects on the adoption of conservation
  strategies
• questions of geologic stability
• potential for power generation

350 000 square kilometers of Quebec 17.5 B gt
15K MW of electricity
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Transport of water

• Mono Lake legal disputes, water rights
• Cost of transport environmental effects of
  pipelines and other systems

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Evaluating the potential of groundwater resources

• fossil vs. recharged aquifers (confined v.
  unconfined)
• maximum sustainable yield geology of the
  aquifer
• contamination discharge and salt water
  intrusion
• subsidence

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High Tech/Capital Intensive Strategies
Watercress harvest in a wastewater canal Viet
Nam
Desalination plant - Kuwait
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Cloud Seeding
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Water conservation
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Gray Water

• Water from
• Shower
• Bath
• Laundry