Water (Clean and polluted)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1W20gHdmOjeYnDM2mUxFMOIReoZbkFxSUsZpNE0FuWrM/edit?usp=sharing
Notes
Clean and polluted water
Water usage
- An average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water per day
- 13.7% of that being wasted on things such as leaks that could easily be repaired
STATE WATER USAGE
- California- Every year Cali consumes 2 million more acre-feet of ground water than it recharges naturally.
- New York- supplies more than 1 billion gallons of water every day to an estimated 9 million people
- Florida- (2005) the aquifer system supplied almost 53% of the total public water supply withdrawals
- Texas- (2003) 59% of water supplied by underground
FOOD USAGE
- 184 liters of water for a bag of potato chips
- 2400 liters of water fir a hamburger
- 140 liters for a cup of coffee
- 75 liters for a glass of wine
- The UN suggests that we need 20-50 liters of safe freshwater a day for all the essentials (cooking, drinking and cleaning)
- More than one in six people worldwide (894 million) have no daily safe water A person’s daily drinking requirement is 2-4 liters
- One person’s daily food takes 2000-5000 liters.
- A declining 4% of all official development aid is allocated to the water sector
- The total aid share to the water sector is below 6%
WORLD WATER USAGE
- The world together uses 9,087 billion cubic meters of water per year
- China-1,207 billion cubic meters
- India-1,182 billion cubic meters
- U.S.-1,053 billion cubic meters
- Brazil- 482 billion cubic meters
- Very populated countries use lots of water to produce their food and products
- Inefficient agriculture or dependence on water-intensive foods like meat is demanding the country
- Countries export very large quantities of water in the form of food and products
World without water
- Some symptoms that can a person will experience if they go a week without water include:
- Saliva becomes thick
- Lump forms in your throat
- Tongue swells up
- Throat swells up
- Hallucinations
- Cry tears of blood
- Skin will turn a purplish gray color, and will feel like leather
- Over 15,000 different households had their water shut off, due to piling water bills
- Big businesses in that same area owe a total of 9.5 million dollars in water bills
- Water should be seen as a human right. No person can live without it.
Without water, you cannot do the following:
- Bathe yourself, your children, or pets
- Wash clothes
- Take your medicine pills
- Create baby formula
- Water your plants or grass
- Wash your car
- Wash your dishes
- Without safe drinking water you become dehydrated, which raises a health issue
- Without safe drinking water in your home, child protective services has the right to come and take any minor children in the home, and put them into foster care.
- With limited drinking water, there is the possibility of future wars over water, and other conflicts to come
- Like in the movie Waterworld, everyone is scavenging the land searching for safe drinkable water
Water Pollution
- Sewage: breaks down naturally, but decreases water oxygen depleting sea life.(food supply)
- Acid rain: Burning fossil fuels releases compounds that interact with air water which pollutes rain with nitric acid & sulfuric acid. Disturbs plant grown and soil.
Non-point sources:
- Agricultural runoff, mining waste, paved roads & industrial activity, polluted sewers, waterways, & some pipelines.
- Heat: the water used to cool down nuclear power plants gets heated to a point that germs can breed, evolve, and grow stronger which gets put into foreign countries water supplies which gets many people sick
- Surface water is usually rainwater that collects in surface water bodies, like oceans, lakes, or streams.
- Groundwater that discharges to the surface from springs.
- Surface water pollution occurs when hazardous substances come into contact and either dissolve or physically mix with the water
- Contaminated sediments are often considered part of surface water contamination
- Sediments include the sand and soils on the bottom of an ocean, lake, or stream
- 40 percent of antibiotics produced in the United States are fed to livestock
- Up to 90 percent of those drugs are excreted unaltered or only slightly altered
- The biggest risks face aquatic life
- If pump-inhibiting drugs enter the aquatic environment
- Rendering wildlife vulnerable to concentrations of pollution
- Pharmaceuticals are flush down drains
- Drinking water is contaminated by dumping pharmaceuticals
Where does our water go?
- 90% of energy we use (today) comes from nuclear or fossil fuel power, which requires 190 billion gallons of water (per day) or 39% of all USA freshwater withdrawals.
- Electricity industries are the second biggest users in agriculture, the more electricity they use the less water we have.
WATER USED BY PLANTS (per day)
- Solar Thermal w/ dry cooling - 26 gallons
- Solar Photovoltaic - 26 gallons
- Natural Gas - 193 gallons
- Nuclear Plants - 672 gallons
- Coal - 687 gallons
- Solar Thermal w/ wet cooling - 786 gallons
- Power Plants are the reasons why 90% of states are in droughts today and people do not know it
- The world’s population has tripled since 1941
- Our freshwater consummation has quadrupled.
- Almost half of the USA annual water consummation goes towards raising livestock
- Less than 1% is for human drinking
- According to the International Water Management Institute agriculture accounts for about 70% of global water withdrawals.
- Water withdrawals have been going crazy let alone the fact that most of the water they use or take does not get returned back from where they got it from.
USA Freshwater Withdrawals
- Thermoelectric power - 41.5%
- Irrigation - 37%
- Domestic - 8.5%
- Industrial - 5%
- It has been estimated that every individual needs between 20 to 50 liters of water free from harmful contaminants each and every day
- Sanitation coverage in developing countries is only half that of the developed world (49% as compared to 98%)
- The vast majority of freshwater is used in agriculture
- Agriculture claims 70% of all the freshwater used by humans - with rice, cotton and sugar among the thirstiest crops of all
- Population growth alone will push an estimated a further 17 countries, with a projected population of 2.1 billion, into water-short categories within the next 30 years
- By the year 2025, 48 countries will be affected by water stress or scarcity - affecting around 35% of the projected global population in that year
- On average freshwater species populations fell by about 50% between 1970 and 2000, representing a sharper decline than that measured in either terrestrial or marine biomes
- Since 1900, more than 50% of the world’s wetlands have disappeared
- In many parts of the world, 30 to 40% of our fresh water goes unaccounted for due to water leakages in pipes and canals and illegal tapping
- The average value of a wetland for recreation, flood control and storm buffering is $492 and $464 per ha per year respectively
- Restoration of the Florida Everglades will cost an estimated $7.8 billion over 38 years
Use of salted water
- Saline water is not drink able for humans but can be made into fresh water
- Saline is an inflatable solar it even wraps up into a tiny package, which produces clean water
- The process of Saline is called desalination and it is being used more commonly around the world to provide people with fresh water
- Most of the United States has or can gain access to ample supplies of fresh water for drinking purposes
- But shortage of water is becoming a big problem due to the population expanding
- By the population expanding ocean water is being collected, but still has salt in it
- If they want fresh water they would have to remove the dissolve salt in the seawater
- Reducing salt water to its basic elements salt and water
- There's more than one way to separate salt from water
- Nearly 90 percent of the time only one of two methods are used
1. Multistage flash and reverse osmosis
- Desalination/distillation is one of mankind's earliest forms of water treatment
- It is still a popular treatment solution throughout the world today
Saving our water
- Invent new Water conservation techniques
- Recycle wastewater
- Improve irrigation and agricultural practices
- Educate to change consumption and lifestyles
1. Without educating each other nothing will get done or change
2. We as a nation need to be educated
3. We can be aggressive in lowering water usage
4. Learn to conserve our drinking water
- Raise prices on water
1. This will help lower waste and pollution
2. Make a bold statement that we need to conserve our water
3. People will not waste water if the pricing is higher
- Develop energy efficient desalination plants
1. An energy intensive pollution to water scarcity
- Shrink corporate water footprints
- Address pollution all together
- Population growth control
1. Lower the supply and demand gap
2. Population is way too high
3. We do not have enough water for everyone
- Preventing corporations from using public water for profit
- Prevent corporations from polluting public water supply
- Turn off the faucet while
1. Brushing your teeth
2. Doing dishes
3. Don’t let the faucet run when it’s not necessary
- Take shorter showers.
1. People often just stand in the shower with the water running for no reason
- Install low-flow faucets, showers, and toilets at home
1. These help you use less water
- Eat less beef and more fruits, grains, and vegetables
1. It takes about 600 gallons of water to produce one-quarter pound hamburger, but only about 65 gallons of water to produce a serving of baked beans
- Don’t Litter!
1. Put waste into recycling bins and trash cans, a lot of litter ends up going to the Bay and Oceans
References:
Blue Gold: Water Wars http://youtu.be/B1a3tjqQiBI
Blue Gold. Dir. Sam Buzzo. 2008. Documentary
Chapman, Mary M. "Detroit Shuts off Water to Residents but Not to Businesses Who Owe Millions." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 26 July 2014. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.
Arsenault, Chris. "Risk of Water Wars Rises with Scarcity." N.p., n.d. Web.
Hartmann, Thom. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: (p. 56)
Hartmann, Thom The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (p. 100)
