Transcript HOW IS WATER ESSENTIAL TO LIFE?

WHAT IS THE VALUE
OF WATER?
FACTS ABOUT WATER
• What percent of the planet
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is water?
How much is fresh water?
Where is most of the fresh
water?
25% of the world’s drinking
water comes from this lake.
How many oceans are
there?
What are the names of the
oceans?
What percent of your body
is water?
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~ 75%
3%
Icebergs
Great Lakes
One
Atlantic, Pacific, Indian,
Arctic, Antarctic
• ~70%
Earth
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25% Land
75% water
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97% salt
3% fresh
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oceans
2% glaciers
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coastal (~10%) open sea (90%)
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Contains 90% of all marine species
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coastal wetlands estuaries coral reefs
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1% drinkable
OCEANS OF OUR PLANET
What impact have humans had on
marine ecosystems?
• 1,200 marine species have become extinct in past 100 years
• Up to ½ all known fish species are threatened with extinction due
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to:
– Overfishing
– Habitat destruction
– Pollution
½ wetlands are gone (agriculture/development)
27% of world’s coral reefs are gone or seriously threatened
70% could be gone within next 50 years
70 % beaches eroded due to development and rising sea levels
What services do marine
ecosystems provide us with?
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Ecological
Climate moderation
CO2 absorption
Nutrient cycling
Water treatment
Reduced storm impact
(wetlands)
• Habitat
• biodiversity
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Economic:
Food
Medicine (coral reefs)
Transportation
Habitat for humans
(coastal)
• Employment
• Oil/gas
• minerals
WHAT ARE
HYDROTHERMAL VENTS?
What Is The Water Cycle?
What is a Riparian Zone?
RIPARIAN ZONE
RIPARIAN ZONE
Why is a riparian zone important to aquatic
ecosystem?
• Riparian zones are narrow strips of land bordering lakes, rivers, and other
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bodies of water
Riparian zones are important for several reasons;
– Biodiversity: mammals, fish, amphibians, insects, plants liking
moisture
– Water quality: traps fertilizers, pesticides, heavy metals, pathogens
– Protection against erosion: traps sediments (#1 pollutant in rivers)
– Temperature regulation: Riparian plants shield water from sun
(thermal pollution)
– Property value: beautiful scenery, prevents loss of land, and provides
privacy
What services do freshwater aquatic
ecosystems provide us with?
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Environmental:
Climate moderation
Nutrient cycling
Waste treatment
Flood control
Groundwater recharge
Habitat
biodiversity
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Economic:
Food
Drinking water
Irrigation for crops
Hydroelectricity
Transportation
Recreation
employment
What is a Watershed?
• The simple
definition
It's the area of land
that catches rain
and snow and
drains or seeps into
a marsh, stream,
river, lake or
groundwater.
What are Topographic Maps?
• Topographic maps show a 3 dimensional world in 2
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dimensions by using contour lines.
Contour lines are curves that connect contiguous
points of the same altitude
How do we determine Contour
Intervals?
• The contour interval measurement is the vertical distance between adjacent
contour lines
• What is the contour interval on this map?
• Determine the altitude of points a, b, c.
What are Hachures?
• If a loop instead
represents a
depression, some
maps note this by
short lines radiating
from the inside of the
loop, called
"hachures".
What do the Colors Represent?
• Colors
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The colors on a topographic map are symbolic of different map
features.
Blue = water
Green = forest
Brown = contour lines
Black = cultural features (buildings, place names, boundary lines,
roads, etc.)
Red = principal roads
Pink = urban areas
Purple = revisions to an older map, compiled from aerial photos. If
an area has become urbanized, this may be shown as purple
shading on the new, revised map.
Where does most of our
drinking water come from?
• An aquifer is an underground layer of water-
bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated
materials (gravel, sand, silt, or clay) from which
groundwater can be usefully extracted using a
water well
Where Does All The Water
Go?
• Municipal/Residential
• Industrial
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Paper/pulp
Wood/Lumber
Mining/oil/gas
Other
• Agricultural
7%
21%
10%
6%
3%
2%
72%
Residential Use Of Water
• Lawns
• Toilet
• Bathing
• Laundry
• Dishes
• Drinking
29%
29%
23%
11%
6%
2%
Can we learn from our mistakes?
• Aral Sea Crisis
• Location: Russia
– Diversion of water to irrigate cotton
fields, vegetable, fruit and rice crops
has caused:
– Tripling of sea’s salinity
– Decreasing the sea’s surface area by
54% and volume by 75%
– Converting the lake bottom to a
human-made desert
– Devastated the fishing industry
(extinction of 20 out of 24 fish
species)
– Alteration of climate
– Health problems such as throat
cancer from toxic dust
Can the Aral Sea be Saved?
• Already $600 million has
been invested in:
– Purifying drinking water
– Improving irrigation
techniques
– Constructing artificial
wetlands
• However this will take
decades for area to
improve and this will not
prevent Aral Sea from
shrinking into a few brine
lakes
The shrinking Ogallala Aquifer
• The world’s largest aquifer (size of lake Huron) is a
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nonrenewable resource produced by the last ice age
(15,000-30,000years ago) with an extremely slow
recharge area due to the clay content in the soil.
It is being depleted much faster than it is able to
recharge.
At this rate ¼ of the remaining aquifer will disappear by
2020.
What can be done?
• Use more efficient
irrigation systems
– Gravity flow
– Center pivot
– Drip irrigation (best)
• Switch to crops that need
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less water
Irrigate less land
Citizens can conserve
water
Three Gorges Project
• Largest dam project in the world (China) costing
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$26 billion
One mile long and 575 ft above Yangtze River
Reservoir 350 miles upstream
Scheduled to be completed in 2011
32 turbines, 22,500 megawatts
Displace 2 million people
How Does Building Dams
Affect The Environment?
• Destroys habitats
• Displaces people
• Causes droughts in
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other regions
Extremely dangerous if
fails
Provides clean power
Controls flooding down
river
Provides water
What are Sources of Pollution?
• The U.S.
Environmental
Protection Agency
(EPA) defines point
source pollution as
“any single identifiable
source of pollution
from which pollutants
are discharged, such as
a pipe, ditch, ship or
factory smokestack”
To drill or not to drill, that is the
question?
• Oil spills:
• Exxon Valdez (1989) in Alaska
– Amount spilled estimated
32 million gallons
– Double hulled ships to
carry oil
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Bp “Deepwater Horizon” Spill in Gulf (2010)
Amount spilled:
Some Numbers to think about!
27 offshore drilling projects approved in Gulf after BP spill
11 billion gallons of oil spilled each year into oceans
19.5 million barrels of oil used in US per day
$1.6 billion as of June 2010 used to clean up oil spill
How can we clean up oil spills?
• Mechanical:
– Floating booms to contain oil
– Skimmer boats to vacuum
– Absorbant pads (feathers and hair
to clean up)
• Chemical:
– Coagulating agents to cause oil to
clump for easier pick up or sink to
bottom
– Dispersing agents to break oil
apart
– Fire (but crude oil is harder to
burn than refined oil and
contributes to air pollution
What is Nonpoint Source
Pollution?
• Nonpoint-source pollution is another term for polluted
runoff. Water washing over the land, whether from
precipitation, car washing or watering crops or lawns, picks
up an array of contaminants including oil, sand and salt from
roadways, agricultural chemicals, and nutrients and toxic
materials from both urban and rural areas.
How Can We Clean Up?
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projects sooner or later
will arrive at the
remediation or cleanup stage of the project.
Three forms of
cleanup: Physical,
Biological, Chemical
What is The Clean Water Act of
1972?
• It’s goal is to restore and
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maintain the chemical,
physical, and biological
integrity of the nation’s
waters
All water must be “fishable
and swimmable”
Requires discharge permits
of major polluters
Identify toxins and use best
practical methods to
remove pollutants
Set goal for best available
technology to be developed
in the future
How Can We Control Water
Pollution?
• Reduce NOx and sulfur emissions
• Modify agricultural practices
• Separate storm water runoff and septic
treatment
• Decrease silt runoff (# 1 polluter: holding
ponds and permeable surfaces)
• Seal Landfills
• Stop Ocean Dumping