WHAT IS THE VALUE OF WATER?

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WHAT IS THE VALUE OF WATER?
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FACTS ABOUT WATER

• What percent of the planet is water?
• How much is fresh water?
• Where is most of the fresh water?
• 25 of the worlds 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?

• 75
• 3
• Icebergs
• Great Lakes
• One
• Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, Antarctic
• 70

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Earth/ \

• 25 Land 75 water
• / \
• 97 salt
  3 fresh
• 
  / \
• 
  oceans 2 glaciers 1 drinkable
• /
  \
• coastal (10)
  open sea (90)
• Contains 90 of all marine
  species
• / \
• coastal wetlands estuaries
  coral reefs

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OCEANS OF OUR PLANET
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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 to
• Overfishing
• Habitat destruction
• Pollution
• ½ wetlands are gone (agriculture/development)
• 27 of worlds 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

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What services do marine ecosystems provide us
with?

• Ecological
• Climate moderation
• CO2 absorption
• Nutrient cycling
• Water treatment
• Reduced storm impact (wetlands)
• Habitat
• biodiversity

• Economic
• Food
• Medicine (coral reefs)
• Transportation
• Habitat for humans (coastal)
• Employment
• Oil/gas
• minerals

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WHAT ARE HYDROTHERMAL VENTS?
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What Is The Water Cycle?
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What is a Riparian Zone?
RIPARIAN ZONE
RIPARIAN ZONE
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Why is a riparian zone important to aquatic
ecosystem?

• Riparian zones are narrow strips of land
  bordering lakes, rivers, and other 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

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What services do freshwater aquatic ecosystems
provide us with?

• Environmental
• Climate moderation
• Nutrient cycling
• Waste treatment
• Flood control
• Groundwater recharge
• Habitat
• biodiversity

• Economic
• Food
• Drinking water
• Irrigation for crops
• Hydroelectricity
• Transportation
• Recreation
• employment

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What is a Watershed?

• The simple definitionIt's the area of land that
  catches rain and snow and drains or seeps into a
  marsh, stream, river, lake or groundwater.

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What are Topographic Maps?

• Topographic maps show a 3 dimensional world in 2
  dimensions by using contour lines.
• Contour lines are curves that connect contiguous
  points of the same altitude

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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.

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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".

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What do the Colors Represent?

• ColorsThe 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.

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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

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Where Does All The Water Go?

• Municipal/Residential 7
• Industrial 21
  
• Paper/pulp 10
• Wood/Lumber 6
• Mining/oil/gas 3
• Other 2
• Agricultural 72

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Residential Use Of Water

• Lawns 29
• Toilet 29
• Bathing 23
• Laundry 11
• Dishes 6
• Drinking 2

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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 seas salinity
• Decreasing the seas 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

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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

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The shrinking Ogallala Aquifer

• The worlds largest aquifer (size of lake Huron)
  is a 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.

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What can be done?

• Use more efficient irrigation systems
• Gravity flow
• Center pivot
• Drip irrigation (best)
• Switch to crops that need less water
• Irrigate less land
• Citizens can conserve water

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Three Gorges Project

• Largest dam project in the world (China) costing
  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

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How Does Building Dams Affect The Environment?

• Destroys habitats
• Displaces people
• Causes droughts in other regions
• Extremely dangerous if fails
• Provides clean power
• Controls flooding down river
• Provides water

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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

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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

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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

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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. 

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How Can We Clean Up?

• Most environmental projects sooner or later will
  arrive at the remediation or clean-up stage of
  the project.
• Three forms of cleanup Physical, Biological,
  Chemical

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What is The Clean Water Act of 1972?

• Its goal is to restore and maintain the
  chemical, physical, and biological integrity of
  the nations 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

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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