Write a short essay on Water conservation
Answers
Water is the most important natural resource made available by mother earth to the humans. It is essential for existence of life and maintaining ecological balance. Life on earth without water cannot be imagined and history is replete with wars fought between civilizations over water.
Although, earth constitutes 71% of water, only 2.5% of it is fresh water that we use, and we are wasting that too. The fresh water that we use today has probably been around since the beginning of life on earth. The amount of fresh water that the earth holds has remained constant, but the human pollution consuming it has increased manifolds; subsequently, leading to water scarcity. Adequate measure must be taken towards optimal usage of water and methods like rain water harvesting must be implemented in order to ensure future availability of one of the nature’s most valuable resources.
Answer:
Explanation:Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, to protect the hydrosphere, and to meet the current and future human demand. Population, household size, and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on natural water resources especially in manufacturing and agricultural irrigation. Many US cities have already implemented policies aimed at water conservation, with much success.
The goals of water conservation efforts include:
Ensuring availability of water for future generations where the withdrawal of freshwater from an ecosystem does not exceed its natural replacement rate.
Energy conservation as water pumping, delivery and wastewater treatment facilities consume a significant amount of energy. In some regions of the world over 15% of total electricity consumption is devoted to water management.
Habitat conservation where minimizing human water use helps to preserve freshwater habitats for local wildlife and migrating waterfowl, but also water quality.
Contents
1 Strategies
2 Social solutions
3 Household applications
4 Commercial applications
5 Agricultural applications
6 Water Reuse
7 Wasting of water
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Strategies
The key activities that benefit water conservation(save water) are as follows:
Any beneficial reduction in water loss, use and waste of resources.
Avoiding any damage to water quality.
Improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water.
One strategy in water conservation is rain water harvesting.Digging ponds, lakes, canals, expanding the water reservoir, and installing rain water catching ducts and filtration systems on homes are different methods of harvesting rain water. Many people in many countries keep clean containers so they can boil it and drink it, which is useful to supply water to the needy. Harvested and filtered rain water can be used for toilets, home gardening, lawn irrigation, and small scale agriculture.
Another strategy in water conservation is protecting groundwater resources. When precipitation occurs, some infiltrates the soil and goes underground. Water in this saturation zone is called groundwater. Contamination of groundwater causes the groundwater water supply to not be able to be used as a resource of fresh drinking water and the natural regeneration of contaminated groundwater can take years to replenish. Some examples of potential sources of groundwater contamination include storage tanks, septic systems, uncontrolled hazardous waste, landfills, atmospheric contaminants, chemicals, and road salts. Contamination of groundwater decreases the replenishment of available freshwater so taking preventative measures by protecting groundwater resources from contamination is an important aspect of water conservation.
An additional strategy to water conservation is practicing sustainable methods of utilizing groundwater resources. Groundwater flows due to gravity and eventually discharges into streams. Excess pumping of groundwater leads to a decrease in groundwater levels and if continued it can exhaust the resource. Ground and surface waters are connected and overuse of groundwater can reduce and, in extreme examples, diminish the water supply of lakes, rivers, and streams. In coastal regions, over pumping groundwater can increase saltwater intrusion which results in the contamination of groundwater water supply.Sustainable use of groundwater is essential in water conservation.
A fundamental component to water conservation strategy is communication and education outreach of different water programs. Developing communication that educates science to land managers, policy makers, farmers, and the general public is another important strategy utilized in water conservation. Communication of the science of how water systems work is an important aspect when creating a management plan to conserve that system and is often used for ensuring the right management plan to be put into action.