1 / 36

AP Environmental Science Mr. Grant Lesson 72

AP Environmental Science Mr. Grant Lesson 72. How We Use Water & Solutions to Depletion of Fresh Water. Objectives:. Define the term sinkhole . Discuss how we use water and alter freshwater systems.

nona
Download Presentation

AP Environmental Science Mr. Grant Lesson 72

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. AP Environmental Science • Mr. Grant • Lesson 72 How We Use Water & Solutions to Depletion of Fresh Water

  2. Objectives: • Define the term sinkhole. • Discuss how we use water and alter freshwater systems. • Assess problems of water supply and propose solutions to address depletion of fresh water. • TED - With wisdom and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. These structures are still used today -- and are often superior to modern water megaprojects.

  3. Define the term sinkhole. • Sinkhole:

  4. Discuss how we use water and alter freshwater systems. • We use water for agriculture, industry, and residential use. Globally 70% is used for agriculture. • We divert water with canals and irrigation ditches to bring water to where it is desired. • We attempt to control floods with dikes and levees. • We have dammed most of the world’s rivers. Dams bring a diversity of benefits and costs. Some dams are now being removed. • We pump water from aquifers and surface water bodies, sometimes at unsustainable rates.

  5. How we use water

  6. Water supplies houses, agriculture, and industry

  7. Why does agriculture use so much water?

  8. Governments subsidize irrigation Farmers in California’s Imperial Valley pay only 1 penny for 220 gallons of water

  9. We divert surface water for our needs The once mighty Colorado River has been extensively diverted and used

  10. Water-poor regions take water from others

  11. We build dikes and levees to control floods

  12. Levees increase flooding A major levee along the Mississippi River failed after Hurricane Katrina, allowing parts of New Orleans to be flooded

  13. We have erected thousands of dams

  14. A typical dam

  15. China’s Three Gorges Dam

  16. Drawbacks of the Three Gorges Dam It will cost $5 billion to build sewage treatment plants to treat water

  17. Some dams are being removed

  18. Assess problems of water supply and propose solutions to address depletion of fresh water. • Surface water extraction has caused rives to run dry and water bodies to shrink. • Many wetlands have been lost, and we are now trying to restore some. • Water tables are dropping in many areas from unsustainable groundwater extraction. • Some of our water extraction now goes to bottled water, which is hugely popular despite being no healthier than tap water and creating substantial plastic waste. • Political tensions over water may heighten in the future. • Desalination increases water supply, but is expensive and energy intensive. • Solutions to reduce demand include technology, market-based approaches, and consumer products that increase efficiency in agriculture, industry, and the home. • Privatization of water supplies is a much-debated issue.

  19. We are depleting surface water • The Colorado River often does not reach the Gulf of California

  20. The Aral Sea

  21. Can the Aral Sea be saved? People have begun saving the northern part of the Aral Sea

  22. Irrigation wastes water

  23. The world is losing wetlands

  24. We are depleting groundwater

  25. We are depleting groundwater

  26. Can we quench our thirst for bottled water?

  27. Bottled water is popular but problematic Energy costs of bottled water are 1,000–2,000 times greater than those of tap water

  28. Will we see a future of water wars?

  29. Solutions can address supply or demand

  30. Desalinization “makes” more water

  31. The world’s largest reverse osmosis plant

  32. Agricultural demand can be reduced

  33. Residential demand can be reduced Xeriscaping uses plants adapted to arid conditions

  34. Industrial demand can be reduced Between 2000 and 2012, Ford reduced total global water use by 62% or 10.6 billion gallons.

  35. Market-based approaches to conservation

  36. TED Video To promote smart water management, AnupamMishra works to preserve rural India’s traditional rainwater harvesting techniques. Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting (17:15) • "In [him] lives a spirit, of quiet service, that once existed freely in our politics and our activism, a spirit that has been completely excised from one sphere and remains gravely threatened in the other." • Ramachandra Guha, in The Hindu

More Related