II.+Stressors+on+the+Water+Supply

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 * __ Stressors on the Water Supply __**

=Introduction and Water Cycle (Brandon's Group)= The world’s water supply is limited in quantity; and because of this, the environment has developed over time the water cycle.

The water cycle is the way that water moves around the earth, because earth has only a restricted amount of water. s a result, the environment has created a natural way to replete its water supply: the water cycle.

The main parts of the water cycle are: __**Evaporation:**__  The water gets heated up by the sun, the water turns into steam, and then goes into the air. __**Condensation:**__  Once the water gets up into the air it turns back into liquid. It is stored in the clouds. __**Precipitation:**__  This is when the clouds can not hold any more water, they appear to be dark in color, the clouds then releases it back down to earth as in rain, hail, or snow. __**Collection:**__  The water that was just released goes back into rivers, oceans, or land, where the cycle starts all over again.(1)

= = = = =Pollution (by Kendall R.)=

What causes water pollution?
Water pollution happens when larger body's of water is largely affected by large amounts of materials in the water. The pollution sources are categorized by two groups: point source and a non-point source. Point source occurs when the substances that are polluting is entering directly into the waterway. For example when a pipe that has chemicals is spewing into a river or lake. A non-point source occurs when there is runoff that has pollution in it and it enters a waterway, thing like when fertilizer from a field travels into a stream runoff. (2)

What water pollution does to the environment.
Water is a very important essential part to help the environment. Pollution can be caused by things such as nutrients from the soil. When to much nutrients get into the water source aquatic plants and algae start to over grow in the water. With the over grow of these plants it causes clogs and block light to darker waters.This can be very dangerous to the aquatic animals. With the build up of plants it drops the amount of decomposers in the water. With out decomposers to get rid of dead animals and harmful toxins caused naturally the water becomes polluted. (2)

See also decontamination.

=Droughts (by Walter S.)=

What is a drought?
A drought is a period of time when a drier than normal conditions that result in water problems occurs. The beginning of a drought is difficult to determine. Several weeks, months, or even years may pass before people know that a drought is occurring. The 1st piece of evidence that reveals that a drought is occurring is the record of rainfalls, Also the moisture in soils decreases.

How do droughts affect the environment?
Soil erosion are a major after math of droughts. Soil erosion kill the earth. Approximately 40% of the world’s agriculture land is seriously damaged. According to the United Nations an area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year due to droughts. Droughts also affect trees and plants. Without water there are no plants.

"When a water deficit occurs, soil water tends to decrease from water-absorbing roots, creating a gap in the soil-plant-air continuum. In the root systems of trees or shrub, the root hairs that extend from epidermal cells and feeder roots.The extremities of the root system are responsible for the bulk of water intake. Confined to the top 15 inches of the soil profile, the extremities are also the first part of the root system affected by soil erosion. With the death of root hairs, the water absorbing capacity of plants is severely decreased. Other problems to harm the environment are loss of water the roots water absorbing ability on plant health and survival and osmosis, other reactions of a plant to droughts may also occur." (3)

=Desertification (Brandon's Group)=

Desertification is the process in which livable land becomes more and more desert-like. ([|5]) That is the simple way of stating desertification, but it actually has a much bigger impact than making land desert. The water cycle is being largely affected by increased human need for water. As the water cycle is slowly becoming unable to retain all of its water in the system because of human impact on the water cycle, water is being depleted from farm lands and agricultural areas. ([|6]) This, over time, gets rid of vegetative life and as a result, the soil loses its ability to renew nutrients. As the soil loses vegetative life and nutrients, the soil becomes subject to looseness and there becomes a higher probability of flooding
 * What is desertification?**[[image:http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/imgs/Kalahari%20Desert.jpg width="338" height="241" align="right" link="http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2009/05/the-garden-of-eden.html"]] **(by Brandon L)**

Over farming causes desertification which in turn farmers are affecting themselves because then the land is less reusable. It affects the soil making it hard to support vegetation. This would decrease vegetation making an impact on people, and the availability of produce. The livestock are also affected and need the land for food, and if they over graze then it has a harsh effect on the land, or if the land is already being depleted it will not be producing enough to support them.( 7)

**How Do Humans Impact the Water Cycle? (by Gal J.)** There are many ways that the people impact the water cycle. People use water everyday for many different things. We wake up and go to the bathroom and flush the toilet and then take a shower, we water our lawns and wash our cars. There is always water being used and we use so much water that it would be very hard to change that. The more water that we use the less clean water we will have. In urban settings and cities there is concrete and side walks everywhere so that when it rains there the rain water cannot be absorbed by the soil. So that rain water will not go to our ground water and not into our aquifers.(8)All that rain water will go into the sewer systems and be turned into waste water that cannot be used again because of all the bacteria and chemicals that go into the sewer systems. (9) The building of hydro power plants such as dams also affect the water cycle. when they build these dams they will stop the flow of a river and create a lake that is standing still. When a body of water is slow flowing or not flowing at all it creates a environment for bacteria and that water is no longer fresh water. (10)When the water is stopped it also stops the transportation of nutrients to the land down stream. When the nutrients are stopped then that means that there will be problems with that water not being able to help plants grow. There could be issues with crops not getting enough nutrients to grow so that could mean there will be more fertilizer needed to grow crops. (11)When there is more fertilizer used then that ground water in that area will not be fresh water anymore. Over farming also causes desertification which in turn is affecting farmers because the land becomes less reusable. It affects the soil by making it hard to support vegetation. This would decrease vegetation making an impact on people, and the availability of produce. Livestock is also affected because of their need of the land for food, and if they over graze then it has a harsh effect on the land; or, if the land is already being depleted it will not be producing enough to support them. All these situations have impact on our diminishing water supply. With one problem comes another problem and it is almost just like a chain reaction. We people need to find a way to use our water in a more efficient way so that we can make what water we have left last and to remain safe for us to use.



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(by Shannon N.)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(12)When the land is affected by desertification it can cause the people living in that area to move. This can cause stress on other countries that can’t afford to support the massive population growth. Housing soon becomes harder to find or support the new people. Access to food and clean water may become a very serious issue as well.

=Issue of Access (by Ashley D.)=

The point of my part in this is to provide an understanding of the relationship between water and violent conflicts…

KEY CONCEPTS:

1. Water is essential to human survival and most forms of economic production. 2. Getting access to water can be the center of tensions which may lead to conflict. (Most conflicts that occur are on a local level.) 3. On the international level, countries that share a river basin, for example, may hold back large scale development-directly causing poverty, migration

Water is… 1. Unsubstitutable 2. Unevenly distributed 3. Difficult to capture 4. Moveable-Great SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, or ECOLOGICAL costs. (13, 14)

References: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. DLTK's Sites1998-2009 "The Water Cycle" http://www.kidzone.ws/water/ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Water pollution http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/waterpollution.htm WATER POLLUTION AND SOCIETY” By David Krantz and Brad Kifferstein <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">accessed-November 32 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 3. West Larry (2010) “What Are effects of droughts” 12/2-8/10 @http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/a/droughteffects.htm <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. .@http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/desertification <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 7. A.P. Koohafkan,Senior Officer, Environment and Sustainable Development Environment and Natural Resources Service (SDRN),FAO Research, Extension and Training Division"Desertification, drought and their consequences" http://www.fao.org/sd/epdirect/epan0005.htm <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8. Scott Mandia June 28, 2010 "Global Warming: Man or Myth?" @http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/o-water-water-wherefore-art-thou-water/ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9. NGDIR.IR 2004 "Hydrogic Cycle" http://www.ngdir.ir/sitelinks/kids/html/water_en_co_hydrologic%20cycle.html.htm <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">10. Gornitz, V., C. Rosenzweig, and D. Hillel. 1997. Effects of anthropogenic intervention in the land hydrologic cycle on global sea level rise. Global Planet. @http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_02/ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">11. Answers Corporation2010 "What dose humum have impact the water cycle" @http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_Human_impact_have_on_the_water_cycle <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">12. GreenFacts 2001–2009"Scientific Facts on Desertification"@http://www.greenfacts.org/en/desertification/l-2/3-impacts-desertification.htm <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 13. http://freeflo.org/freeflowers/water-wars-violence-over-water-already-happening-india50-incidents-reported-month <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 14. http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/water-shortages-trigger-domestic-violence-in-uganda/

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