Good Human Impacts On The Sustainability Of Ground Water Essay Example

Purpose

The purpose of the lab is to assess the sustainability of ground water at present condition of human development and industrialization.

Introduction

Ground water originates from water flow through soil and is a part of Earth water cycle. The sustainability of ground water is an interdisciplinary issue, involving ecology, climatology, hydrology, geomorphology, etc. Fresh water takes only 3% of water available at Earth, and about 30% of it is ground water. Thus, people actively use the resource for drinking water supply. In addition, the ground aquifers are under influence of mining, industry and saline water intrusion. Since groundwater does not possess such regeneration capacity as surface water, change of its state is vital for nature and for society (Ponce, 2006).

Hypothesis and Predicted Outcome

The current state of ground water exploitation and influence on ground water aquifers does not provide the conditions for sustainable development of ground water resources. The hypothesis is that the development of society decreases the ground water level and quality.

Methods

The data used for sustainability assessment have been taken from US Geological Survey (Alley, Reilly, & Franke, 1999). The water-level record for a well in the upper glacial aquifer
and trend of water levels for a deep well have been taken as an example. The water quality data were also used for hypothesis testing.

Results and Outcome

The results of the research are presented on Fig. 1-3.

Discussion and Analysis

Apparently, after 1950, the significant increase in water level in Cook County (Fig. 1) and Nassau County (Fig. 2). In Cook County, the ground water level decreased from 200 feet above the sea level to 25 feet under the sea level. The same way, in Nassau County the level fell from 62 to 48 feet. The ground waters of Kings and part of Queens Counties have experienced the salt water intrusion by 1965, which was apparently not the case in 1936.
The researches indicate that the decrease of level was caused by human activities, namely water pumping. For the data presented on Fig. 3, there were cases of wastewater charges to aquifer systems through wells (Alley, Reilly, & Franke, 1999).

Conclusion

The influence of human activity and industrialization on ground water is obvious. The quantity of ground water and the water level decrease. The quality of ground water reduces, and mineralization of water increases and reaches 5000 ppm in some cases (Ponce, 2006). The mineralization increase appears due to saline water intrusion and wastewater discharges. In addition, the application of fertilizers and pesticides for intensive agricultural production also has a negative impact on ground water since the pollutants migrate with precipitations to ground water and cause water contamination.
Therefore, the sustainability of ground water at present condition of human development and industrialization cannot be provided. The society has to change the water exploitation strategies and implement the ground water protection programs.

References

Alley, W. M., Reilly, T. E., & Franke, O. L. (1999). Sustainability of ground-water
resources. Retrieved from http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1186/pdf/circ1186.pdf.
Ponce, V. (2006). Groundwater utilization and sustainability. Retrieved from http://groundwater.sdsu.edu.