3.

WATER SUPPLY OPTIONS

INTRODUCTION Groundwater extracted from arsenic contaminated aquifers in worst affected areas of Bangladesh by shallow tubewells can no longer be considered safe for drinking and cooking. Although 27 % of shallow tubewells are known to be contaminated in the national scale, in many areas more than 90% of shallow tubewells are contaminated. The problem has been magnified due to the fact that the tubewells with high levels of arsenic are also located in the areas where percentage of contaminated tubewells is high. In the absence of an alternative source, people in acute arsenic problem areas are drinking arsenic contaminated water without paying much attention to possible consequences. On the other hand, people with arsenic phobia are likely to use unprotected surface water to avoid arsenic poisoning and get sick by water borne/related diseases. Arsenic toxicity has no known effective treatment, but drinking of arsenic free water can help the arsenic affected people to get rid of the symptoms of arsenic toxicity. Hence, provision of arsenic free water is urgently needed to mitigate arsenic toxicity and protect health and well being of rural people living in acute arsenic problem areas of Bangladesh. The options available for water supply in the arsenic affected areas can be brought into two major categories: i. ii. alternative arsenic-safe water source, and Treatment of arsenic contaminated water.

Groundwater from deep aquifers and dug wells, surface water and rain water can be potential sources of water supply to avoid arsenic ingestion through shallow tubewell water. On the other hand, there are several treatment methods available to reduce arsenic concentration to acceptable levels for water supply.

ALTERNATIVE ARSENIC-SAFE WATER SOURCES Groundwater Technological options The type of handpump technology suitable for a particular area depends on the groundwater level, water quality and hydrogeological conditions. Arsenic safe groundwater is generally found in shallow aquifers in north-western region, and in pockets/strata in arsenic contaminated areas where conventional shallow tubewells are producing arsenic-safe water. Deep aquifers separated from shallow contaminated aquifers by impermeable layers can be a dependable source of arsenic safe water. The deeper aquifers without any separating aquiclude/clay layer may initially produce arsenic safe water but vulnerable to contamination. The important alternative water supply technologies include:

Shallow shrouded tubewell (SST) and Very shallow shrouded tubewell (VSST) Deep Tubewell;

Dug Well; and Infiltration galley

Shallow Shrouded Tubewell (SST) and Very Shallow Shrouded Tubewell (VSST) In many areas, groundwater with low arsenic content is available in shallow aquifers composed of fine sand at shallow depth. This may be due to accumulation of rainwater in the topmost aquifer or dilution of arsenic contaminated groundwater by fresh water recharging each year by surface and rain waters. However, the particle size of soil and the depth of the aquifer are not suitable for installing a normal tubewell. To get water through these very fine-grained aquifers, an artificial sand packing is required around the screen of the tubewell. This artificial sand packing, called shrouding, increases the yield of the tubewell and prevents entry of fine sand into the screen. These low-cost handpump tubewell technologies have been designed and installed in the coastal areas to collect water from very shallow aquifers formed by displacement of saline water by fresh water. The SST/VSSTs can be convenient methods for withdrawal of fresh water in limited quantities. Over-pumping may yield contaminated water. Installation of low capacity pumps may prevent over exploitation of shallow aquifers. The systems may be considered suitable for drinking water supply for small settlements where water demand is low. A shallow/Very shallow tubewell is shown in Figure 3.1. The depatment of Public Health Engineering has sunk a total of 5,904 VSST/SST to provide water to 0.44 million people in coastal areas (DPHE, 2000). Deep Tubewell The deep aquifers in Bangladesh have been found to be relatively free from arsenic contamination. The aquifers in Bangladesh are stratified and in some places the aquifers are separated by relatively impermeable strata as shown in Figure 2.4. In Bangladesh two types of deep tubewells as shown in Figure 2.4 are constructed, manually operated small diameter tubewell similar to shallow tubewells and large diameter power operated tubewells called production well. Deep tubewells installed in those protected deeper aquifers are producing arsenic safe water. The BGS and DPHE study has shown that only about 1% deep tubewell having depth greater than 150 m are contaminated with arsenic higher than 50 g/L and 5% tubewell have arsenic content above 10 g/L (BGS and DPHE, 2001). Sinking of deep tubewells in arsenic affected areas can provide safe drinking water but replacement of existing shallow tubewells by deep tubewells involves huge cost. Some of the deep tubewells installed in acute arsenic problem areas have been found to produce water with increasing arsenic content. Postconstruction analysis shows that arsenic contaminated water could rapidly percolate through shrouded materials to produce elevated levels of arsenic in deep tubewell water. Experimentation by sealing the borehole at the level of impermeable layer is yet to be conducted to draw conclusions.

Fig. 3.1 Shallow and Very Shallow Shrouded Tubewell However, there are many areas where the separating impermeable layers are absent and aquifers are formed by stratified layers of silt and medium sand. The deep tubewells in those areas may yield arsenic safe water initially but likely to increase arsenic content of water with time due to mixing of contaminated and uncontaminated waters. Again the possibility of contamination of deep aquifer by inter-layer movement of large quantity of groundwater cannot be ignored. If the deep aquifer is mainly recharged by vertical percolation of contaminated water from the shallow aquifer above, the deep aquifer is likely to be soon contaminated with arsenic. However, recharge of deep aquifer by infiltration through coarse media and replenishment by horizontal movement of water are likely to keep the aquifer arsenic free even after prolong water abstraction. Since many people in the rural area still use surface water for cooking, installation of deep tubewell in an area can be a source of drinking water supply for a large number of people. In general, permeability, specific storage capacity and specific yield usually increase with depth because of the increase in the size of aquifer materials. Experience in the design and installation

of tubewells shows that reddish sand produces best quality water in respect of dissolved iron and arsenic. The reddish colour of sand is produced by oxidation of iron on sand grains to ferric form. Which will not release arsenic or iron in groundwater, rather ferric iron coated sand will adsorb arsenic from ground water. Dhaka water supply, in spite of arsenic contamination around is probably protected by its red coloured soil. Hence, installation of tubewell in reddish sand, if available, should be safe from arsenic contamination. Some areas of the coastal region of Bangladesh is very suitable for construction of deep tubewell. Department of Public Health Engineering has sunk a total of 81,384 deep tubewell mainly in the coastal area to provide safe water to 8.2 million people (DPHE,2000). The identification of areas having suitable deep aquifers and a clear understanding about the mechanism of recharge of these aquifers are needed to develop deep tubewell based water supply systems in Bangladesh. Dug Well Dug well is the oldest method of groundwater withdrawal for water supplies. The water of the dug well has been found to be free from dissolved arsenic and iron even in locations where tubewells are contaminated. The mechanism of producing water of low arsenic and other dissolved minerals concentration by dug wells are not fully known. The following explanations may be attributed to the low arsenic content of dug well water:

The oxidation of dug well water due to its exposure to open air and agitation during water withdrawal can cause precipitation of dissolved arsenic and iron. Dug wells accumulates groundwater from top layer of a water table which is replenished each year by arsenic safe rain and surface waters by percolation through aerated zone of the soil. The fresh recharges also have diluting effects on contaminated groundwater. The presence of air and aerated water in well can oxidize the soils around dug wells and infiltration of water into wells through this oxidized soil can significantly reduce the concentration of arsenic in well water.

Dug wells are widely used in many countries of the world for domestic water supply. The flow in a dug wells is actuated by lowering of water table in the well due to withdrawal of water. Usually no special equipment or skill is required for the construction of dug wells. For construction by manual digging, the wells should be at least 1.2 meters in diameter. Large diameter wells may be constructed for community water supplies. The depth of the well is dependent on the depth of the water table and its seasonal fluctuations. Wells should be at least 1m deeper than the lowest water table. Community dug wells should be deeper to provide larger surface area for the entry of water to meet higher water demand. Private dug wells are less that 10m deep but dug wells for communal use are usually 20-30 metres deep. It is very difficult to protect the water of the dug well from bacterial contamination. Percolation of contaminated surface water is the most common route of pollution of well water. The upper part of the well lining and the space between the wall and soil require proper sealing. The construction of an apron around the well can prevents entry of contaminated used water at the well site by seepage into the well. Water in a dug well is very easily contaminated if the well is

open and the water is drawn using bucket and rope. Satisfactory protection against bacteriological contamination is possible by sealing the well top with a watertight concrete slab. Water may be withdrawn by installation of a manually operated handpump. Water in the well should be chlorinated for disinfection after construction. Disinfecion of well water may be continued during operation by pot chlorination. A conventional dug well and a dug well with sanitary protection sunk in most common soil strata in Bangladesh are shown in figure 3.2.

In a completely closed dug well, the inflow of water is actuated by suction created due to withdrawal of water from the well. If aeration is controlling process of decontamination of well water, sanitary protection may affect the quality of well water. Extensive research to understand the mechanism of dearsination of well water and the effects of sanitary protection of well on chemical quality of water is needed. An open dug well and a closed dugwell with a tubewell for water collection are shown in Figures 3.3 and 3.4 respectively.

In the Chittagong hilly areas, Sylhet and northern parts of Bangladesh, construction of handpump tubewells is not always possible due to adverse hydrogeological and stony soil conditions. Construction of protected dug wells can be a good option for water supply in these areas. A large number of dug wells are found operating in those areas. Dug wells are not successful in many areas of Bangladesh having thick impermeable surface layer. In areas with thick clayey soil, dug wells do not produce enough water to meet the requirements. Again in areas having very low water table, there may be difficulty in construction as well as withdrawal of water. Although tubewells in Bangladesh have replaced traditional dug wells in most places, it appears from Table 2.1 that about 1.3 million people in both urban and rural areas are still dependent on dug well for drinking water supply in Bangladesh. Infiltration Gallery / Well Infiltration Galleries (IG) or wells can be constructed near perennial rivers or ponds to collect infiltrated surface waters for all domestic purposes. Since the water infiltrate through a layer of soil/sand, it is significantly free from suspended impurities including microorganisms usually present in surface water. Again, surface water being the main source of water in the gallery/well, it is free from arsenic. If the soil is impermeable, well graded sand may be placed in between the gallery and surface water source for rapid flow of water as shown in Figure 3.5.

Fig. 3.5 An Infiltration Gallery by the Side of a Surface Water Source Experimental units constructed in the coastal area to harvest low saline surface waters show that water of the open infiltration galleries is readily contaminated. The accumulated water requires good sanitary protection or disinfection by pot chlorination. Sedimentation of clayey soils or organic matters near the bank of the surface water source interfere with the infiltration process and require regular cleaning by scrapping a layer of deposited materials.

Surface waters Protected Ponds A protected pond in a community can provide water for drinking purpose with minimal treatment and for other domestic uses without treatment. Traditionally, rural water supply, to a great extent, was based on protected ponds before and during early stage of installation of tubewell. Sinking of tubewells under community water supply schemes in rural Bangladesh began in 1928. There are about 1,288,222 nos. of ponds in Bangladesh having an area of 0.114 ha per ponds and 21.5 ponds per mauza (BBS, 1997). About 17% of these ponds are derelict and probably dry up in the dry season. The biological quality of water of these ponds is extremely poor due to unhygienic sanitary practices and absence of any sanitary protection. Many of these ponds are made chemically and bio-chemically contaminated for fish culture. In order to maintain good quality water, a protected ponds shall not receive surface discharges or polluting substances and should only be replenished by rain and groundwater infiltration. Pond Sand Filters A prospective option for development of surface water based water supply system is the construction of community type Slow Sand Filters (SSFs) commonly known as Pond Sand Filters (PSFs). It is a package type slow sand filter unit developed to treat surface waters, usually low-saline pond water, for domestic water supply in the coastal areas. Slow sand filters are installed near or on the bank of a pond, which does not dry up in the dry season. The water from the pond is pumped by a manually operated hand tubewell to feed the filter bed, which is raised from the ground, and the treated water is collected through tap(s). It has been tested and found that the treated water from a PSF is normally bacteriologically safe or within tolerable limits. On average the operating period of a PSF between cleaning is usually two months, after which the sand in the bed needs to be cleaned and replaced. The drawing of a typical PSF is shown in figure 3.6. The program initiated by DPHE with the construction of 20 experimental units in 1984 to utilize low saline pond water for water supply in the coastal area. Pond Sand Filters serve 200-500 people per unit. The PSF is being promoted as a option for water supply in arsenic affected areas. The problems encountered are low discharge and difficulties in washing the filter beds. Since these are small units, community involvement in operation and maintenance is absolutely essential to keep the system operational. A formal institutional arrangement cannot be installed

for running such a unit, community involvement in operation and maintenance is the key issue in making the system work. By June 2000, DPHE has installed 3,710 units of PSF, a significant proportion of which remains out of operation for poor maintenance.

Figure 3.6 Pond Sand Filter for Treatment of Surface Water The PSF is a low-cost technology with very high efficiency in turbidity and bacterial removal. It has received preference as an alternative water supply system for medium size settlements in arsenic affected areas and areas. Although PSF has a very high bacterial removal efficiency, it may not remove 100% of the pathogens from heavily contaminated surface water. In such cases, the treated water may require chlorination to meet drinking water standards. The costs of construction, advantages and limitations of Pond Sand Filters as described by different organization involved in arsenic safe water supplies are summarized in Appendix-1. The major limitations mentioned are as follows:

Operation and maintenance are difficult; Not suitable for heavily contaminated ponds; People complained of foul taste in pond water and many resorted to using it for cooking only; Conflicts with fish culture; It is difficult to find an appropriate/reserve pond for installation of PSF; Many ponds dry up in the dry season in some parts of the country; Secondary contamination takes place due to lack of proper maintenance.

Collection of safe water by installation of PSF on the bank of a pond is shown in Figure 3.7.

Combined Filters A combined filter consists of roughing filters and a slow sand filter. It is introduced to overcome some of the difficulties encountered in PSF. The PSF cannot operate effectively when the turbidity of surface water exceeds 30 mg/l. The low discharge and requirement of frequent washing of the filter beds are common in Bangladesh. This is due to high turbidity and seasonal algal bloom in pond water. The situation can greatly be improved by design modifications particularly by the construction of roughing filters for pretreatment of water. The roughing filters remove turbidity and colour to acceptable level for efficient operation of the slow sand filter installed in sequential order following roughing filters. A diagram of a combined filtration unit is shown in Figure 3.8.

The roughing and slow sand filter units have been constructed in many parts of the world with success in reduction of very high turbidities and coliform counts. Operation and maintenance are relatively easy and less frequent attention is needed for longer duration of operation between cleaning. A combined unit of such filter has been constructed in Samta Village in Jessore district by Asian Arsenic Network (AAN) and it functions well in rural condition but remains idle in dry season when there is no water in the pond (AAN, RGAG and NIPSOM, 1999).

Household Filters Surface water containing impurities can be clarified by a pitcher filter unit or a small sand filter at the household level. It is an old method of water purification, once widely used in rural areas of Bangladesh. These processes of water treatment at household level have been phased out with the introduction of tubewells for village water supply. Pitcher filters are constructed by stacking a number pitchers (Kalshis), one above the other, containing different filter media as shown in Figure 3.9. Raw water is poured in the top Kalshi and filtered water is collected from the bottom one. In this process, water is mainly clarified by the mechanical straining and adsorption depending of the type of filter media used.

Small household filters can be constructed by stacking about 300-450 mm thick well graded sand on a 150-225 mm thick coarse aggregate in a cylindrical container as shown in figure 3.10. The container is filled with water and the filtered water is collected from the bottom. It is essential to avoid drying up of the filter bed. Full effectiveness of the filtration process is obtained if the media remain in water all the time. The pitcher and other small household filters cannot completely remove micro-organisms if these are present in large numbers in raw water. Experimental units constructed in Bangladesh and in other countries show that the residual coliform bacteria present in the filtered water may vary from a few to several hundred. However, improvement of water quality by household filters is remarkable. The important characteristics of household filters are:

suitable for surface water treatment; remove turbidity, colour and micro-organisms; complete removal of pathogenic micro-organisms is not guaranteed; not suitable for high-turbid water; difficulty in cleaning and keeping the system operational.

3.2.3 Rain Water Harvesting Bangladesh is a tropical country and receives heavy rainfall during the rainy season. In the coastal districts, particularly in the offshore islands of Bangladesh, rainwater harvesting for drinking purposes is a common practice in a limited scale for long time (Chowdhury et al, 1987). In some areas of the coastal region with high salinity problem, about 36 percent households have been found to practice rainwater harvesting in the rainy season for drinking purpose (Hussain and Ziauddin, 1989). In the present context, rainwater harvesting is being seriously considered as an alternative option for water supply in Bangladesh in the arsenic affected areas. The main advantages and disadvantages of a rainwater system are shown in Table 3.1 Table 3.1: Advantages and disadvantages of rainwater collection system

Advantages

Disadvantages The initial cost may prevent a family from installing a rainwater harvesting system. The water availability is limited by the rainfall intensity and available roof area. Mineral-free rainwater has a flat taste, which may not be liked by many. Mineral-free water may cause nutrition deficiencies in people who are on mineral deficient diets. The poorer segment of the population may not have a roof suitable for rainwater harvesting.

The quality of rainwater is comparatively good. The system is independent and therefore suitable for scattered settlements. Local materials and craftsmanship can be used in construction of rainwater system. No energy costs are incurred in running the system. Ease in maintenance by the owner/user The system can be located very close to the consumption points.

A rainwater based water supply system requires determination of the capacity of storage tank and catchment area for rainwater collection in relation to water requirement, rainfall intensity and distribution. The availability of rainwater is limited by the rainfall intensity and availability of suitable catchment area. The mineral free rainwater may not be liked by many and the poorer section of the people may not have a roof/catchment area suitable for rainwater harvesting. Availability of Rainwater The mean rainfall intensity recorded in 28 stations for the period from 1987 to 1998 is shown in Figure 2.2 ( BBS, 1999). It appears that the average yearly rainfall in the country varies from 1900 to 2900 mm. However, there are some losses in the collection system and a part of the rainwater is used for washing of the catchment area.. The available rainwater can be estimated by the equation:

Q = C I A (1) Where Q is the total quantity of rainwater available in m3/ year, C is coefficient of available runoff, I is the rainfall intensity in m/year and A is the catchment area in m2. Spatial variation of rainfall in Bangladesh is quite high. Lowest rainfall less than 1500 mm occurs in the western part of the country and the highest rainfall exceeding 4000 mm occurs in the north-east. Therefore, the requirements for rainwater harvesting would vary from place to place depending on the total rainfall and its distribution over the whole year. Rainwater Catchment The catchment area for rainwater collection is usually the roof, which is connected with a gutter system to lead rainwater to the storage tank. A rainwater collection system from roof has been shown in Figure 3.11. Rainwater can be collected from any types of roof but concrete, tiles and metal roofs give cleanest water. The C.I. sheet roofs commonly used in Bangladesh perform well as catchment areas. In Bangladesh 48% of the households have C.I sheet, tiles and pucca roofs suitable for the collection of rainwater (BBS, 1997). The minimum catchment area A, required for the collection of rainwater for N number of people supplied with q litres per capita per day (lpcd) of water can derived from Equation (1) as: A = 0.365 q N / C I (2) About 25% of the rainwater may be assumed to be lost by evaporation and for washing the catchment area using first rain that produces inferior quality rainwater (Ahmed, 1999). The Equation (2) can be written for an average annual rainfall of 2.46 m/yr., as indicated in Figure 2.2 and a coefficient of runoff of 0.70 in the following form : A = 0.212 q N (3)

The poorer section of the people is in disadvantageous position in respect of utilization of rainwater as a source of water supply. This section of people has smaller size thatched roof or no roof at all, to be used as catchment for rainwater collection. A thatched roof can also be used as catchment area by covering it with polyethylene but it requires good skills to guide water to the storage tank. In coastal areas of Bangladesh, cloths fixed at four corners with a pitcher underneath is used during rainfall for rainwater collection. A plastic sheet as shown in Figure 3.12 has been tried as a catchment for rainwater harvesting for the people who do not have a roof suitable for rainwater collection. The use of land surface as catchment area and underground gravel/sand packed reservoir as storage tank can be an alternative system of rainwater collection and storage. In this case, the water has to be channeled towards the reservoir and allowed to pass through a sand bed before entering into underground reservoirs. This process is analogous to recharge of underground aquifer by rainwater during rainy season for utilization in the dry season. Storage Tank

The unequal distribution of rainfall over the year requires storage of rainwater during rainy season for use in the dry season. The minimum volume of the storage rainwater tank V, required for rainwater can be computed by the equation: V = O.365 f q N (4) Where f is the fraction of water required to be stored for consumption of total available rainwater at a constant rate throughout the year. The total annual rainfall in 1996 as shown in Figure 2.2 is approximately equal to the average annual rainfall of the last 12 years. The monthly distribution of average rainfall in 1996 shown in Figure 2.3 is assumed to represent the average condition. The rainwater availability mass curve assuming and cumulative consumption/demand of total available rainwater at constant rate are also shown in Figure 3.13.

Figure 3.13. Rainfall Intensity, Cumulative Rainwater Availability and Demand

The mass curve has been prepared considering the fact that 75% of the rainwater would be available. It may be observed that there is a shortfall of 0.48 m3 in the dry periods and an excess of 0.24 m3 during rainy season. For full utilization of rainwater potential, a storage tank of capacity 0.72 m3 that is 40% of the available rainwater is required for uninterrupted water supply at a constant rate throughout the year. However, if only drinking and cooking water is harvested, the sizes of the storage tank and catchment area would be smaller and within affordable range a family. Substituting f = 0.4 in Equation 4 for representative rainfall distribution of 1996, the minimum volume of the storage tank required for rainwater becomes: V = 0.146 q N (5) However, the above simple design based on average rainfall will provide about 50% reliability of year around water supply. A design with higher reliability will require bigger catchment area and larger size of storage tank. There are several methods available for the design of a rainwater system with desired reliability and computer programs based on these methods are also available for design.

Quality of Rainwater The quality of rainwater is relatively good but it is not free from all impurities. Analysis of stored rainwater has shown some bacteriological contamination. Cleanliness of roof and storage tank is critical in maintaining good quality of rainwater. The first run off from the roof should be discarded to prevent entry of impurities from the roof. If the storage tank is clean, the bacteria or parasites carried with the flowing rainwater will tend to die off. Some devices and good practices have been suggested to store or divert the first foul flush away from the storage tank. In case of difficulties in the rejection of first flow, cleaning of the roof and gutter at the beginning of the rainy season and their regular maintenance are very important to ensure better quality of rainwater. The storage tank requires cleaning and disinfection when the tank is empty or at least once in a year. The rainwater is essentially lacking in minerals, the presence of which is considered essential in appropriate proportions. The mineral salts in natural ground and surface waters sometimes impart pleasing taste to water.

3.2.4 Solar Distillation Solar energy available in Bangladesh can be used for solar distillation of contaminated water in crisis areas. Experimental units based on conventional evaporation-condensation facilities have been found to produce 0.6 - 2.4 Um2/d. The water produced by solar distillation in free from all chemicals including arsenic but cannot produce enough water at a reasonable cost. The system requires further development for cost effective use in water supply in rural areas.

3.2.5 Solar Disinfection Presence of pathogenic organisms even in apparently clear arsenic safe surface water is a hindrance for use as drinking water. These organisms can be destroyed or inactivated by solar Disinfection. This is a natural process of elimination of disease producing microorganisms using solar energy and can be applied to disinfect small quantity of water for drinking purpose. If solar radiation allowed to penetrate in water in a thin layer. the water is disinfected by the combined action of ultraviolet ray and temperature. It has been shown that if water in a transparent bottle is exposed to full sunlight for about 5 hours the water is completely disinfected (EAWAGSANDEC. 1998). The method is not suitable for treatment of large volumes of water containing high turbidity.

3.3 TREATMENT OF ARSENIC CONTAMINATED WATER

3.3.1 General Treatment of arsenic contaminated well water is an alternative option to make use of a huge number of tubewells likely to be declared abandoned for yielding water with high arsenic content. There are several methods available for removal of arsenic from water in large conventional treatment plats. The most commonly used technologies include oxidation, coprecipitation and adsorption onto coagulated flocs, lime treatment, adsorption onto sorptive media, ion exchange resin and membrane techniques (Cheng et al., 1994; Hering et al., 1996, 1997; Kartinen and Martin, 1995; Shen, 1973; Joshi and Chaudhuri, 1996). A detailed review of arsenic removal technologies is presented by Sorg and Logsdon (1978). Jackel (1994) has documented several advances in arsenic removal technologies. In view of the lowering the drinking water standards by USEPA, a review of arsenic removal technologies was made to consider the economic factors involved in implementing lower drinking water standards for arsenic (Chen et al., 1999). Many of the arsenic removal rtechnologies have been discuswses in details in AWWA reference book (Pontious, 1990). A comprehensive review of low-cost, wellwater treatment technologies for arsenic removal with the list of companies and organizations involved in arsenic removal technologies has been compiled by Murcott (2000) with contact detail. Some of these technologies can be reduced in scale and conveniently be applied at household and community levels for the removal of arsenic from contaminated tubewell water. During the last 2-3 years many small scale arsenic removal technologies have been developed, field tested and used under action research programs in Bangladesh and India. This sub-section presents a short review of these technologies with the intention to update the technological development in arsenic removal, understand the problems, prospects and limitations of different treatment processes as alternative water supply options for water supply.

3.3.2 Oxidation Arsenic is present in groundwater in As(III) and AS(V) forms in different proportions. Most treatment methods are effective in removing arsenic in pentavalent form and hence include an oxidation step as preteatment to convert arsenite to arsenate. Arsenite can be oxidized by oxygen, ozone, free chlorine, hypochlorite, permanganate, hydrogen peroxide and fulton's reagent but Atmospheric oxygen, hypochloride and permanganate are commonly used for oxidation in developing countries. Air oxidation of arsenic is very slow and can take weeks for oxidation (Pierce and Moore, 1982) but chemicals like chlorine and permanganate can rapidly oxidize arsenite to arsenate under wide range of conditions. Passive Sedimentation Passive sedimentation received considerable attention because of rural people's habit of drinking stored water from pitchers. Oxidation of water during collection and subsequent storage in houses may cause a reduction in arsenic concentration in stored water(Bashi Pani). Experiments conducted in Bangladesh showed no to high reduction in arsenic content by passive sedimentation. Arsenic reduction by plain sedimentation appears to be dependent on water quality particularly the presence of precipitating iron in water. Ahmed et al.(2000) showed that more than 50% reduction in arsenic content is possible by sedimentation of tubewell water containing 380-480 mg/l of alkalinity as CaCO3 and 8-12 mg/L of iron but cannot be relied to reduce arsenic to desired level. Most studies showed a reduction of zero to 25% of the initial concentration of arsenic in groundwater. In rapid assessment of technologies passive sedimentation failed to reduce arsenic to the desired level of 50 g/L in any well (BAMWSP, DFID, WaterAid , 2001). In-situ Oxidation In-situ oxidation of arsenic and iron in the aquifer has been tried under DPHE-Danida Arsenic Mitigation Pilot Project. The aerated tubewell water is stored in a tank and released back into the aquifers through the tubewell by opening a valve in a pipe connecting the water tank to the tubewell pipe under the pump head. The dissolved oxygen in water oxidizes arsenite to less mobile arsenate and also the ferrous iron in the aquifer to ferric iron, resulting a reduction in arsenic content in tubewell water. Experimental results shows that arsenic in the tubewell water following in-situ oxidation is reduced to about half due to underground precipitation and adsorption on ferric iron. Solar Oxidation SORAS is a simple method of solar oxidation of arsenic in transparent bottles to reduce arsenic content of drinking water (Wegelin et al., 2000). Ultraviolet radiation can catalyze the process of oxidation of arsenite in presence of other oxidants like oxygen (Young, 1996). Experiments in Bangladesh show that the process on average can reduce arsenic content of water to about one-

third.

3.3.3 Co-Precipitation and Adsorption Processes Water treatment with coagulants such as aluminium alum, Al2(SO4)3.18H2O, ferric chloride , FeCl3 and ferric sulfate Fe2(SO4)3.7H2O are effective in removing arsenic from water. Ferric salts have been found to be more effective in removing arsenic than alum on a weight basis and effective over a wider range of pH. In both cases pentavalent arsenic can be more effectively removed than trivalent arsenic. In the coagulation-flocculation process aluminium sulfate, or ferric chloride, or ferric sulfate is added and dissolved in water under efficient stirring for one to few minutes. Aluminium or ferric hydroxide micro-flocs are formed rapidly. The water is then gently stirred for few minutes for agglomeration of micro-flocs into larger easily settable flocs. During this flocculation process all kinds of micro-particles and negatively charged ions are attached to the flocs by electrostatic attachment. Arsenic is also adsorbed onto coagualted flocs. As trivalent arsenic occurs in nonionized form, it is not subject to significant removal. Oxidation of As(III) to As(V) is thus required as a pretreatment for efficient removal. This can be achieved by addition of bleaching powder (chlorine) or potassium permanganate. Arsenic removal is dependent on pH. In alum coagulation, the removal is most effective in the pH range 7.2-7.5 and in iron coagulation, efficient removal is achieved in a wider pH range usually between 6.0 and 8.5 (Ahmed and Rahaman, 2000).

Bucket Treatment Unit The Bucket Treatment Unit (BTU), developed by DPHE-Danida Project is based on the principles of coagulation, co-precipitation, and adsorption processes. The unit consists of two bucket, each 20 liter capacity, placed one above the other. Chemicals are mixed manually with arsenic contaminated water in the upper red bucket by vigorous stirring with a wooden stick for 30 to 60 seconds and then flocculated by gentle stirring for about 90 second. The mixed water is then allowed to settle for 1- 2 hours. The water from the top red bucket is then allowed to flow into the lower green bucket via plastic pipe and a sand filter installed in the lower bucket. The flow is initiated by opening a valve fitted slightly above the bottom of the red bucket to avoid inflow of settled sludge in the upper bucket. The lower green bucket is practically a treated water container. The DPHE-Danida project in Bangladesh distributed several thousands BTU units in rural areas of Bangladesh. These unit are based on chemical doses of 200 mg/L aluminum sulfate and 2 mg/L of potassium permanganate supplied in crushed powder form. The units were reported to have very good performance in arsenic removal in both field and laboratory conditions (Sarkar et al., 2000 and Kohnhorst and Paul, 2000). Extensive study of DPHE-Danida BTU under BAMWSP, DFID, WaterAid (2001) rapid assessment program showed mixed results. In many

cases, the units under rural operating conditions fails to remove arsenic to the desired level of 0.05 mg/L in Bangladesh. Poor mixing and variable water quality particularly pH of groundwater in different locations of Bangladesh appeared to be the cause of poor performance in rapid assessment. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) modified the BTU and obtained better results by using 100 mg/L of ferric chloride and 1.4 mg/L of potassium permanganate in modified BTU units. The arsenic contents of treated water were mostly below 20 ppb and never exceeded 37 ppb while arsenic concentrations of tubewell water varied between 375 to 640 ppb. The BTU is a promising technology for arsenic removal at household level at low cost. It can be build by locally available materials and is effective in removing arsenic if operated properly. Stevens Institute Technology This technology also uses two buckets, one to mix chemicals (reported to be iron sulphate and calcium hypochloride) supplied in packets and the other to separate flocs by the processes of sedimentation and filtration. The second bucket has a second inner bucket with slits on the sides as shown in Figure 3.14 to help sedimentation and keeping the filter sand bed in place. The chemicals form visible large flocs on mixing by stirring with stick. Rapid assessment showed that the technology was effective in reducing arsenic levels to less than 0.05 mg/L in case of 80 to 95% of the samples tested (BAMWSP, DFID, WaterAid, 2001). The sand bed used for filtration is quickly clogged by flocs and requires washing at least twice a week.

Figure 3.14 : Stevens Institute Technology

BCSIR Filter Unit Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) has developed an arsenic removal system, which uses the process of coagulation/co-precipitation with a iron based chemical followed by sand filtration. The unit did not take part in a comprehensive evaluation process.

DPHE-Danida Fill and Draw Units It is a community type treatment unit designed and installed under DPHE-Danida Arsenic Mitigation Pilot Project. It is 600L capacity (effective) tank with slightly tapered bottom for collection and withdraw of settled sludge. The tank is fitted with a manually operated mixer with flat-blade impellers. The tank is filled with arsenic contaminated water and required quantity of oxidant and coagulant are added to the water. The water is then mixed for 30 seconds by rotating the mixing device at the rate of 60 rpm and left overnight for sedimentation. The water takes some times to become completely still which helps flocculation. The floc formation is caused by the hydraulic gradient of the rotating water in the tank. The settled water is then drawn through a pipe fitted at a level few inches above the bottom of the tank and passed through a sand bed and finally collected through a tap for drinking purpose as shown in Figure 3.15. The mixing and flocculation processes in this unit are better controlled to effect higher removal of arsenic. The experimental units installed by DPHE-Danida project are serving the clusters of families and educational institutions. The principles of arsenic removal by alum coagulation, sedimentation and filtration have been employed in a compact unit for water treatment in the village level in West Bengal, India. The arsenic removal plant attached to hand tubewell as shown in Figure 3.16 has been found effective in removing 90 percent arsenic from tubewell water having initial arsenic concentration of 300 g/l. The treatment process involves addition of sodium hypochloride (Cl2), and aluminium alum in diluted form, mixing, flocculation, sedimentation and up flow filtration in a compact unit.

Figure 3.15 : DPHE-Danida Fill and Draw Arsenic Removal Unit Attached to Tubewell

Fig. 3.16 Arsenic Removal Plants Attached to Tubewell (Designed and Constructed in India)

Naturally Occurring Iron The use of naturally occurring iron precipitates in groundwater in Bangladesh is a promising method of removing arsenic by adsorption. It has been found that hand tubewell water in 65% of the area in Bangladesh contains iron in excess of 2 mg/l and in many acute iron problem areas, the concentration of dissolved iron is higher than 15 mg/l. Although no good correlation between concentrations of iron and arsenic has been derived, iron and arsenic have been found to co-exist in groundwater. Most of the Tubewell water samples satisfying Bangladesh Drinking Water Standard for Iron (1 mg/l) also satisfy the standard for Arsenic (50 g/l). Only about 50% of the samples having iron content 1 - 5 mg/l satisfy the standard for arsenic while 75% of the samples having iron content > 5 mg/l are unsafe for having high concentration of arsenic. The iron precipitates [Fe (OH)3] formed by oxidation of dissolved iron [Fe(OH)2] present in groundwater, as discussed above, have the affinity for the adsorption of arsenic. Only aeration and sedimentation of tubewell water rich in dissolved iron has been found to remove arsenic. The Iron Removal Plants (IRPs) in Bangladesh constructed on the principles of aeration, sedimentation and filtration in a small units have been found to remove arsenic without any

added chemicals. The conventional community type IRPs, depending on the operating principles, more or less work as Arsenic Removal Plants (ARPs) as well. A study suggests that As(III) is oxidized to As(V) in the IRPs to facilitate higher efficiency in arsenic removal in IRPs constructed in Noakhali (Dahi and Liang, 1998). The Fe-As removal relationship with good correlation in some operating IRPs has been plotted in Figure 3.17. Results shows that most IRPs can lower arsenic content of tubewell water to half to one-fifth of the original concentrations. The efficiency of these community type Fe-As removal plants can be increased by increasing the contact time between arsenic species and iron flocs. Community participation in operation and maintenance in the local level is absolutely essential for effective use of these plants.

Fig. 3.17 Correlation between Fe and As Removal in Treatment Plants Some medium scale Fe-As removal plants of capacities 2000-3000 m3/d have been constructed for water supplies in district towns based on the same principle. The treatment processes involved include aeration, sedimentation and rapid sand filtration with provision for addition of chemical, if required. These plants are working well except that treated water requirement for washing the filter beds is very high. Operations of small and medium size IRP-cum-ARPs in Bangladesh suggest that arsenic removal by co-precipitation and adsorption on natural iron flocs has good potential.

3.3.4 Sorptive Filtration Media Several sorptive media have been reported to remove arsenic from water. These are activated alumina, activated carbon, iron and manganese coated sand. kaolinite clay, hydrated ferric oxide, activated bauxite, titanium oxide, silicium oxide and many natural and synthetic media. The efficiency of all some sorptive media depend on the use of oxidizing agent as aids to sorption of arsenic. Saturation of media by different contaminants and components of water takes place at

different times of operation depending on the specific sorption affinity of the medium to the given component.Saturation means that the efficiency in removing the desired impurities becomes zero. Activated Alumina Activated alumina, Al2O3, having good sorptive surface is an effective medium for arsenic removal. When water passes through a packed column of activated alumina, the impurities including arsenic present in water are adsorbed on the surfaces of activated alumina grains. Eventually the column becomes saturated, first at its upstream zone and later the saturated zone moves downstream towards the bottom end and finally the column gets totally saturated. Regeneration of saturated alumina is carried out by exposing the medium to 4% caustic soda, NaOH, either in batch or by flow through the column resulting in a high arsenic contaminated caustic waste water. The residual caustic soda is then washed out and the medium is neutralized with a 2% solution of sulfuric acid rinse. During the process about 5-10% alumina is lost and the capacity of the regenerated medium is reduced by 30-40%. The activated alumina needs replacement after 3-4 regeneration. Like coagulation process, pre-chlorination improves the column capacity dramatically. Some of the activated alumina based sorptive media used in Bangladesh include:

BUET Activated Alumina Alcan Enhanced Activated Alumina ARU of Project Earth Industries Inc.,USA Apyron Arsenic Treatment Unit

The BUET and Alcan activated alumina have been extensively tested in field condition in different areas of Bangladesh under rapid assessment and found very effective in arsenic removal (BAMWSP, DFID, WaterAid ,2001). The Arsenic Removal Units (ARUs) of Project Earth Industries Inc. (USA) used hybrid aluminas and composite metal oxides as adsorption media and were able to treat 200-500 Bed Volume (BV) of water containing 550 g/L of arsenic and 14 mg/L of iron (Ahmed et al., 2000). The Apyron Technologies Inc. (ATI) also uses inorganic granular metal oxide based media that can selectively remove As(III) and As(V) from water. The Aqua-BindTM arsenic media used by ATI consist of non-hazardous aluminium oxide and manganese oxide for cost-effective removal of arsenic. The proponents claimed that the units installed in India and Bangladesh consistently reduced arsenic to less than 10g/L. Granular Ferric Hydroxide M/S Pal Trockner (P) Ltd, India and Sidko Limited, Bangladesh installed several Granular Ferric Hydroxide based arrsenic removal units in India and Bangladesh. The Granular Ferric Hydroxide (AdsorpAs) is arsenic selective abdsorbent developed by Technical University, Berlin, Germany. The unit requires iron removal as pre-treatment to avoid clogging of filter bed. The proponents of the unit claims to have very high arsenic removal capacity and produces non-toxic spent granular ferric hydroxide

Read-F Arsenic Removal Unit Read-F is an adsorbent produced and promoted by Shin Nihon Salt Co. Ltd, Japan for arsenic removal in Bangladesh. Read-F displays high selectivity for arsenic ions under a broad range of conditions and effectively adsorbs both arsenite and arsenate without the need for pretreatment. The Read-F is Ethylene-Vinyl Alcohol Copolymer (EVOH) -borne hydrous cerium oxide in which hydrous cerium oxide ( CeO2 n H2O), is the adsorbent. The material contains no organic solvent or other volatile substance and is not classified as hazardous material. Laboratory test at BUET and field testing of the materials at 4 sites under the supervision of BAMWSP showed that the adsorbent is highly efficient in removing arsenic from groundwater (SNSCL, 2000). Iron Coated Sand BUET has constructed and tested iron coated sand based small scale unit for the removal of arsenic from groundwater. Iron coated sand has been prepared following the procedure similar to that adopted by Joshi and Choudhuri ( 1996). The iron content of the iron coated sand was found to be 25 mg/g of sand. Raw water having 300 g/L of arsenic when filtered through iron coated sand becomes significantly arsenic-free. It was found that the number of bed volume that can be treated satisfying the Bangladesh drinking water standard of 50 ppb arsenic was around 350. The saturated medium is regenerated by passing 0.2N sodium hydroxide through the column or soaking the sand in 0.2N sodium hydroxide followed by washing with distilled water. No significant change in bed volume (BV) in arsenic removal was found after 5 regeneration cycles. It was interesting to note that iron coated sand is equally effective in removing both As(III) and As(V). Shapla Filter Shapla filter, a household arsenic removal unit, has been designed with iron coated brick dust as an adsorption medium and works on the same principles as iron coated sand described above. The unit is effective in removing arsenic from drinking water. Indigenous Filters There are several filters available in Bangladesh that use indigenous material as arsenic adsorbent. Red soil rich in oxidized iron, clay minerals, iron ore, iron scrap or fillings, processed cellulose materials are known to have capacity for arsenic adsorption. Some of the filters manufactured using these material include:

Sono 3-Kolshi Filter, Granet Home-made Filter, Chari Filter, Adarsha Filter, Shafi Filter, and Bijoypur Clay/Processed Cellulose filter.

The Sono 3-Kolshi filter uses zero valent iron fillings and coarse sand in the top Kolshi, wood coke and fine sand in the middle Kolshi while the bottom Kolshi is the collector of the filtered water (Khan et al., 2000). Earlier Nikolaidis and Lackovic (1998) showed that 97 % arsenic can be removed by adsorption on a mixture of zero valent iron fillings and sand and recommended that arsenic species could have been removed through formation of co-precipitates, mixed precipitates and by adsorption onto the ferric hydroxide solids. The Sono 3-Kolshi unit has been found to be very effective in removing arsenic but the media habour growth of microorganism (BAMWSP, DFID and WaterAid, 2001). The one-time use unit becomes quickly clogged, if groundwater contains excessive iron. The Garnet home-made filter contains relatively inert materials like brick chips and sand as filtering media. No chemical is added to the system. Air oxidation and adsorption on iron-rich brick chips and flocs of naturally present iron in groundwater could be the reason for arsenic removal from groundwater. The unit produced inadequate quantity of water and did not show reliable results in different areas of Bangladesh and under different operating conditions. The Chari filter also uses brick chips and inert aggregates in different Charis as filter media. The effectiveness of this filter in arsenic removal is not known. The Shafi and Adarsh filters use calyey material as filter media in the form of candle. The Shafi filter was reported to have good arsenic removal capacity but suffered from clogging of filter media. The Adarsha filter participated in the rapid assessment program but failed to meet the technical criterion of reducing arsenic to acceptable level (BAMWSP, DFID and WaterAid, 2000). Bijoypur clay and treated cellulose were also found to adsorb arsenic from water (Khair, 2000). Cartridge Filters Filter units with cartridges filled with soptive media or ion-exchange resins are readily available in the market. These unit remove arsenic like any other dissolved ions present in water. These units are not suitable for water having high impurities and iron in water. Presence of ions having higher affinity than arsenic can quickly saturate the media requiring regeneration or replacement. Two household filters were tested at BUET laboratories, These are:

Chiyoda Arsenic Removal Unit, Japan Coolmart Water Purifier, Korea.

The Chiyoda Arsenic Removal Unit could treat 800 BV meeting the WHO guideline value of 10 g/L and 1300 BV meeting the Bangladesh Standard of 50 g/L when the feed water arsenic concentration was 300 g/L. The coolmart Water Purifier could treat only 20L of water with a effluent arsenic content of 25g/L (Ahmed et al., 2000). The initial and operation costs of these units are high and beyond the reach of the rural people. 3.3.5 Ion Exchange The process is similar to that of activated alumina, just the medium is a synthetic resin of more well defined ion exchange capacity. The process is normally used for removal of specific

undesirable cation or anion from water. As the resin becomes exhausted, it needs to be regenerated. The arsenic removal capacity is dependent on sulfate and nitrate contents of raw water as sufate and nitrate are exchanged before arsenic. The ion exchange process is less dependent on pH of water. The efficiency of ion exchange process is radically improved by pre-oxidation of As(III) to As(V) but the excess of oxidant often needs to be removed before the ion exchange in order to avoid the damage of sensitive resins. Development of ion specific resin for exclusive removal of arsenic can make the process very attractive. Tetrahedron ion exchange resin filter tested under rapid assessment program in Bangladesh (BAMWSP, DFID and WaterAid, 2001) showed promising results in arsenic removal. The system needs pre-oxidation of arsenite by sodium hypochloride. The residual chlorine helps to minimize bacterial growth in the media. The saturated resin requires regeneration by recirculating NaCl solution. The liquid wastes rich in salt and arsenic produced during regeneration require special treatment. Some other ion exchange resins were demonstrated in Bangladesh but sufficient field test results are not available on the performance of those resins.

3.3.6 Membrane Techniques Membrane techniques like reverse osmosis, nonofiltration and electrodialysis are capable of removing all kinds of dissolved solids including arsenic from water. In this process water is allowed to pass through special filter media which physically retain the impurities present in water. The water, for treatment by membrane techniques, shall be free from suspended solids and the arsenic in water shall be in pentavalent form. Most membranes, however, can not withstand oxidizing agent. MRT-1000 and Reid System Ltd. Jago Corporation Limited promoted a household reverse osmosis water dispenser MRT-1000 manufactured by B & T Science Co. Limited, Taiwan. This system was tested at BUET and showed a arsenic (III) removal efficiency more than 80%. A wider spectrum reverse osmosis system named Reid System Limited was also promoted in Bangladesh. Experimental results showed that the system could effectively reduce arsenic content along with other impurities in water. The capital and operational costs of the reverse osmosis system would be relatively high. Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis The reverse osmosis (R/O) and nanofiltration (N/F) technologies can separate 95-98% of total dissolved solids including arsenic but it is relatively costly. In recent years, a new generation of R/O and N/F membranes have been introduced by Techno-food in Bangladesh which is less expensive and is being commercially used in industry, hotel and public water supplies. Technofood membrane technology can remove arsenic and all other impurities present in water including bacteria at a pressure of 50-150 psi. This method of arsenic removal does not require

any chemicals and Operation and maintenance requirements are minimum. The Techno-food water technologies section has marketed several models of R/O and N/F units of various water treatment capacities. Oh et al.(2000) applied reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membrane processes for the treatment of arsenic contaminated water applying low pressure by bicycle pump. A nanofiltration membrane process coupled with a bicycle pump could be operated under condition of low recovery and low pressure range from 0.2 to 0.7 MPa. Arsenite was found to have lower rejection than arsenate in ionized forms and hence water containing higher arsenite requires preoxidation for reduction of total arsenic acceptable level. In tubewell water in Bangladesh the average ratio of arsenite to total arsenic was found to be 0.25. However, the reverse osmosis process coupled with a bicycle pump system operating at 4 MPa can be used for arsenic removal because of its high arsenite rejection. The study concluded that low-pressure nanofiltration with pre-oxidation or reverse osmosis with a bicycle pump device could be used for the treatment of arsenic contaminated groundwater in rural areas (Oh et al., 2000).

3.3.7 Summary A remarkable technological development in arsenic removal from rural water supply based on conventional arsenic removal processes has taken place during last 2-3 years. A comparison of different arsenic removal processes is shown in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 A Comparison of Main Arsenic Removal Technologies

Technologies Oxidation/ Precipitation

Advantages

Disadvantages

Air Oxidation Chemical oxidation

Relatively simple, low-cost but slow process Relatively simple and rapid process Oxidizes other impurities and kills microbes

The processes remove only a part of arsenic

Coagulation Coprecipitation :

Alum Coagulation

Relatively low capital cost, Relatively simple operation Common Chemicals

Produces toxic sludges Low removal of As(III) Preoxidation may be required

Iron Coagulation

available Relatively well known and commercially available Well defined technique Plenty possibilities and scope of development Produces toxic solid waste Replacement/regeneration required High tech operation and maintenance Relatively high cost Very high capital and running cost High tech operation and maintenance Toxic wastewater produced

Sorption Techniques

Actvated Alumina Iron Coated Sand Ion Exchange Resin Other Sorbents

Membrane Techniques

Nanofiltration Reverse osmosis Electrodialysis

Well defined and high removal efficiency No toxic solid wastes produced Capable of removal of other contaminants

A rapid assessment of 9 household level arsenic removal technologies has been completed recently (BAMWSP, DFID and Wateraid, 2000). On the basis of this study the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project (BAWSP) has recently recommended the following household arsenic removal technologies for experimental use in arsenic affected areas:

Alcan Enhanced Activated Alumina BUET Activated Alumina Sono 3-Kolshi Method Stevens Institute technology.

The widely used DPHE/Danida two bucket system and Tetrahedron ion exchange resin filters will be reviewed when more information on performance of the systems and its revised version are available. Few more technologies in addition to technologies described in this paper are available for arsenic removal at household and community levels. These technologies need evaluation in respect of effectiveness in arsenic removal and community acceptance. All the technologies described in this paper have their merits and demerits and are being refined to make suitable in rural condition. The modifications based on the pilot-scale implementation of the technologies are in progress with the objectives to:

improve effectiveness in arsenic removal, reduce the capital and operation cost of the systems,

make the technology user friendly, overcome maintenance problems, and resolve sludge and arsenic concentrates management problems.

Arsenic removal technologies have to compete with other technologies in which cost appears to a major determinant in the selection of a treatment option by the users. The rural people habituated in drinking tubewell water may find arsenic removal from tubewell water as a suitable option for water supply. In many arsenic affected areas, arsenic removal may be the only option in the absence of an alternative safe source of water supply.

3.4 PIPED WATER SUPPLY Piped water supply is the ultimate goal of safe water supply to the consumer because:

Water can be delivered to the close proximity of the consumers Piped water is protected from external contamination Better quality control is possible Water of required quantity can be collected at ease.

In respect of convenience in collection and use, only piped water can compete with existing system of tubewell water supply. But it is a very difficult and costly option for scattered population in the rural areas. It can be a feasible option for clustered rural settlements and urban fringes. Water can be made available through house connection, yard connection or standpost depending on the financial condition of the consumers. The water can be produced as per demand by sinking deep tubewell in arsenic-safe aquifer or treatment of surface or even arsenic contaminated tubewell water by community type treatment plants. A rural piped water supply system with provision for supplying water for irrigation installed by DPHE, UNICEF, BRAC and RDA, Bogra at Pakunda in Sonargaon Upazila and inaugurated by the Honable Minister, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives on 6 January, 2002 is shown in Figure 3.18. The system constructed at a cost of Taka 1 944 880 provides arsenic safe water to 419 households for all domestic purposes.

3.5 SCREENING AND MONITORING 3.5.1 Screening The arsenic content of water of tubewells within short distances varies widely in many palces. This is probably due to variation in the depth of tubewells and geoenvironmental conditions of the strata of aquifers from which the tubewells abstract water. As a result, the levels of contamination in an area cannot be accurately predicted by testing of water of sample tubewells. Screening of all tubewells in the country is needed to identify the contaminated tubewell. Government of Bangladesh has decided to test arsenic content of water produced by all tubewells to identify the safe and unsafe tubewells. Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project and UNICEF have so far completed screening of all tubewells of 41 Upazillas and 5 Upazilas

respectively. The estimated cost of field test kit only for the screening of estimated 7.5 million tubewells in the country is given below: Number of Tubewell : 7.5 Million ( Estimated) Average number of tubewels can be tested by a Kit (100 test capacity) : 80 Number of Kits Required : 7 500 000/80 = 93 750 Average Cost of an Arsenic Test Kit : Tk 2 500 ( Assumed) Cost of Test Kit : Tk. 2 500 x 93 750 = Tk. 234 375 000 Tk 234 Million The number of contaminated tubewells estimated on the basis of sample survey conducted by BGS and DPHE (2001) is 1.875 million which is 25% of the total estimated 7.5 million tubewells in Bangladesh. The present cost of this 1.875 million tubewells is Taka 8.44 billion. The significant deviations in intensity of contaminated tubewells by total screening from BGS/DPHE values justify the national screening program.

2. Monitoring The estimated 5.625 million manually operated deep and shallow tubewells still supplying water with arsenic below national standard to 83 million people in the country are vulnerable to arsenic contamination in future. No mathematical model can correctly predict the possible or probable time of contamination of these tubewells. In this situation, monitoring is the only way to know whether the tubewell is contaminated or not. The estimated cost of field kits for monitoring of the safe tubewells once in a year is given below: Monitoring Frequency : 1 Sample/year/Arsenic Safe Tubewell Number of Uncontaminated Tubewell : 7 500 000 x 0.73 = 5 625 000 Number of Kits Required : 5 475 000/80 = 70 313 Cost of Test Kit : Tk. 70 313 x 2 500 =Tk. 175 782 500 Tk. 176 Million

Since estimated 87% tubewells are likely to be privately owned, testing of water for arsenic should be the responsibility of the owner. The testing of tubewell water once in a year should be made mandatory and test facility should be available locally, preferably at the lowest level of the Local Government body.

5. COSTS A variety of alternative technological options as discussed in this section is available for water supply in the arsenic affected areas. The cost of arsenic mitigation will depend on the type of alternative technologies adopted for mitigation of the arsenic problem. The costs of installation and operation of some major technological options available from various organization involved in arsenic mitigation are summarized in Table 3.3. Table 3.3 Costs of Installation and Operation and Manitenance of Different Options.
Alternative Technological options Unit Cost, Taka No. of Family (hh) /Unit (Family Size = 5) Rainwater Harvesting Dug/Ring Well Deep Tubewell Pond Sand Filters Surface Water Treatment Unit Piped Water Supply 1 850 000 375 000 1808 469 1 000 100 419 (1301hh) 6 000 25 370 750 786 20 10.75 21.75 22.79 35 000 50 140 4 -10 4.06 45 000 50 180 1 5.22 6 200 1 Installation O&M Cost/Person /Year, Taka Total Capital Cost for 29million People, BillionTaka

Cost /person
Taka 1 240

20

35.90

35 000

25

280

8.12

750 000

1 000

150

95

4.35

Arsenic Removal

12 000 000 75 000

400 600

5 -10 40

11.60 17.40

450-2 500 -Urban Supply -Community type -Household

90-500

10-60

2.61-14.50

The quality and quantity of water, reliability, cost and convenience of collection of water of the different alternative options vary widely. Among the cheaper options providing water at a cost of 4 to 5 billion Taka to 29 million arsenic-exposed population, the deep tubewell can provide water at nominal operation and maintenance cost. But deep tubewells are not feasible, nor able to provide arsenic free water at all places in Bangladesh. Dug/ring well is the next option, which can provide water at moderate installation and nominal O & M cost. It is not yet fully known whether the quality of water can be maintained at desired level and arsenic content remains at safe level under conditions of proper sanitary protection. Piped water supply can be provided at a higher cost and relatively higher O & M costs but the convenience and health benefits would be enormous. Because water of adequate quantity and relatively superior quality for all domestic purposes including sanitation will be available at residences or close proximity of the residences. The increase in the number of household reduces costs but it would be difficult to get clustered houses in most places in rural areas. The installation costs of arsenic removal varies from lowest to moderate but O & M costs would be a constant burden. It may be observed that cost of installation and operation of rainwater harvesting system at household level with about only 50% reliability are very high. Installation of community rainwater harvesting system may be cheaper but management of such a system may be difficult.

WATER

WATER SHORTAGE IN INDIA AND DISEASES CAUSED Water scarcity in India is widespread in all states. Even in states like Karnataka where we are proud to say that infrastructure is the best, there is water shortage affecting the school children also. Around 65% of primary schools lack basic drinking water facilities. The toilets are found in neglected condition in 75% of the schools. Though Rs350cr have been allotted for the improvement, lack of good implementation programs in a scheduled manner has not given good results. Meals are provided to several lakhs of children but due to lack of tap water supply, they are not up to the mark. As the water drawn from the well, rivers, and ponds are not adequately hygienic, water borne diseases like Hepatitis B have sprung up. Rotary club and Lions club have come forward to arrange camps in various parts of India to combat this. At free of cost they give medicines, injection and medical advice in places like Neyveli Township. The common attacks due to the ill conditioned water in India are Hepatitis A, B, C and E viruses. Around 3% in India fall a prey to Hepatitis B. Around 2% are affected by Hepatitis C virus which attacks the bones. From these persons it is spread to various regions monstrously in India says the experts. A common man in India cannot bear the expenses for Hepatitis C treatment. So the philanthropists and service minded organizations like Lions club, Rotary club render their helping hands throughout India. Since proper treatment is not given to water before it enters the kitchen, hotels, hospitals and schools, many in Chennai are affected due to Hepatitis E, treacherous water borne virus. In some schools like Christian college school in Chetput, Chennai, they conduct visual education classes to teach the various ways in which water gets contaminated. In Tamil nadu, an area called Nellikuppum, sugarcane is grown in abundance and a, sugar factory engages many thousands round the clock. In this area more than 50 were recently attacked due to impure water resulting in Water gets contaminated. In Tamil nadu in a place called Nellikuppam sugar cane is grown abundantly and a huge sugar factory is also located. In this more than 50 were reported attacked by dysentery, vomiting etc. They suspected it to aftermaths of Tsunami and contamination of ground water. Though the health authorities assured the public that all care were taken to monitor the water contamination, the agitation shot up as more and more were admitted in government health centers and hospitals. The people suspected that municipal authorities have failed to clear the garbage, human and animal wastes in many areas of Cuddalore which had caused this calamity. More than 3 persons died due to acute cholera type of amoebasis. To fight all waterborne diseases in Tamilnadu, 20 panchayat unions have conducted medical camps in Tiruvannamalai district. ECG, blood, urine, were conducted for one and all. Immediate actions were taken to curb any virus attacks.

The statistics also says that 609500 children die from poor hygiene in India which is the highest in the world. This poor hygiene emanates TB, cholera, filaria, cancer etc. in India. In Kerala a few medical practitioners and patients are reported dead due to virus in water. The National Virology Institute, Pune had taken steps to analyze the situation. The incidence had also disturbed the political leaders in Trissur, Alapuzha and Kasaragod where pollution had taken place. Hepatitis A was found and spread heavily in Trissur district. A woman was also reported dead due to attack of jaundice. Kerala is famous for ayurveda treatment. Kottakal Ayurveda Salai has branches all over India. They have very effective medicines for all water borne diseases. They have no side effects and many VIPs including the former Prime Minister prefer this simple treatment given in Kerala. In most the cases, ground water is found over drawn by industries manufacturing artificial drinks like Kali cola, Fruitnik, Frooti, Goldspot etc. The govt. has issued several notices to such companies, but still they continue doing it to spoil the water beds. So the govt. has introduced a device which will stop the flow of water pumped out by electric motors in rural areas. Works on infiltration wells in Palar River has helped the people in Vellore, Tamil Nadu to get additional supply of drinking water. Along with various states, Chennai city is drastically affected by good water supply. The reservoirs built long back are unable to meet the demands of rising population. The residents mainly depend upon water tankers which supply 4000 trips/day. The reservoir level is very low to meet the demands of 60 lakhs in Chennai. Only selected areas get alternate day supply of water around 600 million liters. This water will be yellow in color and sometimes brown fully revealing the contamination in it. Hence all 60 lakhs residents go after mineral water only. This is a zooming industry due to water scarcity everywhere.
3.

Summers are here and the cities in India are already complaining about water shortage not to mention many villages which lack safe drinking water. In the list of 122 countries rated on quality of portable water, India ranks a lowly 120.Although India has 4% of the worlds water, studies show average availability is shrinking steadily. It is estimated that by 2020, India will become a water-stressed nation. Nearly 50% of villages still dont have any source of protected drinking water. According to 2001 census 68.2% households have access to safe drinking water. The department of drinking water supply estimates that 94% of rural habitations and 91% urban households have access to drinking water. But according to experts these figures are misleading simply because coverage refers to installed capacity and not actual supply. The ground reality is that of the 1.42 million villages in India, 1, 95,813 are affected by chemical contamination of water. The quality of ground water which accounts of more than 85% of domestic supply is a major problem in many areas as none of the rivers have water fit to drink. 37.7 million People over 75% of whom are children are afflicted by waterborne diseases every year. Overdependence on groundwater has brought in contaminants, fluoride being one of them.

Nearly 66 million people in 20 states are at risk because of the excessive fluoride in water. While the permissible limit of fluoride in water is 1 mg per litre in states like Haryana it is as high as 48 mg in some places. Delhi water too has 32 mg.But the worst hits are Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 6 million children below 14 suffer from dental, skeletal and non-skeletal fluorosis. Arsenic is the other big killer lurking in ground water putting at risk nearly 10 million people. The problem is acute in Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Paraganas, Malda and Vardhaman districts of West Bengal. The deeper aquifers in the entire Gangetic plains contain arsenic. High nitrate content in water is another serious concern.Fertilizers, septic tanks, sewage tanks etc are the main sources of nitrate contamination. The groundwater in MP, UP, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Kanataka and Tamil Nadu has shown traces of nitrates. However it is bacteriological contamination which leads to diarrhoea, cholera and hepatitis which is widespread in India. A bacteriological analysis of the water in Bangalore revealed 75% bore wells were contaminated.Iron; hardness and salinity are also a concern. Nearly 12,500 habitats have been affected by salinity. In Gujarat it is a major problem in coastel districts. Often babies die of dehydration and there are major fights in villages for freshwater. Some villages have seen 80% migration due to high salinity. Health is not the only issue; impure water is a major burden on the state as well. Till the 10th plan the government had spent Rs 1,105 billion on drinking water schemes. Yet it is the poor who pay a heavier price spending around Rs 6700 crore annually on treatment of waterborne diseases. There is an urgent need to look for alternative sources of portable water in places where water quality has deteriorated sharply. Community based water quality monitoring guidelines should be encouraged. People should be encouraged to look at traditional methods of protecting water sources. Also in places where groundwater has arsenic or fluoride, surface water should be considered as an alternative.
4.

Report: India's Water Economy, Bracing for a Turbulent Future

India faces a turbulent water future. Unless water management practices are changed and changed soon India will face a severe water crisis within the next two decades and will have neither the cash to build new infrastructure nor the water needed by its growing economy and rising population.

A draft World Bank report, Indias Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future, by John Briscoe, Senior Water Advisor at the World Bank, examines the challenges facing Indias water sector and suggests critical measures to address them. The report is based on 12 papers commissioned by the World Bank from prominent Indian practitioners and policy analysts. Crumbling Water Infrastructure and Depleting Groundwater Indias past investments in large water infrastructure have yielded spectacular results with enormous gains in food security and in the reduction of poverty. However, much of this infrastructure is now crumbling. Shortfalls in financing have led to an enormous backlog of maintenance. The implicit philosophy has been aptly described as Build-Neglect-Rebuild. Much of what currently masquerades as "investment" in irrigation or municipal water supply is in fact a belated attempt to rehabilitate crumbling infrastructure. Faced with poor water supply services, farmers and urban dwellers alike have resorted to helping themselves by pumping out groundwater through tubewells. Today, 70 percent of Indias irrigation needs and 80 percent of its domestic water supplies come from groundwater. Although this ubiquitous practice has been remarkably successful in helping people to cope in the past, it has led to rapidly declining water tables and critically depleted aquifers, and is no longer sustainable. -- Related Links -Presentation & Text of Report Op-ed: Shoring up India's Water Infrastructure Op-ed: Empowering Users by Giving them Clear Water Entitlements

A number of areas are already in crisis situations: among these are the most populated and economically productive parts of the country. Estimates reveal that by 2020, Indias demand for water will exceed all sources of supply. Notwithstanding the catastrophic consequences of indiscriminate pumping of groundwater, government actions including the provision of free power have exacerbated rather than addressed the problem. Growing Water Conflicts Severe water shortages have already led to a growing number of conflicts across the country. Some 90 percent of Indias territory is drained by interstate rivers. The lack of clear allocation rules, and uncertainty about what water each state has a right to, imposes high economic and environmental costs. Other federal countries which face water scarcity have clearly defined water rights. These include Chile, Mexico, Australia, and South Africa, with Pakistan and China fast putting in place systems of water entitlements. On the international front, India has clearly demarcated water rights with Pakistan through the Indus Waters Treaty. Nationally, promising innovations on entitlements are visible in Noida, Ghaziabad, and Delhi which bought water rights from the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) by financing the lining of canals in UP and in the city of Chennai where water rights were leased from the states farmers. Climate Change Worsens the Scenario Sewage and waste water from rapidly growing cities and effluents from industries have turned many rivers, including major ones, into fetid sewers. Massive investments are needed in sewers and wastewater treatment plants to protect peoples health and improve the environment.

Climate change projections show that Indias water problems are only likely to worsen. With more rain expected to fall in fewer days and the rapid melting of glaciers especially in the western Himalayas India will need to gear up to tackle the increasing incidence of both droughts and floods. Massive Investments Needed There is clearly an urgent need for action. First, India needs a lot more water infrastructure. Compared to other semi-arid countries, India can store relatively small quantities of its fickle rainfall. Whereas Indias dams can store only 200 cu.m.of water per person, other middle-income countries like China, South Africa, and Mexico can store about 1000 cu.m. per capita. New infrastructure needs to be built especially in underserved areas such as the water-rich northeast of the country where investments can transform water from a curse to a blessing. Furthermore India, desperately short of power in peak periods, has utilized only about 20 percent of its economically viable hydropower potential, as compared to 80 percent in developed countries. The country needs to invest in water infrastructure at all levels from large multipurpose water projects to small community watershed management and rainwater harvesting projects. Gearing Up for Tomorrow Importantly, India cannot have a secure water future unless there are drastic changes in the way the state functions. Past attention to infrastructure development has to be complemented with present attention to water resource and infrastructure management. And, policies and practices have to come to grips with the challenges of the future. The state needs to surrender those tasks which it does not need to perform and to develop the capacity to do the many things which only the state can do. Competition needs to be introduced in the provision of basic public water services, bringing in cooperatives and the private sector. The state can then focus on financing public goods such as flood control and sewage treatment and play the role of regulator to balance the interests of users. The state has to define water entitlements at all levels, improve the quality and quantity of data and make these data available to the public, and has to stimulate the formation of user groups at all levels the river basin, the aquifer, and the irrigation district.

5.

Water crisis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Water crisis (disambiguation).

Deforestation of the Madagascar Highland Plateau has led to extensive siltation and unstable flows of western rivers.

Water crisis is a general term used to describe a situation where the available water within a region is less than the region's demand. The term has been used to describe the availability of potable water in a variety of regions by the United Nations and other world organizations.[1][2] Others, for example the Food and Agriculture Organization, said in 2003 that there is no water crisis but steps must be taken to avoid one in the future.[3] The major aspects of the water crisis are allegedly overall scarcity of usable water[4] and water pollution.

Contents
[hide]

1 Research 2 Manifestations 3 Overview of regions suffering crisis impacts 4 Effects on climate 5 Outlook 6 Conventional Fossil or Nuclear Energy Based Desalination 7 Solar Energy Based Desalination 8 Global experiences in managing water crisis 9 See also 10 References 11 Resources 12 External links

[edit] Research
This section may require copy-editing.

According to Nature (2010), about 80% of the world's population (4.8 billion in 2000) live in areas with threats to water security. The water-security is a shared threat to human and nature and it is pandemic. Human water-management strategies can affect detrimentally to wildlife, such as migrating fish. Regions with intensive agriculture and dense population, as the US and Europe, have high threat to water security. The researcher estimate that during 2010-2015, ca US$800 billion will be required to cover the annual global investment in water infrastructure. Good management of water resources can jointly manage biodiversity protection and human water security. Preserving flood plains rather than constructing flood-control reservoirs would provide a cost-effective way to control floods while protecting the biodiversity of wildlife that occupies such areas.[5] The New York Times article, Southeast Drought Study Ties Water Shortage to Population, Not Global Warming, summarizes the findings of Columbia University researcher on the subject of the droughts in the southwest between 2005 and 2007. The findings were published in the Journal of Climate. They say the water shortages resulted from population size more than rainfall. Census figures show that Georgias population rose to 9.54 million from 6.48 million between 1990 and 2007.[6] After studying data from weather instruments, computer models and measurements of tree rings which reflect rainfall, they found that the droughts were not unprecedented and result from normal climate patterns and random weather events. Similar droughts unfolded over the last thousand years, the researchers wrote. Regardless of climate change, they added, similar weather patterns can be expected regularly in the future, with similar results.[6] As the temperature increases, rainfall in the Southeast will increase but because of evaporation the area may get even drier. The researchers concluded with a statement saying that any rainfall comes from complicated internal processes in the atmosphere that are very hard to predict because of the large amount of variables. Lawrence Smith, the president of the population institute, asserts that although an overwhelming majority of the planet is composed of water, 97% of this water is constituted of saltwater; the fresh water used to sustain humans is only 3% of the total amount of water on Earth (Hoevel). Therefore, Smith believes that the competition for water in an overpopulated world would pose a major threat to human stability (Hoevel); indeed, world wars may be fought over the control of thinning ice sheets and nearly desiccated reservoirs.[7] 2 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990.[8] The proportion of people in developing countries with access to safe water is calculated to have improved from 30 percent in 1970[9] to 71 percent in 1990, 79 percent in 2000 and 84 percent in 2004, parallel with rising population. This trend is projected to continue.[8] The Earth has a limited supply of fresh water, stored in aquifers, surface waters and the atmosphere. Sometimes oceans are mistaken for available water, but the amount of energy needed to convert saline water to potable water is prohibitive today, explaining why only a very small fraction of the world's water supply derives from desalination.[10]

[edit] Manifestations
There are several principal manifestations of the water crisis.

Inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people[11] Inadequate access to water for sanitation and waste disposal for 2.5 billion people[12] Groundwater overdrafting (excessive use) leading to diminished agricultural yields[13] Overuse and pollution of water resources harming biodiversity Regional conflicts over scarce water resources sometimes resulting in warfare

Waterborne diseases and the absence of sanitary domestic water are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. For children under age five, waterborne diseases are the leading cause of death. At any given time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from waterborne diseases.[14] According to the World Bank, 88 percent of all waterborne diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.[15] Water is the underlying tenuous balance of safe water supply, but controllable factors such as the management and distribution of the water supply itself contribute to further scarcity. A 2006 United Nations report focuses on issues of governance as the core of the water crisis, saying "There is enough water for everyone" and "Water insufficiency is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and a shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure".[16] Official data also shows a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita.[17] It has also been claimed, primarily by economists, that the water situation has occurred because of a lack of property rights, government regulations and subsidies in the water sector, causing prices to be too low and consumption too high.[18][19][20] Vegetation and wildlife are fundamentally dependent upon adequate freshwater resources. Marshes, bogs and riparian zones are more obviously dependent upon sustainable water supply, but forests and other upland ecosystems are equally at risk of significant productivity changes as water availability is diminished. In the case of wetlands, considerable area has been simply taken from wildlife use to feed and house the expanding human population. But other areas have suffered reduced productivity from gradual diminishing of freshwater inflow, as upstream sources are diverted for human use. In seven states of the U.S. over 80 percent of all historic wetlands were filled by the 1980s, when Congress acted to create a no net loss of wetlands. In Europe extensive loss of wetlands has also occurred with resulting loss of biodiversity. For example many bogs in Scotland have been developed or diminished through human population expansion. One example is the Portlethen Moss in Aberdeenshire. On Madagascars highland plateau, a massive transformation occurred that eliminated virtually all the heavily forested vegetation in the period 1970 to 2000. The slash and burn agriculture eliminated about ten percent of the total countrys native biomass and converted it to a barren wasteland. These effects were from overpopulation and the necessity to feed poor indigenous peoples, but the adverse effects included widespread gully erosion that in turn produced heavily silted rivers that run red decades after the deforestation. This eliminated a large amount of usable fresh water and also destroyed much of the riverine ecosystems of several large west-

flowing rivers. Several fish species have been driven to the edge of extinction and some, such as, the disturbed Tokios, coral reef formations in the Indian Ocean are effectively lost. In October 2008, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and former chief executive of Nestl, warned that the production of biofuels will further deplete the world's water supply.

[edit] Overview of regions suffering crisis impacts

Two abandoned ships in the former Aral Sea, near Aral, Kazakhstan.

There are many other countries of the world that are severely impacted with regard to human health and inadequate drinking water. The following is a partial list of some of the countries with significant populations (numerical population of affected population listed) whose only consumption is of contaminated water:[21]

Sudan 12.3 million Venezuela 5.0 million Ethiopia 2.7 million Tunisia 2.1 million Cuba 1.3 million

Several world maps showing various aspects of the problem can be found in this graph article.[22] According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more supplies arent found by 2020, the region will face a shortfall nearly as great as the amount consumed today. Los Angeles is a coastal desert able to support at most 1 million people on its own water; the Los Angeles basin now is the core of a megacity that spans 220 miles (350 km) from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. The regions population is expected to reach 41 million by 2020, up from 28 million in 2009. The population of California continues to grow by more than two million a year and is expected to reach 75 million in 2030, up from 49 million in 2009. But water shortage is likely to surface well before then.[23] Water deficits, which are already spurring heavy grain imports in numerous smaller countries, may soon do the same in larger countries, such as China and India.[24] The water tables are falling in scores of countries (including Northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread overpumping using powerful diesel and electric pumps. Other countries affected include

Pakistan, Iran, and Mexico. This will eventually lead to water scarcity and cutbacks in grain harvest. Even with the overpumping of its aquifers, China is developing a grain deficit. When this happens, it will almost certainly drive grain prices upward. Most of the 3 billion people projected to be added worldwide by mid-century will be born in countries already experiencing water shortages. Unless population growth can be slowed quickly it is feared that there may not be a practical non-violent or humane solution to the emerging world water shortage.[25][26][27] After China and India, there is a second tier of smaller countries with large water deficits Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and Pakistan. Four of these already import a large share of their grain. But with a population expanding by 4 million a year, it will also likely soon turn to the world market for grain.[28] According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the sources of Asia's biggest rivers - Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yellow - could disappear by 2035 as temperatures rise.[29] It was later revealed that the source used by the UN climate report actually stated 2350, not 2035.[30] Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers.[31] India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades. In India alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people.[32][33][34] The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected.[35][36] By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid lands commonly known as the outback. In June 2008 it became known that an expert panel had warned of long term, possibly irreversible, severe ecological damage for the whole Murray-Darling basin if it does not receive sufficient water by October.[37] Water restrictions are currently in place in many regions and cities of Australia in response to chronic shortages resulting from drought. The Australian of the year 2007, environmentalist Tim Flannery, predicted that unless it made drastic changes, Perth in Western Australia could become the worlds first ghost metropolis, an abandoned city with no more water to sustain its population.[38] However, Western Australia's dams reached 50% capacity for the first time since 2000 as of September 2009.[39] As a result, heavy rains have brought forth positive results for the region.[39] Nonetheless, the following year, 2010, Perth suffered its second-driest winter on record[40] and the water corporation tightened water restrictions for spring.[41]

[edit] Effects on climate

Aquifer drawdown or overdrafting and the pumping of fossil water increases the total amount of water within the hydrosphere subject to transpiration and evaporation processes, thereby causing accretion in water vapour and cloud cover, the primary absorbers of infrared radiation in the earth's atmosphere. Adding water to the system has a forcing effect on the whole earth system, an accurate estimate of which hydrogeological fact is yet to be quantified.

[edit] Outlook

Wind and solar power such as this installation in a village in northwest Madagascar can make a difference in safe water supply.

Construction of wastewater treatment plants and reduction of groundwater overdrafting appear to be obvious solutions to the worldwide problem; however, a deeper look reveals more fundamental issues in play. Wastewater treatment is highly capital intensive, restricting access to this technology in some regions; furthermore the rapid increase in population of many countries makes this a race that is difficult to win. As if those factors are not daunting enough, one must consider the enormous costs and skill sets involved to maintain wastewater treatment plants even if they are successfully developed. Reduction in groundwater overdrafting is usually politically very unpopular and has major economic impacts to farmers; moreover, this strategy will necessarily reduce crop output, which is something the world can ill-afford, given the population level at present. At more realistic levels, developing countries can strive to achieve primary wastewater treatment or secure septic systems, and carefully analyse wastewater outfall design to minimise impacts to drinking water and to ecosystems. Developed countries can not only share technology better, including cost-effective wastewater and water treatment systems but also in hydrological transport modeling. At the individual level, people in developed countries can look inward and reduce overconsumption, which further strains worldwide water consumption. Both developed and developing countries can increase protection of ecosystems, especially wetlands and riparian zones. These measures will not only conserve biota, but also render more effective the natural water cycle flushing and transport that make water systems more healthy for humans. A range of local, low-tech solutions are being pursued by a number of companies. These efforts center around the use of solar power to distill water at temperatures slightly beneath that at which water boils. By developing the capability to purify any available water source, local business models could be built around the new technologies, accelerating their uptake.[42]

[edit] Conventional Fossil or Nuclear Energy Based Desalination

6.

Water can be obtained from a variety of natural sources. The criteria to be satisfied by water sources are: 1. The quality of water must be acceptable 2. Quantity must be sufficient to meet the demand. CLASSIFICATION OF WATER SOURCES 1. Above the surface : Rain 2. Surface water Reservoirs, rivers, streams, ponds, tanks and lakes. 3. Ground Water Shallow wells, deep wells and springs. Rain Rain is the most important source of water. It is the purest water free from pathogenic agents. It is clear, bright, sparkling and soft. Because it is soft, it has a corrosive action on lead pipes. Impurities: Suspended impurities like dust, soot, micro - organisms; gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen and ammonia. These are picked up by rain water from the atmosphere. Surface Water The sources of surface water are i) Reservoirs ii) Rivers and streams iii) Tanks, ponds and lakes. Reservoirs: These are artificial lakes constructed by masonry or dams built across rivers. Water from reservoirs is clear, palatable, soft and free from pathogenic organisms. But it may be contaminated by human habitations or animals. Rivers: Rivers satisfy water needs of several cities and villages. It contains impurities produced by sewage, industrial wastes, human and animal washings etc. So it is not suitable for dunking without treatment. Tanks: They are large excavations in which water is stored. They form an important source of water in many of the Indian villages. They are contaminated by silt, colloidal matter, aquatic vegetation, washings of humans and cattle. Also the regular defecation around the edges may be drained into them by rain. Because of high degree of contamination, tank water is not suitable for drinking. Tanks can be improved by:

1. Raising the edges and fencing them. 2. By constructing an elevated platform from where water can be drawn. 3. Periodical removal of weeds. 4. Regular cleaning at the end of dry season. Ground Water It is obtained from wells or springs. It is naturally filtered though the ground. Advantages: 1. It is free from pathogenic agents 2. It does not require treatment 3. Supply may be adequate Disadvantages: 1. High content of minerals like calcium and magnesium which make it hard. 2. Requires lifting by pumps or other physical means. Wells: They are the main sources of water in many Indian villages and towns. According to the method of construction, they are classified as dug wells and tube wells. Dug well: It is the commonest type in India.lt may be an unlined ketch well or a puck well lined by bricks or stones. If the puck well contains steps (to enable people to get into it to fetch water) it is called step well. Step well may be contaminated if people take bath, or wash the face, hands and feet. Also guinea worm disease may be contacted from step wells. Sanitary well: It is an improved ideal dug well with the following features: 1. It is located at an elevated site at least 50 feet away from a source of contamination like latrine, bathing place, cattle shed etc. 2. It should have a lining built by bricks or stones such that water does not enter from the sides.

3. It should have a parapet, platform, drain and covering. 4. It should have a hand pump to draw water in a sanitary manner. 5. The quality must conform to the standard of safe and wholesome water. Tube Wells There are two types of tube wells. Shallow tube wells and deep tube wells. Shallow tube well (or driven well) consists of an iron pipe sunk into the water bearing stratum. It has a strainer at the bottom and hand pump at the top. It can be prevented from pollution by i. Locating it 15 meters away from a source of pollution like latrine or cattle shed. ii. Providing a concrete platform all around. Deep tube wells are several hundred feet deep. They are drilled by mechanical equipment's. Water is drawn from them by electrical motor. These wells are costly to construct. But they are ideal since they supply pure water for long years. Springs Springs are natural outlets of ground water held under pressure in the ground. There are four kinds of springs-shallow springs, deep springs, mineral springs and thermal springs. Spring water may vary in quality and the yield is also very low. 6. urface water is water collecting on the ground or in a stream, river, lake, wetland, or ocean; it is related to water collecting as groundwater or atmospheric water. Surface water is naturally replenished by precipitation and naturally lost through discharge to evaporation and sub-surface seepage into the ground. Although there are other sources of groundwater, such as connate water and magmatic water, precipitation is the major one and groundwater originated in this way is called meteoric water.

Contents
[hide] 7.

Spring (hydrosphere)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On an average day nearly 303 million US gallons (1,150,000 m3) of water issue from Big Spring in Missouri at a rate of 469 cubic feet per second (13.3 m3/s).

A springalso known as a rising or resurgenceis a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground. Thus, a spring is a site where the aquifer surface meets the ground surface.

Contents
[hide]

1 Formation o 1.1 Types of spring outlets 2 Flow o 2.1 Classification 3 Water content 4 Historic uses o 4.1 Sacred springs o 4.2 Modern uses 5 Notable springs 6 See also 7 References o 7.1 Citations o 7.2 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] Formation

Sunrise at Middle Spring, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge

A natural spring on Mackinac Island in Michigan.

A spring may be the result of karst topography where surface water has infiltrated the Earth's surface (recharge area), becoming part of the area groundwater. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissuresopenings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves. The water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring. The forcing of the spring to the surface can be the result of a confined aquifer in which the recharge area of the spring water table rests at a higher elevation than that of the outlet. Spring water forced to the surface by elevated sources are artesian wells. This is possible even if the outlet is in the form of a 300-foot-deep (91 m) cave. In this case the cave is used like a hose by the higher elevated recharge area of groundwater to exit through the lower elevation opening. Non-artesian springs may simply flow from a higher elevation through the earth to a lower elevation and exit in the form of a spring, using the ground like a drainage pipe. Still other springs are the result of pressure from an underground source in the earth, in the form of volcanic activity. The result can be water at elevated temperature such as a hot spring. The action of the groundwater continually dissolves permeable bedrock such as limestone and dolomite creating vast cave systems.[1]
[edit] Types of spring outlets

Seepage or filtration spring. The term seep refers to springs with small flow rates in which the source water has filtered into permeable earth. Fracture springs, discharge from faults, joints, or fissures in the earth, in which springs have followed a natural course of voids or weaknesses in the bedrock. Tubular springs are essentially water dissolved and created underground channels, basically cave systems.

[edit] Flow
Spring discharge, or resurgence, is determined by the spring's recharge basin. Factors that affect the recharge include the size of the area in which groundwater is captured, the amount of precipitation, the size of capture points, and the size of the spring outlet. Water may leak into the underground system from many sources including permeable earth, sinkholes, and losing streams. In some cases entire creeks seemingly disappear as the water sinks into the ground via the stream bed. Grand Gulf State Park in Missouri is an example of an entire creek vanishing into the groundwater system. The water emerges nine miles (14 km) away, forming some of the discharge of Mammoth Spring in Arkansas. Human activity may also affect a spring's dischargewithdraw of groundwater reduces the water pressure in an aquifer, decreasing the volume of flow. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/sw
[edit] Classification

Fontaine de Vaucluse or Spring of Vaucluse in France discharges about 470 million US gallons (1,800,000 m3) of water per day at a rate of 727 cubic feet (21 m3) per second.

Springs are often classified by the volume of the water they discharge. The largest springs are called "first-magnitude," defined as springs that discharge water at a rate of at least 2800 liters or 100 cubic feet (2.8 m3) of water per second. Some locations contain many first-magnitude springs, such as Florida where there are at least 27 known to be that size, the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks contain (10[2] [3] known of first-magnitude), and 11[4] more in the Thousand Springs area along the Snake River in Idaho. The scale for spring flow is as follows:
Magnitude Flow (ft/s, gal/min, pint/min) Flow (L/s) 2800 L/s 280 to 2800 L/s 28 to 280 L/s

1st magnitude > 100 ft/s 2nd magnitude 10 to 100 ft/s 3rd magnitude 1 to 10 ft/s

4th magnitude 100 US gal/min to 1 ft/s (448 US gal/min) 6.3 to 28 L/s

5th magnitude 10 to 100 gal/min 6th magnitude 1 to 10 gal/min 7th magnitude 1 pint to 1 gal/min 8th magnitude Less than 1 pint/min 0 magnitude no flow (sites of past/historic flow)

0.63 to 6.3 L/s 63 to 630 mL/s 8 to 63 mL/s 8 mL/s

[edit] Water content

Main article: Mineral spring

Pruess Lake is spring-fed in the arid Snake Valley (Great Basin)

Minerals become dissolved in the water as it moves through the underground rocks. This may give the water flavour and even carbon dioxide bubbles, depending on the nature of the geology through which it passes. This is why spring water is often bottled and sold as mineral water, although the term is often the subject of deceptive advertising. Springs that contain significant amounts of minerals are sometimes called 'mineral springs'. Springs that contain large amounts of dissolved sodium salts, mostly sodium carbonate, are called 'soda springs'. Many resorts have developed around mineral springs and are known as spa towns. Water from springs are usually clear. However some springs may be coloured by the minerals that are dissolved in the water. Iron and tannins often give spring water an orange colour.[1] A stream carrying the outflow of a spring to a nearby primary stream is called a spring branch or run. Groundwater tends to maintain a relatively long-term average temperature of its aquifer; so flow from a spring may be cooler than a summer day, but remain unfrozen in the winter. The cool water of a spring and its branch may harbour species such as certain trout that are otherwise ill-suited to a warmer local climate.

[edit] Historic uses

Springs have been used for a variety of human needs including drinking water, powering of mills, and navigation, and more recently some have been used for electricity generation.

Trout fishing on Maramec Spring in Missouri. [edit] Sacred springs Main article: Holy well.

A sacred spring, or holy well, is a small body of water emerging from underground and revered either in a pagan or a Christian context, often both. The lore and mythology of ancient Greece was replete with sacred and storied springsnotably, the Corycian, Pierian and Castalian. In medieval Europe, holy wells were frequently pagan sacred sites that later became Christianized. The term "holy well" is commonly employed to refer to any water source of limited size (i.e. not a lake or river, but including pools and natural springs and seeps), which has some significance in the folklore of the local area. This can take the form of a particular name, an associated legend, the attribution of healing qualities to the water through the numinous presence of its guardian spirit or Christian saint, or a ceremony or ritual centred on the well site. In Christian legend, the spring water is often said to have been made to flow by the action of a saint, a familiar theme especially in the hagiography of Celtic saints.
[edit] Modern uses 8.

lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds.[1][2] Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing. However most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams. Natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.

Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for industrial or agricultural use, for hydro-electric power generation or domestic water supply, or for aesthetic or recreational purposes.

Contents
[hide]

1 Etymology, meaning, and usage of "lake" 2 Distribution of lakes 3 Origin of natural lakes 4 Types of lakes 5 Characteristics 6 Limnology 7 How lakes disappear 8 Extraterrestrial lakes 9 Notable lakes o 9.1 Largest by continent 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Etymology, meaning, and usage of "lake"

Blowdown Lake in the mountains near Pemberton, British Columbia

Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada

The Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea.[3]

The word lake comes from Middle English lake ("lake, pond, waterway"), from Old English lacu ("pond, pool, stream"), from Proto-Germanic *lak ("pond, ditch, slow moving stream"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *leg'- ("to leak, drain"). Cognates include Dutch laak ("lake, pond, ditch"), Middle Low German lke ("water pooled in a riverbed, puddle"), German Lache ("pool, puddle"), and Icelandic lkur ("slow flowing stream"). Also related are the English words leak and leach. There is considerable uncertainty about defining the difference between lakes and ponds, and no current internationally accepted definition of either term across scientific disciplines or political boundaries exists.[citation needed] For example, limnologists have defined lakes as water bodies which are simply a larger version of a pond, which have wave action on the shoreline or where wind-induced turbulence plays a major role in mixing the water column. None of these definitions completely excludes ponds and all are difficult to measure. For this reason there has been increasing use made of simple size-based definitions to separate ponds and lakes. One definition of lake is a body of water of 2 hectares (5 acres) or more in area,[4]:331[5] however others[who?] have defined lakes as waterbodies of 5 hectares (12 acres) and above,[citation needed] or 8 hectares (20 acres) and above[citation needed] (see also the definition of "pond"). Charles Elton, one of the founders of ecology, regarded lakes as waterbodies of 40 hectares (99 acres) or more.[6] The term lake is also used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre, which is a dry basin most of the time but may become filled under seasonal conditions of heavy rainfall. In common usage many lakes bear names ending with the word pond, and a lesser number of names ending with lake are in quasi-technical fact, ponds.

In lake ecology the environment of a lake is referred to as lacustrine. Large lakes are occasionally referred to as "inland seas," and small seas are occasionally referred to as lakes, such as Lake Maracaibo, which is actually a bay. Larger lakes often invert the word order, as in the names of each of the Great Lakes, in North America. Only one lake in the English Lake District is actually called a lake; other than Bassenthwaite Lake, the others are all meres or waters. Only six bodies of water in Scotland are known as lakes (the others are lochs): the Lake of Menteith, the Lake of the Hirsel, Pressmennan Lake, Cally Lake near Gatehouse of Fleet, the saltwater Manxman's Lake at Kirkcudbright Bay and The Lake at Fochabers. Of these only the Lake of Menteith and Cally Lake are natural bodies of fresh water.

[edit] Distribution of lakes

The Seven Rila Lakes are a group of glacial lakes in the Bulgarian Rila mountains.

Wayanad District Kerala India

The majority of lakes on Earth are fresh water, and most lie in the Northern Hemisphere at higher latitudes. More than 60 percent of the world's lakes are in Canada;[citation needed] this is because of the deranged drainage system that dominates the country. Finland is known as The Land of the Thousand Lakes, (actually there are 187,888 lakes in Finland, of which 60,000 are large),[7] and the U.S. state of Minnesota is known as The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The license plates of the Canadian province of Manitoba used to claim 100,000 lakes[8] as one-upmanship on Minnesota, whose license plates boast of its 10,000 lakes.[9] Most lakes have at least one natural outflow in the form of a river or stream, which maintain a lake's average level by allowing the drainage of excess water.[10] Some lakes do not have a natural outflow and lose water solely by evaporation or underground seepage or both. They are termed endorheic lakes (see below).

Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for hydro-electric power generation, aesthetic purposes, recreational purposes, industrial use, agricultural use or domestic water supply. Evidence of extraterrestrial lakes exists; "definitive evidence of lakes filled with methane" was announced by NASA[citation needed] as returned by the Cassini Probe observing the moon Titan, which orbits the planet Saturn. Globally, lakes are greatly outnumbered by ponds: of an estimated 304-million standing water bodies worldwide, 91 percent are 1 hectare (2.5 acres) or less in area (see definition of ponds).[11] Small lakes are also much more numerous than large lakes: in terms of area, one-third of the world's standing water is represented by lakes and ponds of 10 hectares (25 acres) or less.[citation needed] However, large lakes contribute disproportionately to the area of standing water with 122 large lakes of 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi, 100,000 ha, 247,000 acres) or more representing about 29 percent of the total global area of standing inland water.[citation needed]

[edit] Origin of natural lakes

A portion of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, United States

Salt crystals, on the shore of Lake Urmia, Iran

There are a number of natural processes that can form lakes. A recent tectonic uplift of a mountain range can create bowl-shaped depressions that accumulate water and form lakes. The advance and retreat of glaciers can scrape depressions in the surface where water accumulates; such lakes are common in Scandinavia, Patagonia, Siberia and Canada. The most notable examples are probably the Great Lakes of North America.

Lakes can also form by means of landslides or by glacial blockages. An example of the latter occurred during the last ice age in the U.S. state of Washington, when a huge lake formed behind a glacial flow; when the ice retreated, the result was an immense flood that created the Dry Falls at Sun Lakes, Washington. Salt lakes (also called saline lakes) can form where there is no natural outlet or where the water evaporates rapidly and the drainage surface of the water table has a higher-than-normal salt content. Examples of salt lakes include Great Salt Lake, the Aral Sea and the Dead Sea. Small, crescent-shaped lakes called oxbow lakes can form in river valleys as a result of meandering. The slow-moving river forms a sinuous shape as the outer side of bends are eroded away more rapidly than the inner side. Eventually a horseshoe bend is formed and the river cuts through the narrow neck. This new passage then forms the main passage for the river and the ends of the bend become silted up, thus forming a bow-shaped lake. Crater lakes are formed in volcanic craters and calderas which fill up with precipitation more rapidly than they empty via evaporation. Sometimes the latter are called caldera lakes, although often no distinction is made. An example is Crater Lake in Oregon, located within the caldera of Mount Mazama. The caldera was created in a massive volcanic eruption that led to the subsidence of Mount Mazama around 4860 BC. Gloe Lakes are freshwater lakes that have emerged when the water they consists of has been separated, not considerably long before, from the sea as a consequence of post-glacial rebound. Some lakes, such as Lake Jackson in Florida, USA, come into existence as a result of sinkhole activity. Lake Vostok is a subglacial lake in Antarctica, possibly the largest in the world. The pressure from the ice atop it and its internal chemical composition mean that, if the lake were drilled into, a fissure could result that would spray somewhat like a geyser. Most lakes are geologically young and shrinking since the natural results of erosion will tend to wear away the sides and fill the basin. Exceptions are those such as Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika that lie along continental rift zones and are created by the crust's subsidence as two plates are pulled apart. These lakes are the oldest and deepest in the world. Lake Baikal, which is 25-30 million years old, is deepening at a faster rate than it is being filled by erosion and may be destined over millions of years to become attached to the global ocean. The Red Sea, for example, is thought to have originated as a rift valley lake.

[edit] Types of lakes

Many lakes can have tremendous cultural importance. The West Lake of Hangzhou has inspired romantic poets throughout the ages, and has been an important influence on garden designs in China, Japan and Korea.[12]

One of the many artificial lakes in Arizona at sunset.

The crater lake of Volcn Iraz, Costa Rica.

These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier.

Ephemeral 'Lake Badwater', a lake only noted after heavy winter and spring rainfall, Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park.

Periglacial lake: Part of the lake's margin is formed by an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier, the ice having obstructed the natural drainage of the land. Subglacial lake: A lake which is permanently covered by ice. They can occur under glaciers, ice caps or ice sheets. There are many such lakes, but Lake Vostok in Antarctica is by far the largest. They are kept liquid because the overlying ice acts as a thermal insulator retaining energy introduced to its underside by friction, by water percolating through crevasses, by the pressure from the mass of the ice sheet above or by geothermal heating below. Glacial lake: a lake with origins in a melted glacier, such as a kettle lake. Artificial lake: A lake created by flooding land behind a dam, called an impoundment or reservoir, by deliberate human excavation, or by the flooding of an excavation incident to a mineral-extraction operation such as an open pit mine or quarry. Some of the world's largest lakes are reservoirs like Hirakud Dam in India. Endorheic lake, terminal or closed: A lake which has no significant outflow, either through rivers or underground diffusion. Any water within an endorheic basin leaves the system only through evaporation or seepage. These lakes, such as Lake Eyre in central Australia or the Aral Sea in central Asia, are most common in desert locations. Meromictic lake: A lake which has layers of water which do not intermix. The deepest layer of water in such a lake does not contain any dissolved oxygen. The layers of sediment at the

bottom of a meromictic lake remain relatively undisturbed because there are no living aerobic organisms. Fjord lake: A lake in a glacially eroded valley that has been eroded below sea level. Oxbow lake: A lake which is formed when a wide meander from a stream or a river is cut off to form a lake. They are called "oxbow" lakes due to the distinctive curved shape that results from this process. Rift lake or sag pond: A lake which forms as a result of subsidence along a geological fault in the Earth's tectonic plates. Examples include the Rift Valley lakes of eastern Africa and Lake Baikal in Siberia. Underground lake: A lake which is formed under the surface of the Earth's crust. Such a lake may be associated with caves, aquifers or springs. Crater lake: A lake which forms in a volcanic caldera or crater after the volcano has been inactive for some time. Water in this type of lake may be fresh or highly acidic, and may contain various dissolved minerals. Some also have geothermal activity, especially if the volcano is merely dormant rather than extinct. Lava lake: A pool of molten lava contained in a volcanic crater or other depression. Lava lakes that have partly or completely solidified are also referred to as lava lakes. Former: A lake which is no longer in existence. Such lakes include prehistoric lakes and lakes which have permanently dried up through evaporation or human intervention. Owens Lake in California, USA, is an example of a former lake. Former lakes are a common feature of the Basin and Range area of southwestern North America. Ephemeral lake: A seasonal lake that exists as a body of water during only part of the year. Intermittent lake: A lake with no water during a part of the year. Shrunken: Closely related to former lakes, a shrunken lake is one which has drastically decreased in size over geological time. Lake Agassiz, which once covered much of central North America, is a good example of a shrunken lake. Two notable remnants of this lake are Lake Winnipeg and Lake Winnipegosis. Eolic lake: A lake which forms in a depression created by the activity of the winds. Vlei, in South Africa, shallow lakes which vary considerably with seasons

[edit] Characteristics
File:Wayanad lake Lake in Wayanad District, India

Lake Mapourika, New Zealand

Lakes have numerous features in addition to lake type, such as drainage basin (also known as catchment area), inflow and outflow, nutrient content, dissolved oxygen, pollutants, pH, and sedimentation. Changes in the level of a lake are controlled by the difference between the input and output compared to the total volume of the lake. Significant input sources are precipitation onto the lake, runoff carried by streams and channels from the lake's catchment area, groundwater channels and aquifers, and artificial sources from outside the catchment area. Output sources are evaporation from the lake, surface and groundwater flows, and any extraction of lake water by humans. As climate conditions and human water requirements vary, these will create fluctuations in the lake level. Lakes can be also categorized on the basis of their richness in nutrients, which typically affect plant growth. Nutrient-poor lakes are said to be oligotrophic and are generally clear, having a low concentration of plant life. Mesotrophic lakes have good clarity and an average level of nutrients. Eutrophic lakes are enriched with nutrients, resulting in good plant growth and possible algal blooms. Hypertrophic lakes are bodies of water that have been excessively enriched with nutrients. These lakes typically have poor clarity and are subject to devastating algal blooms. Lakes typically reach this condition due to human activities, such as heavy use of fertilizers in the lake catchment area. Such lakes are of little use to humans and have a poor ecosystem due to decreased dissolved oxygen. Due to the unusual relationship between water's temperature and its density, lakes form layers called thermoclines, layers of drastically varying temperature relative to depth. Fresh water is most dense at about 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 F) at sea level. When the temperature of the water at the surface of a lake reaches the same temperature as deeper water, as it does during the cooler months in temperate climates, the water in the lake can mix, bringing oxygen-starved water up from the depths and bringing oxygen down to decomposing sediments. Deep temperate lakes can maintain a reservoir of cold water year-round, which allows some cities to tap that reservoir for deep lake water cooling.

Lake Teletskoye, Siberia

Since the surface water of deep tropical lakes never reaches the temperature of maximum density, there is no process that makes the water mix. The deeper layer becomes oxygen starved

and can become saturated with carbon dioxide, or other gases such as sulfur dioxide if there is even a trace of volcanic activity. Exceptional events, such as earthquakes or landslides, can cause mixing which rapidly brings the deep layers up to the surface and release a vast cloud of gas which lay trapped in solution in the colder water at the bottom of the lake. This is called a limnic eruption. An example is the disaster at Lake Nyos in Cameroon. The amount of gas that can be dissolved in water is directly related to pressure. As deep water surfaces, the pressure drops and a vast amount of gas comes out of solution. Under these circumstances carbon dioxide is hazardous because it is heavier than air and displaces it, so it may flow down a river valley to human settlements and cause mass asphyxiation. The material at the bottom of a lake, or lake bed, may be composed of a wide variety of inorganics, such as silt or sand, and organic material, such as decaying plant or animal matter. The composition of the lake bed has a significant impact on the flora and fauna found within the lake's environs by contributing to the amounts and the types of nutrients available. A paired (black and white) layer of the varved lake sediments correspond to a year. During winter, when organisms die, carbon is deposited down, resulting to a black layer. At the same year, during summer, only few organic materials are deposited, resulting to a white layer at the lake bed. These are commonly used to track past paleontological events.

[edit] Limnology
Main articles: Limnology, Lake ecosystem, and Lake aeration

Lake Billy Chinook, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.

Lake Cugun, Kirsehir, Turkey.

Limnology is the study of inland bodies of water and related ecosystems. Limnology divides lakes into three zones: the littoral zone, a sloped area close to land; the photic or open-water zone, where sunlight is abundant; and the deep-water profundal or benthic zone, where little sunlight can reach. The depth to which light can reach in lakes depends on turbidity, determined by the density and size of suspended particles. A particle is in suspension if its weight is less than the random turbidity forces acting upon it. These particles can be sedimentary or biological in origin and are responsible for the color of the water. Decaying plant matter, for instance, may be responsible for a yellow or brown color, while algae may cause greenish water. In very shallow water bodies, iron oxides make water reddish brown. Biological particles include algae and detritus. Bottom-dwelling detritivorous fish can be responsible for turbid waters, because they stir the mud in search of food. Piscivorous fish contribute to turbidity by eating plant-eating (planktonivorous) fish, thus increasing the amount of algae (see aquatic trophic cascade). The light depth or transparency is measured by using a Secchi disk, a 20-cm (8 in) disk with alternating white and black quadrants. The depth at which the disk is no longer visible is the Secchi depth, a measure of transparency. The Secchi disk is commonly used to test for eutrophication. For a detailed look at these processes, see lentic ecosystems. A lake moderates the surrounding region's temperature and climate because water has a very high specific heat capacity (4,186 Jkg1K1). In the daytime a lake can cool the land beside it with local winds, resulting in a sea breeze; in the night it can warm it with a land breeze.

[edit] How lakes disappear

Lake Chad in a 2001 satellite image, with the actual lake in blue, and vegetation on top of the old lake bed in green.

Lake Badwater, February 9, 2005. Landsat 5 satellite photo.

Badwater Basin dry lake, February 15, 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo.

The lake may be infilled with deposited sediment and gradually become a wetland such as a swamp or marsh. Large water plants, typically totos, accelerate this closing process significantly because they partially decompose to form peat soils that fill the shallows. Conversely, peat soils in a marsh can naturally burn and reverse this process to recreate a shallow lake. Turbid lakes and lakes with many plant-eating fish tend to disappear more slowly. A "disappearing" lake (barely noticeable on a human timescale) typically has extensive plant mats at the water's edge. These become a new habitat for other plants, like peat moss when conditions are right, and animals, many of which are very rare. Gradually the lake closes and young peat may form, forming a fen. In lowland river valleys where a river can meander, the presence of peat is explained by the infilling of historical oxbow lakes. In the very last stages of succession, trees can grow in, eventually turning the wetland into a forest. Some lakes can disappear seasonally. These are called intermittent lakes and can be found in karstic terrain. A prime example of an intermittent lake is Lake Cerknica in Slovenia or Lag Prau Pulte in Graubnden. Other intermittent lakes are only the result of above-average precipitation in a closed, or endorheic basin, usually filling dry lake beds. This can occur in some of the driest places on earth, like Death Valley. This occurred in the spring of 2005, after unusually heavy rains.[13] The lake did not last into the summer, and was quickly evaporated (see photos to right). A more commonly filled lake of this type is Sevier Lake of west-central Utah. Sometimes a lake will disappear quickly. On 3 June 2005, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, a lake called Lake Beloye vanished in a matter of minutes. News sources reported that government

officials theorized that this strange phenomenon may have been caused by a shift in the soil underneath the lake that allowed its water to drain through channels leading to the Oka River.[14] The presence of ground permafrost is important to the persistence of some lakes. According to research published in the journal Science ("Disappearing Arctic Lakes", June 2005), thawing permafrost may explain the shrinking or disappearance of hundreds of large Arctic lakes across western Siberia. The idea here is that rising air and soil temperatures thaw permafrost, allowing the lakes to drain away into the ground. Some lakes disappear because of human development factors. The shrinking Aral Sea is described as being "murdered" by the diversion for irrigation of the rivers feeding it.
See also: Prairie Lake

[edit] Extraterrestrial lakes

Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic.

At present the surface of the planet Mars is too cold and has too little atmospheric pressure to permit the pooling of liquid water on the surface. Geologic evidence appears to confirm, however, that ancient lakes once formed on the surface. It is also possible that volcanic activity on Mars will occasionally melt subsurface ice, creating large lakes.[citation needed] Under current conditions this water would quickly freeze and sublimate unless insulated in some manner, such as by a coating of volcanic ash. Only one world other than Earth is known to harbor lakes, Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Photographs and spectroscopic analysis by the CassiniHuygens spacecraft show liquid ethane on the surface, which is thought to be mixed with liquid methane. Jupiter's small moon Io is volcanically active due to tidal stresses, and as a result sulfur deposits have accumulated on the surface. Some photographs taken during the Galileo mission appear to show lakes of liquid sulfur on the surface.[15]

There are dark basaltic plains on the Moon, similar to lunar maria but smaller, that are called lacus (singular lacus, Latin for "lake") because they were thought by early astronomers to be lakes of water.

[edit] Notable lakes

Round Tangle Lake, one of the Tangle Lakes, located 2,864 feet (873 m) above sea level in interior Alaska

Lake Michigan-Huron is the largest lake by surface area: 117,350 km. It also has the longest lake coastline in the world: 8,790 km. If Huron and Michigan are considered two lakes, Lake Superior is the largest lake, with 82,414 km. However, Huron still has the longest coastline at 6,157 km (2980 km excluding the coastlines of its many inner islands). The world's smallest geological ocean, the Caspian Sea, at 394,299 km has a surface area greater than the six largest freshwater lakes combined, and it's frequently cited as the world's largest lake. The deepest lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia, with a bottom at 1,637 m. Its mean depth is also the greatest in the world (749 m). It is also the world's largest lake by volume (23,600 km, though smaller than the Caspian Sea at 78,200 km), and the second longest (about 630 km from tip to tip). The longest lake is Lake Tanganyika, with a length of about 660 km (measured along the lake's center line). It is also the second largest by volume and second deepest (1,470 m) in the world, after lake Baikal. The world's oldest lake is Lake Baikal, followed by Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania). The world's highest lake is the crater lake of Ojos del Salado, at 6,390 metres (20,965 ft).[16] The Lhagba Pool in Tibet at 6,368 m (20,892 ft) comes second.[17] The highest large freshwater lake in the world is Lake Manasarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The world's highest commercially navigable lake is Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia at 3,812 m (12,507 ft). It is also the largest freshwater (and second largest overall) lake in South America. The world's lowest lake is the Dead Sea, bordering Israel and Jordan at 418 m (1,371 ft) below sea level. It is also one of the lakes with highest salt concentration. Lake Huron has the longest lake coastline in the world: about 2980 km, excluding the coastline of its many inner islands. The largest island in a freshwater lake is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, with a surface area of 2,766 km. Lake Manitou, located on Manitoulin Island, is the largest lake on an island in a freshwater lake.

The largest lake located on an island is Nettilling Lake on Baffin Island, with an area of 5,542 km and a maximum length of 123 km.[18] The largest lake in the world that drains naturally in two directions is Wollaston Lake. Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra is located in what is probably the largest resurgent caldera on Earth. The largest lake located completely within the boundaries of a single city is Lake Wanapitei in the city of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Before the current city boundaries came into effect in 2001, this status was held by Lake Ramsey, also in Sudbury. Lake Enriquillo in Dominican Republic is the only saltwater lake in the world inhabited by crocodiles. Lake Bernard, Ontario, Canada, is the largest freshwater lake in the world with no islands. The largest lake in one country is Lake Michigan, in the U.S.A. However, it is sometimes considered part of Lake Michigan-Huron, making the record go to Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, in Canada, the largest lake within one jurisdiction. The largest lake on an island in a lake on an island is Crater Lake on Vulcano Island in Lake Taal on the island of Luzon, The Philippines. The northernmost named lake on Earth is Upper Dumbell Lake in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada at a latitude of 8228'N. It is located only 5.2 kilometers southwest of Alert, the northernmost settlement in the world. There are also several small lakes located north of Upper Dumbell Lake, but they are all unnamed and only appear on very detailed maps.

[edit] Largest by continent

The largest lakes (surface area) by continent are:

Australia Lake Eyre (salt lake) Africa Lake Victoria, also the third-largest freshwater lake on Earth. It is one of the Great Lakes of Africa. Antarctica Lake Vostok (subglacial) Asia Lake Baikal (if the Caspian Sea is considered a lake, it is the largest in Eurasia, but is divided between the two geographic continents) Oceania Lake Eyre when filled; the largest permanent (and freshwater) lake in Oceania is Lake Taupo. Europe Lake Ladoga, followed by Lake Onega, both located in northwestern Russia. North America Lake Michigan-Huron, which is hydrologically a single lake. However, lakes Huron and Michigan are often considered separate lakes, in which case Lake Superior would be the largest. South America Lake Titicaca, which is also the highest navigable body of water on Earth at 3,821 m above sea level. The much larger Lake Maracaibo is considered by some to be the second-oldest lake on Earth, but since it lies at sea level and nowadays is a contiguous body of water with the sea, others

9.

River

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see River (disambiguation).

The Tigris River near Hasankeyf, in southeastern Turkey

A false-color satellite photograph of the Amazon River in Brazil.

A river is a natural watercourse,[1] usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including stream, creek, brook, rivulet, tributary and rill; there is no general rule that defines what can be called a river, although in some countries or communities a stream may be defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; one example is

"burn" in Scotland and northeast England. Sometimes a river is said to be larger than a creek,[2] but this is not always the case, because of vagueness in the language.[3] Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through a drainage basin from surface runoff and other sources such as groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of stored water in natural ice and snowpacks (e.g., from glaciers). Potamology is the scientific study of rivers.

Contents
[hide]

1 Topography o 1.1 Subsurface streams o 1.2 Permanence of flow 2 Classification o 2.1 Topographical classification o 2.2 Biotic classification o 2.3 Whitewater classification o 2.4 Stream order classification 3 Uses 4 Ecosystem 5 Chemistry 6 Brackish water 7 Flooding 8 Flow o 8.1 Direction o 8.2 Rate 9 Management 10 See also 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External links

[edit] Topography

Melting toe of Athabasca Glacier, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

The water in a river is usually confined to a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Flood plains may be very wide in relation to the size of the river channel. This distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred especially in urban areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become greatly developed by housing and industry. The term upriver refers to the direction leading to the source of the river, which is against the direction of flow. Likewise, the term downriver describes the direction towards the mouth of the river, in which the current flows. The river channel typically contains a single stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water, producing a braided river. Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide, such as the South Island of New Zealand. They also occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are similar to braided rivers and are also quite rare. They have multiple sinuous channels carrying large volumes of sediment.

Nile River delta, as seen from Earth orbit. The Nile is an example of a wave-dominated delta that has the classic Greek delta () shape after which River deltas were named.

A river flowing in its channel is a source of energy which acts on the river channel to change its shape and form. According to Brahm's law (sometimes called Airy's law), the mass of objects that may be carried away by a river is proportional to the sixth power of the river flow speed. Thus, when the speed of flow increases two times, it can transport 64 times larger (i.e., more massive) objects.[4] In mountainous torrential zones this can be seen as erosion channels through hard rocks and the creation of sands and gravels from the destruction of larger rocks. In Ushaped glaciated valleys, the subsequent river valley can often easily be identified by the Vshaped channel that it has carved. In the middle reaches where the river may flow over flatter land, meanders may form through erosion of the river banks and deposition on the inside of

bends. Sometimes the river will cut off a loop, shortening the channel and forming an oxbow lake or billabong. Rivers that carry large amounts of sediment may develop conspicuous deltas at their mouths, if conditions permit. Rivers whose mouths are in saline tidal waters may form estuaries. Throughout the course of the river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a combination of the free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain (called the hyporheic zone). For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may greatly exceed the visible flow.
[edit] Subsurface streams

Most but not all rivers flow on the surface. Subterranean rivers flow underground in caves or caverns. Such rivers are frequently found in regions with limestone geologic formations. Subglacial streams are the braided rivers that flow at the beds of glaciers and ice sheets, permitting meltwater to be discharged at the front of the glacier. Because of the gradient in pressure due to the overlying weight of the glacier, such streams can even flow uphill.
[edit] Permanence of flow

An intermittent river (or ephemeral river) only flows occasionally and can be dry for several years at a time. These rivers are found in regions with limited or highly variable rainfall, or can occur because of geologic conditions such as having a highly permeable river bed. Some ephemeral rivers flow during the summer months but not in the winter. Such rivers are typically fed from chalk aquifers which recharge from winter rainfall. In the UK these rivers are called Bournes and give their name to place such as Bournemouth and Eastbourne

[edit] Classification
Rivers have been classified by many criteria including their topography, their biotic status, their relevance to white water rafting or canoeing activities.
[edit] Topographical classification

Rivers can generally be classified as either alluvial, bedrock, or some mix of the two. Alluvial rivers have channels and floodplains that are self-formed in unconsolidated or weakly consolidated sediments. They erode their banks and deposit material on bars and their floodplains. Bedrock rivers form when the river downcuts through the modern sediments and into the underlying bedrock. This occurs in regions that have experienced some kind of uplift (thereby steepening river gradients) or in which a particular hard lithology causes a river to have a steepened reach that has not been covered in modern alluvium. Bedrock rivers very often contain alluvium on their beds; this material is important in eroding and sculpting the channel. Rivers that go through patches of bedrock and patches of deep alluvial cover are classified as mixed bedrock-alluvial.

Alluvial rivers can be further classified by their channel pattern as meandering, braided, wandering, anastomose, or straight. The morphology of an alluvial river reach is controlled by a combination of sediment supply, substrate composition, discharge, vegetation, and bed aggradation. The work of William Morris Davis at the turn of the 20th century used a classification based on river "age" as a way to characterise rivers.

Youthful river: A river with a steep gradient that has very few tributaries and flows quickly. Its channels erode deeper rather than wider. Examples include the Brazos, Trinity and Ebro rivers. Mature river: A river with a gradient that is less steep than those of youthful rivers and flows more slowly. A mature river is fed by many tributaries and has more discharge than a youthful river. Its channels erode wider rather than deeper. Examples include the Mississippi, Saint Lawrence, Danube, Ohio, Thames and Paran rivers. Old river: A river with a low gradient and low erosive energy. Old rivers are characterized by flood plains. Examples include the Yellow, Ganges, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus and Nile rivers. Rejuvenated river: A river with a gradient that is raised by tectonic uplift.

The way in which a river's characteristics vary between the upper course and lower course of a river are summarized by the Bradshaw model. Power-law relationships between channel slope, depth, and width are given as a function of discharge by "river regime".
[edit] Biotic classification

There are very many systems of classification based on biotic conditions typically assigning classes from the most oligotrophic or unpolluted through to the most eutrophic or polluted.[5] Other systems are based on a whole eco-system approach such as developed by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.[6] In Europe, the requirements of the Water Framework Directive has led to the development of a wide range of classification methods including classifications based on fishery status[7] A system of river zonation used in francophone communities[8][9] divides rivers into three primary zones:

The crenon is the uppermost zone at the source of the river. It is further divided into the eucrenon (spring or boil zone) and the hypocrenon (brook or headstream zone). These areas are characterized by low temperatures, reduced oxygen content and slow moving water. The rhithron is the upstream portion of the river that follows the crenon. It is characterized by relatively cool temperatures, high oxygen levels, and fast, turbulent flow. The potamon is the remaining downstream stretch of river. It is characterized by warmer temperatures, lower oxygen levels, slow flow and sandier bottoms.

[edit] Whitewater classification

The International Scale of River Difficulty is used to rate the challenges of navigation particularly those with rapids. Class I is the easiest and Class VI is the hardest.

[edit] Stream order classification

The Strahler Stream Order ranks rivers based on the connectivity and hierarchy of contributing tributaries. Headwaters are first order while the Amazon River is twelfth order. Approximately 80% of the rivers and streams in the world are of the first and second order.

[edit] Uses

Leisure activities on the River Avon at Avon Valley Country Park, Keynsham, United Kingdom. A boat giving trips to the public passes a moored private boat.

Rivers have been used as a source of water, for obtaining food, for transport, as a defensive measure, as a source of hydropower to drive machinery, for bathing, and as a means of disposing of waste. Rivers have been used for navigation for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of navigation is found in the Indus Valley Civilization, which existed in northwestern Pakistan around 3300 BC.[10] Riverine navigation provides a cheap means of transport, and is still used extensively on most major rivers of the world like the Amazon, the Ganges, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Indus. Since river boats are often not regulated, they contribute a large amount to global greenhouse gas emissions, and to local cancer due to inhaling of particulates emitted by the transports.[11][12] In some heavily forested regions such as Scandinavia and Canada, lumberjacks use the river to float felled trees downstream to lumber camps for further processing, saving much effort and cost by transporting the huge heavy logs by natural means. Rivers have been a source of food since pre-history.[13] They can provide a rich source of fish and other edible aquatic life, and are a major source of fresh water, which can be used for drinking and irrigation. It is therefore no surprise to find most of the major cities of the world situated on the banks of rivers. Rivers help to determine the urban form of cities and neighbourhoods and their corridors often present opportunities for urban renewal through the development of foreshoreways such as riverwalks. Rivers also provide an easy means of disposing of waste-water and, in much of the less developed world, other wastes.

Fast flowing rivers and waterfalls are widely used as sources of energy, via watermills and hydroelectric plants. Evidence of watermills shows them in use for many hundreds of years such as in Orkney at Dounby click mill. Prior to the invention of steam power, water-mills for grinding cereals and for processing wool and other textiles were common across Europe. In the 1890s the first machines to generate power from river water were established at places such as Cragside in Northumberland and in recent decades there has been a significant increase in the development of large scale power generation from water, especially in wet mountainous regions such as Norway The coarse sediments, gravel and sand, generated and moved by rivers are extensively used in construction. In parts of the world this can generate extensive new lake habitats as gravel pits refill with water. In other circumstances it can destabilise the river bed and the course of the river and cause severe damage to spawning fish populations which rely on stable gravel formations for egg laying. In upland rivers, rapids with whitewater or even waterfalls occur. Rapids are often used for recreation, such as whitewater kayaking. Rivers have been important in determining political boundaries and defending countries. For example, the Danube was a long-standing border of the Roman Empire, and today it forms most of the border between Bulgaria and Romania. The Mississippi in North America and the Rhine in Europe are major east-west boundaries in those continents. The Orange and Limpopo Rivers in southern Africa form the boundaries between provinces and countries along their routes.

[edit] Ecosystem

The brook trout is native to small streams, creeks, lakes, and spring ponds. Main article: River ecosystem

The organisms in the riparian zone respond to changes in river channel location and patterns of flow. The ecosystem of rivers is generally described by the River continuum concept, which has some additions and refinements to allow for spatial (dams, waterfalls) and temporal (extensive flooding). The basic idea is that the river can be described as a system that is continuously changing along its length in the physical parameters, the availability of food particles and the composition of the ecosystem. The food (energy) that is the leftover of the upstream part is being utilized downstream.

The general pattern is that the first order streams contain particulate matter (decaying leaves from the surrounding forests), which is processed there by shredders like Plecoptera larvae. The leftovers of the shredders are utilized by collectors, such as Hydropsyche, and further downstream algae that create the primary production become the main foodsource of the organisms. All changes are gradual and the distribution of each species can be described as a normal curve with the highest density where the conditions are optimal. In rivers succession is virtually absent and the composition of the ecosystem stays fixed in time.

[edit] Chemistry
Main article: River chemistry

The chemistry of rivers is complex and depends on inputs from the atmosphere, the geology through which it travels and the inputs from man's activities. The chemistry of the water has a large impact on the ecology of that water for both plants and animals and it also affects the uses that may be made of the river water. Understanding and characterising river water chemistry requires a well designed and managed programme of sampling and analysis Like many other Aquatic ecosystems, rivers too are under increasing threat of pollution. According to a study of the WWF's Global Freshwater Programme, the 10 most polluted rivers are: Ganges, Indus, Yangtze, Salween-Nu, Mekong-Lancang, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, La Plata, Danube, Nile-Lake Victoria, and the Murray-Darling.[14]

[edit] Brackish water

Further information: Brackish water

Some rivers generate brackish water by having their river mouth in the ocean. This, in effect creates a unique environment in which certain species are found.

[edit] Flooding

Flash flooding caused by heavy rain falling in a short amount of time

Flooding is a natural part of a river's cycle. The majority of the erosion of river channels and the erosion and deposition on the associated floodplains occur during flood stage. In many developed areas, human activity has changed river channel form, altering different magnitudes and frequencies of flooding. Some examples of this are the building of levees, the straightening

of channels, and the draining of natural wetlands. In many cases human activities in rivers and floodplains have dramatically increased the risk of flooding. Straightening rivers allows water to flow more rapidly downstream increasing the risk of flooding places further downstream. Building on flood plains removes flood storage which again exacerbates downstream flooding. The building of levees may only protect the area behind the levees and not those further downstream. Levees and flood-banks can also increase flooding upstream because of back-water pressure as the upstream water has to squeeze between the levees.

[edit] Flow
Studying the flows of rivers is one aspect of hydrology.[15]
[edit] Direction

River meandering course

A common misconception is that most, or even all, rivers flow from north to south.[16][17][18] Rivers in fact flow downhill regardless of compass direction. Sometimes downhill is from north to south, but equally it can be from south to north, and usually is a complex meandering path involving all directions of the compass.[19][20][21] Three of the ten longest rivers in the worldthe Nile, Yenisei, and Obflow north, as do other major rivers such as the Rhine, Mackenzie, and Nelson. Rivers flowing downhill, from river source to river mouth, do not necessarily take the shortest path. For alluvial streams, straight and braided rivers have very low sinuosity and flow directly down hill, while meandering rivers flow from side to side across a valley. Bedrock rivers typically flow in either a fractal pattern, or a pattern that is determined by weaknesses in the bedrock, such as faults, fractures, or more erodible layers.

[edit] Rate

Volumetric flow rate, also called discharge, volume flow rate, and rate of water flow, is the volume of water which passes through a given cross-section of the river channel per unit time. It is typically measured in cubic meters per second (cumec) or cubic feet per second (cfs), where 1 m3/s = 35.51 ft3/s; it is sometimes also measured in litres or gallons per second. Volumetric flow rate can be thought of as the mean velocity of the flow through a given crosssection, times that cross-sectional area. Mean velocity can be approximated through the use of the Law of the Wall. In general, velocity increases with the depth (or hydraulic radius) and slope of the river channel, while the cross-sectional area scales with the depth and the width: the double-counting of depth shows the importance of this variable in determining the discharge through the channel.

[edit] Management

River bank repair Main article: River engineering

Rivers are often managed or controlled to make them more useful, or less disruptive, to human activity.

Dams or weirs may be built to control the flow, store water, or extract energy. Levees, known as dikes in Europe, may be built to prevent river water from flowing on floodplains or floodways. Canals connect rivers to one another for water transfer or navigation. River courses may be modified to improve navigation, or straightened to increase the flow rate.

River management is a continuous activity as rivers tend to 'undo' the modifications made by people. Dredged channels silt up, sluice mechanisms deteriorate with age, levees and dams may suffer seepage or catastrophic failure. The benefits sought through managing rivers may often be offset by the social and economic costs of mitigating the bad effects of such management. As an example, in parts of the developed world, rivers have been confined within channels to free up flat flood-plain land for development. Floods can inundate such development at high financial cost and often with loss of life.

Rivers are increasingly managed for habitat conservation, as they are critical for many aquatic and riparian plants, resident and migratory fishes, waterfowl, birds of prey, migrating birds, and many mammals.

[edit] See also

10.

Reservoir
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about an artificial body of water. For other uses, see Reservoir (disambiguation).

The Jhonghua Dam on the Dahan River in Taoyuan County, Taiwan.

A reservoir (pronounced either REZ-ur-vore or REZ-er-vwar, etymology: from French rservoir a "storehouse [1]) or an artificial lake is used to store water. Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete. The term reservoir may also be used to describe underground reservoirs such as an oil or water well.

Contents
[hide]

1 Types 1.1 Valley dammed reservoir 1.2 Bank-side reservoir 1.3 Service reservoir 2 History 3 Uses o 3.1 Direct water supply o 3.2 Hydroelectricity o 3.3 Controlling watercourses o 3.4 Flow balancing o 3.5 Recreation 4 Operation o 4.1 Terminology o 4.2 Modelling reservoir management 5 Safety 6 Environmental impact o 6.1 Whole life environmental impact o 6.2 Climate change o 6.3 Biology o 6.4 Human Impact o 6.5 Limnology o 6.6 Seismicity o 6.7 Micro climate 7 List of reservoirs o 7.1 List of reservoirs by area o 7.2 List of reservoirs by volume 8 See also 9 References 10 External links
o o o

[edit] Types
[edit] Valley dammed reservoir

Lake Vyrnwy Reservoir. The dam spans the Vyrnwy Valley and was the first large stone dam built in the United Kingdom.

Stocks Reservoir in Lancashire, England.

A dam constructed in a valley relies on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the reservoir. Dams are typically located at a narrow part of a valley downstream of a natural basin. The valley sides act as natural walls with the dam located at the narrowest practical point to provide strength and the lowest practical cost of construction. In many reservoir construction projects people have to be moved and re-housed, historical artifacts moved or rare environments relocated. Examples include the temples of Abu Simbel[2] ( which were moved before the construction of the Aswan Dam to create Lake Nasser from the Nile in Egypt ) and the relocation of the village of Capel Celyn during the construction of Llyn Celyn.[3] Construction of a reservoir in a valley will usually necessitate the diversion of the river during part of the build often through a temporary tunnel or by-pass channel.[4] In hilly regions reservoirs are often constructed by enlarging existing lakes. Sometimes in such reservoirs the new top water level exceeds the watershed height on one or more of the feeder streams such as at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales.[5] In such cases additional side dams are required to contain the reservoir. Where the topography is poorly suited to a single large reservoir, a number of smaller reservoirs may be constructed in a chain such as in the River Taff valley where the three reservoirs Llwynon Reservoir, Cantref Reservoir and Beacons Reservoir form a chain up the valley.[6]
[edit] Bank-side reservoir

Where water is taken from a river of variable quality or quantity, bank-side reservoirs may be constructed to store the water pumped or siphoned from the river. Such reservoirs are usually built partly by excavation and partly by the construction of a complete encircling bund or embankment which may exceed 6 km in circumference.[7] Both the floor of the reservoir and the bund must have an impermeable lining or core, often made of puddled clay. The water stored in

such reservoirs may have a residence time of several months during which time normal biological processes are able to substantially reduce many contaminants and almost eliminate any turbidity. The use of bank-side reservoirs also allows a water abstraction to be closed down for extended period at times when the river is unacceptably polluted or when flow conditions are very low due to drought. The London water supply system is one example of the use of bankside storage for all the water taken from the River Thames and River Lee with many large reservoirs such as Queen Mary Reservoir visible along the approach to London Heathrow Airport.[7]
[edit] Service reservoir

Service reservoirs[8] store fully treated potable water close to the point of distribution. Many service reservoirs are constructed as water towers, often as elevated structures on concrete pillars where the landscape is relatively flat. Other service reservoirs are entirely underground, especially in more hilly or mountainous country. In the United Kingdom, Thames Water has many underground reservoirs built in the 1800s by the Victorians, most of which are lined with brick. A good example is the Honor Oak Reservoir, constructed between 1901 and 1909. When it was completed it was the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world[9] and is still one of the largest in Europe[10]. The reservoir now forms part of the Southern extension of the Thames Water Ring Main. The top of the reservoir has been grassed over and is now the Aquarias Golf Club[11]. Service reservoirs perform several functions including ensuring sufficient head of water in the water distribution system and providing hydraulic capacitance in the system to even out peak demand from consumers enabling the treatment plant to run at optimum efficiency. Large service reservoirs can also be managed to so that energy costs in pumping are reduced by concentrating refilling activity at times of day when power costs are low.

[edit] History
Five thousand years ago, the craters of extinct volcanoes in Arabia were used as reservoirs by farmers for their irrigation water.[12] Dry climate and water scarcity in India led to early development of water management techniques, including the building of a reservoir at Girnar in 3000 BC.[13] Artificial lakes dating to the 5th century BC have been found in ancient Greece.[14] An artificial lake in present-day Madhya Pradesh province of India, constructed in the 11th century, covered 650 square metres (7,000 sq ft).[13] In Sri Lanka large reservoirs have been created by ancient Sinhalese kings in order to save the water for irrigation. The famous Sri Lankan king Parkramabhu I of Sri Lanka stated " do not let a drop of water seep into the ocean without benefiting mankind ". He created the reservoir named Parakrama Samudra(sea of King Parakrama),[15] which has astonished archaeologists.[original research?]

[edit] Uses
[edit] Direct water supply

Gibson Reservoir, Montana

Many dammed river reservoirs and most bank-side reservoirs are used to provide the raw water feed to a water treatment plant which delivers drinking water through water mains. The reservoir does not simply hold water until it is needed; it can also be the first part of the water treatment process. The time the water is held for before it is released is known as the retention time. This is a design feature that allows particles and silts to settle out, as well as time for natural biological treatment using algae, bacteria and zooplankton that naturally live within the water. However natural limnological processes in temperate climate lakes produces temperature stratification in the water body which tends to partition some elements such as manganese and phosphorus into deep, cold anoxic water during the summer months. In the autumn and winter the lake becomes fully mixed again. During drought conditions, it is sometimes necessary to draw down the cold bottom water and the elevated levels of manganese in particular can cause problems in water treatment plants.[16]
[edit] Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectric dam in cross section.

A reservoir generating hydroelectricity includes turbines connected to the retained water body by large-diameter pipes. These generating sets may be at the base of the dam or some distance away. Some reservoirs generating hydroelectricity use pumped re-charge in which a high-level

reservoir is filled with water using high-performance electric pumps at times when electricity demand is low and then uses this stored water to generate electricity by releasing the stored water into a low-level reservoir when electricity demand is high. Such systems are called pump-storage schemes.[17]
[edit] Controlling watercourses

Reservoirs can be used in a number of ways to control how water flows through downstream waterways.
Downstream water supply water may be released from an upland reservoir so that it can be abstracted for drinking water lower down the system, sometimes hundred of miles further down downstream Irrigation water in an irrigation reservoir may be released into networks of canals for use in farmlands or secondary water systems. Irrigation may also be supported by reservoirs which maintain river flows allowing water to be abstracted for irrigation lower down the river.[18] Flood control also known as an "attenuation" or "balancing" reservoir, flood control reservoirs collect water at times of very high rainfall, then release it slowly over the course of the following weeks or months. Some of these reservoirs are constructed across the river line with the onward flow controlled by an orifice plate. When river flow exceeds the capacity of the orifice plate water builds behind the dam but as soon as the flow rate reduces the water behind the dam slowly releases until the reservoir is empty again. In some cases such reservoirs only function a few times in a decade and the land behind the reservoir may be developed as community or recreational land. A new generation of balancing dams are being developed to combat the climatic consequences of climate change. They are called "Flood Detention Reservoirs". Because these reservoirs will remain dry for long periods, there may be a risk of the clay core drying out reducing its structural stability. Recent developments include the use of composite core fill made from recycled materials as an alternative to clay. Canals Where a natural watercourse's water is not available to be diverted into a canal, a reservoir may be built to guarantee the water level in the canal; for example, where a canal climbs to cross a range of hills through locks.[19]

Recreational-only Kupferbach reservoir near Aachen/Germany.

Recreation water may be released from a reservoir to artificially create or supplement whitewater conditions for kayaking and other white-water sports.[20] On salmonid rivers special releases (in Britain called freshets) are made to encourage natural migration behaviours in fish and to provide a variety of fishing conditions for anglers. [edit] Flow balancing

Reservoirs can be used to balance the flow in highly managed systems, taking in water during high flows and releasing it again during low flows. In order for this to work without pumping requires careful control of water levels using adjustable sluices. Accurate weather forecasts are essential so that dam operators can plan drawdowns prior to a high rainfall or snowmelt event. Dam operators blamed a faulty weather forecast on the 20102011 Queensland floods. Examples of highly managed Reservoirs are Burrendong Dam in Australia and Llyn Tegid in North Wales. Llyn Tegid is a natural lake whose level was raised by a low dam and into which the River Dee flows or discharges depending upon flow conditions at the time as part of the River Dee regulation system. This mode of operation is a form of hydraulic capacitance in the river system.
[edit] Recreation

The water bodies provided by many reservoirs often allow some recreational uses such as fishing, boating, and other activities. Special rules may apply for the safety of the public and to protect the quality of the water and the ecology of the surrounding area. Many reservoirs now support and encourage less informal and less structured recreation such as natural history, bird watching, landscape painting, walking and hiking and often provide information boards and interpretation material to encourage responsible use.

[edit] Operation
Water falling as rain upstream of the reservoir together with any groundwater emerging as springs is stored in the reservoir. Any excess water can be spilled via a specifically designed spillway. Stored water may be piped by gravity for use as drinking water, to generate hydroelectricity or to maintain river flows to support downstream uses. Occasionally reservoirs can be managed to retain high rain-fall events to prevent or reduce downstream flooding. Some reservoirs support several uses and the operating rules may be complex.

Spillway of Llyn Brianne dam in Wales.

Most modern reservoirs have a specially designed draw-off tower that can discharge water from the reservoir at different levels both to access water as the reservoir draws down but also to allow water of a specific quality to be discharged into the downstream river as compensation water. The operators of many upland or in-river reservoirs have obligations to release water into the downstream river to maintain river quality, support fisheries, maintain downstream industrial uses. maintain recreational use or for a range of other requirements. Such releases are known as compensation water.
[edit] Terminology

The terminology for reservoirs varies from country to country. In most of the world reservoir areas are expressed in km2 whilst in the USA acres are commonly used. For volume either m3 or km3 are widely used with acre feet used in the USA. The capacity, volume or storage of a reservoir is usually divided into distinguishable areas. Dead or inactive storage refers to water in a reservoir that cannot be drained by gravity through a dam's outlet works, spillway or power plant intake and can only be pumped out. Dead storage allows sediments to settle which improves water quality and also creates hydraulic head along with an area for fish during low levels. Active or live storage is the portion of the reservoir that can be utilized for flood control, power production, navigation and downstream releases. In addition, a reservoir's flood control capacity is the amount of water it can regulate during flooding. The surcharge capacity is the capacity of the reservoir above the spillway crest that cannot be regulated.[21] In the United States the water below the normal maximum level of a reservoir is called the conservation pool.[22]

In the UK top water level describes the reservoir full state whist fully drawn down describes the minimum retained volume.
[edit] Modelling reservoir management

There is a wide variety of software for modelling reservoirs, from the specialist Dam Safety Program Management Tools (DSPMT) to the relatively simple WAFLEX, to integrated models like the Water Evaluation And Planning system (WEAP) that place reservoir operations in the context of system-wide demands and supplies.

[edit] Safety
In many countries large reservoirs are closely regulated to try to prevent or minimise failures of containment.[23][24] Whilst much of the effort is directed at the dam and its associated structures as the weakest part of the overall structure, the aim of such controls is to prevent an uncontrolled release of water from the reservoir. Reservoir failures can generate huge increases in flow down a river valley with the potential to wash away towns and villages and cause considerable loss of life such as the devastation following the failure of containment at Llyn Eigiau which killed 17 people.[25](see also List of dam failures) A notable case of reservoirs being used as an instrument of War involved the British Royal Air Force Dambusters raid on Germany in World War II (codenamed "Operation Chastise" [26]), in which three German reservoir dams were selected to be breached in order to impact on German infrastructure and manufacturing and power capabilities deriving from the Ruhr and Eder rivers. The economic and social impact was derived from the enormous volumes of previously stored water that swept down the valleys wreaking destruction. This raid later became the basis for several films.

[edit] Environmental impact

Main article: Environmental impacts of reservoirs [edit] Whole life environmental impact

All reservoirs will have a monetary cost/benefit assessment made before construction to see if the project is worth proceeding with.[27] However, such analysis can often omit the environmental impacts of dams and the reservoirs that they contain. Some impacts such as the greenhouse gas production associated with concrete manufacture are relatively easy to estimate. Other impact on the natural environment and social and cultural effects can be more difficult to assess and to weigh in the balance but identification and quantification of these issues are now commonly required in major construction projects in the developed world [28]

[edit] Climate change

Depending upon the circumstances, a reservoir built for hydro-electricity generation can either reduce or increase the net production of greenhouse gases. An increase can occur if plant material in the flooded areas decays in an anaerobic environment releasing (methane and carbon dioxide). This apparently counterintuitive position arises because much carbon is released as methane which is approximately 8 time more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide [29] A study for the National Institute for Research in the Amazon found that Hydroelectric reservoirs release a large pulse of carbon dioxide from above-water decay of trees left standing in the reservoirs, especially during the first decade after closing.[30] This elevates the global warming impact of the dams to levels much higher than would occur by generating the same power from fossil fuels.[30] According to the World Commission on Dams report (Dams And Development), when the reservoir is relatively large and no prior clearing of forest in the flooded area was undertaken, greenhouse gas emissions from the reservoir could be higher than those of a conventional oil-fired thermal generation plant.[31] For instance, In 1990, the impoundment behind the Balbina Dam in Brazil (inaugurated in 1987) had over 20 times the impact on global warming than would generating the same power from fossil fuels, due to the large area flooded per unit of electricity generated.[30] A decrease can occur if the dam is used in place of traditional power generation, since electricity produced from hydroelectric generation does not give rise to any flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion (including sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide from coal). The Tucurui dam in Brazil (closed in 1984) had only 0.4 times the impact on global warming than would generating the same power from fossil fuels.[30]
[edit] Biology

Dams can produce a block for migrating fish, trapping them in one area, producing food and a habitat for various water-birds. They can also flood various ecosystems on land and may cause extinctions.
[edit] Human Impact

Dams can severely reduce the amount of water reaching countries downstream of them, causing water stress between the countries, e.g. the Sudan and Egypt, which damages farming businesses in the downstream countries, and reduces drinking water. Farms and villages, e.g. Ashopton can be flooded by the creation of reservoirs, ruining many livelihoods. For this very reason, worldwide 80 million people (figure is as of 2009) have had to be forcibly relocated due to dam construction.
[edit] Limnology

The limnology of reservoirs has many similarities to that of lakes of equivalent size. There are however significant differences.[32] Many reservoirs experience considerable variations in level

producing significant areas that are intermittently underwater or dried out. This greatly limits the productivity or the water margins and limits the number of species able to survive in these conditions. Upland reservoirs tend to have a much shorter residence time than natural lakes and this can lead to more rapid cycling of nutrients through the water body so that they are more quickly lost to the system. This may be seen as a mismatch between water chemistry and water biology with a tendency for the biological component to be more oligotrophic than the chemistry would suggest. Conversely, lowland reservoirs drawing water from nutrient rich rivers, may show exaggerated eutrophic characteristics because the residence time in the reservoir is much greater than in the river and the biological systems have a much greater opportunity to utilise the available nutrients. Deep reservoirs with multiple level draw off towers can discharge deep cold water into the downstream river greatly reducing the size of any hypolimnion. This in turn can reduce the concentrations of phosphorus released during any annual mixing event and may therefore reduce productivity. The Dams in front of reservoirs act as knickpoints-the energy of the water falling from them reduces and deposition is a result below the Dams.
[edit] Seismicity

The filling (impounding) of reservoirs has often been attributed to reservoir-triggered seismicity (RTS) as seismic events have occurred near large dams or within their reservoirs in the past. These events may have been triggered by the filling or operation of the reservoir and are on a small scale when compared to the amount of reservoirs worldwide. Of over 100 recorded events, early examples include the 60 m (197 ft) tall Marathon Dam in Greece (1929), the 221 m (725 ft) tall Hoover Dam in the U.S. (1935). Most events involve large dams and small amounts of seismicity. The only four recorded events above a 6.0-magnitude (Mw) are the 103 m (338 ft) tall Koyna Dam in India which registered a Mw of 6.3 along with the 120 m (394 ft) Kremasta Dam in Greece which registered a 6.3-Mw as well. Following those two, the next largest were the 122 m (400 ft) high Kariba Dam in Zambia at 6.25-Mw and the 105 m (344 ft) Xinfengjiang Dam in China at 6.1-Mw. Disputes occur over when RTS has occurred due to a lack of hydrogeological knowledge at the time of the event. It is accepted though that the infiltration of water into pores and the weight of the reservoir do contribute to RTS patterns. For RTS to occur, there must be a seismic structure near the dam or its reservoir and the seismic structure must be close to failure. Additionally, water must be able to infiltrate the deep rock stratum as the weight of a 100 m (328 ft) deep reservoir will have little impact when compared the deadweight of rock on a crustal stress field which may be located at a depth of 10 km (6 mi) or more.[33]

[edit] Micro climate

Reservoirs may change the local micro-climate increasing humidity and reducing extremes of temperature. Such effects are claimed by some South Australian winerys as increasing the quality of the wine production.

[edit] List of reservoirs

Main article: List of reservoirs [edit] List of reservoirs by area

Lake Volta from space (April 1993).

The following are the world's ten largest reservoirs by surface area:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Lake Volta (8,482 km2 or 3,275 sq mi; Ghana) [34] Smallwood Reservoir (6,527 km2 or 2,520 sq mi; Canada)[35] Kuybyshev Reservoir (6,450 km2 or 2,490 sq mi; Russia)[36] Lake Kariba (5,580 km2 or 2,150 sq mi; Zimbabwe, Zambia)[37] Bukhtarma Reservoir (5,490 km2 or 2,120 sq mi; Kazakhstan) Bratsk Reservoir (5,426 km2 or 2,095 sq mi; Russia)[38] Lake Nasser (5,248 km2 or 2,026 sq mi; Egypt, Sudan) [39] Rybinsk Reservoir (4,580 km2 or 1,770 sq mi; Russia) Caniapiscau Reservoir (4,318 km2 or 1,667 sq mi; Canada)[40] Lake Guri (4,250 km2 or 1,640 sq mi; Venezuela)

[edit] List of reservoirs by volume

Lake Kariba from space. Main article: List of reservoirs by volume 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Lake Kariba (180 km3 or 43 cu mi; Zimbabwe, Zambia) Bratsk Reservoir (169 km3 or 41 cu mi; Russia) Lake Nasser (157 km3 or 38 cu mi; Egypt, Sudan) Lake Volta (148 km3 or 36 cu mi; Ghana) Manicouagan Reservoir (142 km3 or 34 cu mi; Canada)[41] Lake Guri (135 km3 or 32 cu mi; Venezuela) Williston Lake (74 km3 or 18 cu mi; Canada)[42] Krasnoyarsk Reservoir (73 km3 or 18 cu mi; Russia) Zeya Reservoir (68 km3 or 16 cu mi; Russia)

[edit] See also

Water portal

Ab Anbar Colourful lakelets (in Poland) Drainage basin Drought Hydroelectricity Dam failure Mill pond Multipurpose reservoir Spillway Coastal sediment supply