UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHEASTERN PHILIPPINES

BO. OBRERO, DAVAO CITY

WATER
RESOURCES
CHAPTER 10
Submitted by:

TAN, KEITH ROGER D.

GARCIA, DENZEL JOHN F.
Submitted by:

ENGR. ROMEO EDUARDO R. JAVELLANA

MARCH 2016

Water resources management in North America has evolved from its original goal
of supplying water at minimum cost to promote development, to the contemporary
approach in which a wide spectrum of objectives is examined. Benefits, from flood control
to the aesthetic enjoyment of the environment, are now evaluated in terms of human
needs and activities. The application of this broadened concept must be based on an
understanding of many factors that influence decisions. These factors and their influence
on water resources management are described in this chapter. Technical background
information on the overall quantities of water available and the requirements for various
uses precedes a discussion of management alternatives. The need for adequate data and
role of systems analysis is assessing the environmental consequences of these alternative
are explained.

Importance of Water
Water resources have been critical to human society since people discovered that
food could be produced by cultivation plants. The cities and towns that arose from Egypt
east to Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) following the agricultural revolution about 3500
B.C. required a ready supply of water for domestic as well as agricultural needs.
Eventually, running water drove machines that cut wood, milled grain, and provide motive
power for many industrial process. Waters abundance made it ideal as a universal solvent
for cleaning and flushing away all manner of waste from human activities. Until recently
the approach of providing water, for whatever purpose, was simple: either locate close to
water, as many cities did, or store and transport water to wherever it was required. After
use, was generally discharged to the nearest body of water, often the source from which
it came. The low-cost supply of large quantities of water was one of the foundations of
modern society.
Exponentially growing population and industrial expansion primed the need for
increased water supply and distribution. This need was met by constructing dams,
reservoirs, river diversions, pipelines, and aqueducts to bring water from more distant,
unpolluted sources. The widespread application of modern technology to the supply of
abundant water for unrestricted municipal, industrial, and agricultural uses, with no
incentive for reuse or conservation, has greatly increased completion for limited sources
of easily accessible water.

Objectives in Water Resources Management

Water resources in nature seldom exist when and where they are needed. Erosion,
flooding, and drought also affect availability and quality of water for use and result in loss
of property each year and, in the case of flood and drought, loss of human life as well.
The general objective of water resources management is therefore to maximize the
benefits obtained from the utilization and control of water resources. Projects may have
several objectives, and the relative importance of each must be established. This
evaluation will be influenced by the amount of water to be supplied or controlled, the
need for protection or improvement of its quality, and the cost of providing the potential
benefits to the various users.

Properties of Water
Water is the most abundant chemical component within the biosphere. It is also
perhaps the most important. Almost all life on earth, including human life, uses water as
the basic medium of metabolic functioning. The removal and dilution of most natural and
human-made wastes are also accomplished almost entirely by water. In addition, water
possesses several unique physical properties that are directly responsible for the evolution
of our environment and the life that function within it. Its ability to conduct (thermal
conductivity) and store (heat capacity) heat is unmatched by that of any other substance.
Water also has an extremely high heat of evaporation.: while it takes only 0.239 J (1
calorie) to raise the temperature of 1 gram of liquid water 1C (1 Btu to raise the
temperature of 1 pound of water 1F) it takes 540 times as much energy to evaporate it.
Freezing of water releases 335 kJ/kg (144 Btu/lb). Every day the suns energy removes
roughly 1230 km3 (300 mi3) of water from the seas, lakes, rivers, and soil through
evaporation and from plants by transpiration (Miller, 1992).
The water environment of aquatic life is protected from sudden temperature
changes by the fact that it takes a great deal of heat to raise the temperature of water.
Water is one of the only two substancesmercury being the otherthat is denser as a
liquid than as a solid. If the reverse were true, lakes and rivers would freeze from the
bottom up, killing most aquatic life within them.

Solar energy drives vast amounts of water through the ecosphere in a closed
system known as the hydrologic cycle. Figure 10-1 shows how water eventually starts
flowing horizontally as soil pores and rock cracks are filled. The boundary formed, called
the water table, may be found just below the ground surface in areas of heavier rainfall to
hundreds of meters down in dry areas. Wells, drilled in these combinations of water, soil,
and rock structures, called aquifers, from a major source of water for municipalities and
rural areas where surface supplies would be too costly to develop.

Figure 10-1

Quantity of Water Available

Total Water

Fresh Water

1.36x1018m3

3.8x1016m3

Groundwater &
Surface Water
8.4x1015m3

Oceans
97%
Fresh Water
3%

Locked in (Polar
ice, soil, rock,
water vapor)
78%

Figure 10-3 Water sources as a percentage of total supply.

All Surface and

Groundwater
22%

Inaccessible
99%
Accessible
1%

Accessible Water
= 5x1013m3 or (13x1019 gal)

Water Use
It is important to distinguish between consumptive and nonconsumptive water use.
Consumptive water use is that use which renders water unavailable for further use,
either because of evaporation, extreme pollution, or seepage underground, until the
hydrologic cycle returns it as rain.
Nonconsumptive use of water leaves the water available (after treatment if
necessary) for reuse without going through the hydrologic cycle. (Viessman and Hammer
1993). On this basis, agriculture, because of evaporation and percolation of the water
used on crops, is responsible for almost 90% of the water unavailable for reuse in the
world.

Options for Meeting Water Demands

The growing demand for water has caused many countries, including even the
United States and Canada, which together contain about 30% of the worlds freshwater
supplies, to examine ways in which essential water can be provided while preserving
supplies for future use. Two major approach are implied.

The first consists of using large engineering projects to obtain more water from
various freshwater systems before they discharge to the ocean. This is a supply-type of
solution.
The second is based on increased water recycling, suing both constructed and
natural purification systems before the water is lost by evaporation or returned to the
ocean reservoir. This is called a reuse-type of approach, which, in effect, recirculates water
as a sub cycle of the global hydrologic cycle.

Supply Options
1. Dams and reservoirs are the oldest means of controlling water flow. Their benefits
are equalization and control of stream flow, power generation, flood and drought control,
and recreation.
2. Large-scale water diversions from one area to another have come into greater use.
The benefits of supplying abundant water for domestic and industrial development are
obvious. The disadvantages of these major projects are their cost, evaporative losses, and
the tendency to cause salt buildup and soil deterioration through improper drainage of
irrigation projects.
3. Groundwater contains 97% of all the freshwater in the United States and supplies
about 20% of the countrys needs. Recharging relatively shallow aquifers can be done
fairly easily, but deep reservoirs in dry areas may take hundreds of years to recharge and
are thus, in practical terms, not renewable.
4. Desalination is receiving more attention as arid countries report success in some
applications. Reverse Osmosis (RO), forcing water through a semipermeable membrane
that passes water but traps dissolved salts, is the most practical of several desalination
methods, including conventional distillation. RO units are expensive and relatively energy
intensive, but they will become more economical for water purification as their use grows.
5. The use of icebergs as water supply for dry coastal cities receives attention from
time to time. Unresolved problems include the environmental effects, melting during
transit, and methods for melting ice and moving the water ashore.
6. Relocation of the population away from the areas that are short of water are
already supporting as many water users as possible is one obvious plan. This option will

receive greater attention as the cost for water increases and recycling and conservation
have been implemented.

Reuse Options
1. Better treatment to permit more reuse waters that have become polluted will be a
vital element of future water resource policies. When no new resource can be tapped.
Increasing the number of time that water can be reused before its return to the
hydrologic cycle will be the only way to meet water demand in the long term, since the
total amount of available water is fixed.
2. Reducing evaporation from water surfaces has the potential of significantly lowering
water consumption in agricultural, the largest single user of water resources.
3. Water conservation techniques could be immediately effective in extending
freshwater resources. Even relatively simple measures, such as installing special faucet and
shower fittings, can save a great deal of water. Most industrial equipment that uses water
was designed with abundant water supplies in mind. Efficient design could therefore
drastically reduce industrial water needs. However, not all conservation techniques are
technical. Changes in social and economic attitudes regarding freshwater supply and
distribution can also play an important role in conserving water.

END