NOTES

NOVEMBER 2021
Chapter 4: WATER AND ITS MANAGEMENT

GRADE: IG-1 SUBJECT: EVM

Water and its management:

Water is essential for life on Earth because water is essential for plant growth;
plants are the producers for human and other species to consume. Human
body needs

1. Global water distribution:

The distribution of the Earth’s water:

• About three-fourth of the Earth’s surface is covered by water

• Over 97 percent of the total Earth’s water is found in oceans and seas

• However, this water is saline and not fit for human use

• The fresh water is 3 percent (that human require to sustain life) ------
middle bar in Fig

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 1
 • Of this fresh water, over two- thirds is locked up in glaciers and ice caps
and almost all the rest is stored as groundwater

• Surface water, which is the source of the water people consume around
the world,

• represents only slightly more than 1 percent of the total fresh water
available (0.0067 percent of the Earth’s total water) and fit for human
consumption

• Almost 90 percent of the planet’s fresh water is stored in ice and lakes
with the remaining 10 percent being held in five other main stores

• Considering that rivers are the main source of water for the world’s
population, it is clear that human life depends on just 0.0002 percent of
the planet’s total water

2. Water supply:

The sources of fresh water used by people:

Sources:

From the atmosphere – rainfall catchment

From the surface – lakes, river, ponds and irrigation canals

From underground – well, springs

Other: Aquifers, Reservoirs, Desalination plants

Ground water: aquifer

Water which has soaked into ground from rain or snow etc

• Ground water is the world’s most important source of fresh water

• It is found in aquifers below the land surface

• An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing rock

• It is both porous (absorbs water) and permeable (allow water to

percolate through it)

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 2
 • Some rocks such as sandstone or limestone are able to absorb and store
percolating water

• Water is extracted from aquifers from an artesian well, created by

drilling an underground pipe down from the surface to the aquifer

• Ground water can become contaminated by pollutants from e.g. storage

tanks, septic tanks, hazardous waste sites, landfills, road salts, fertilizers,
pesticides

3. Water usage:

The different ways in which fresh water can be used:

People use water for variety of purposes

Domestic use of water – washing, bathing, cleaning, laundering, cooking etc.

Industrial use of water – cooling water for power generation, reagent, HEP,
steam generation

Other Uses of rivers:

 Water disposal
 Recreation, swimming and canoeing
 Navigation and shipping
 Irrigation water for crops

People could conserve and reuse water by following ways:

 Take shower not bath

 More water economical methods of planting
 Brick in cistern (a tank for storing water)
 Don’t run taps when not needed
 Repair leaks
 Collect rain water for plants
 Water economical irrigation, trickle drip

4. Water quality and availability:

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 3
Compare the availability of safe drinking water (potable water) in different
parts of the world

• There are 42 800 billion cubic metres of freshwater reserves available on

Earth, which amounts to an average allocation of 5925 cubic meters per
person a year

• However, this figure assumes an even distribution of freshwater

reserves across all of the regions and countries of the world

Distribution of global water reserves by region

Region Water reserves Available water resource per
(billion m3) person per year (cubic metres)

Latin America and 13 867 22 162

Caribbean
East Asia and Oceania 10 096 4525

Europe and Central Asia 7071 7866

North America 5668 15 993

Sub- Saharan Africa 3883 3987

South Asia 1982 1152

Middle East and North 231 554

Africa

• Because of this uneven distribution, the world has water-rich and water-
poor regions

• South America and the Caribbean, with 500 million inhabitants or 8

percent of the world’s population, has 31 percent of the world’s
freshwater reserves

• North America is another water-rich region, with 13 percent of the

freshwater reserves but only 7 percent of the planet’s residents

• In fact just two countries – brazil and the US – possess 25 percent of the
world’s water reserves

• Asia – over 4 billion people live (60 percent of the world’s population)
but only have access to 28 percent of the world’s freshwater resources

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 4
 • The most water-poor regions of the Middle East and North Africa
contain only 0.5 percent of freshwater reserves

• And as home to 5 percent of the globe’s population, have the lowest

available water reserves per person in the world

• Such an uneven distribution of water resources experience either

physical or economic water shortages

• While in others there is no scarcity at all

• A physical water shortage occurs in country when all available reserves

have been exploited and demand continues to rise

• An economic water storage means that people have insufficient water

even though there are adequate water reserves available

Access to safe drinking water in urban and rural areas:

• Potable water, also known as improved drinking water, is water safe

enough for drinking and food preparation

• Because it has been treated to ensure that it is free of external

contaminants and harmful bacteria

• Globally, 700 million people (only in ten) do not have access to an

improved water source

• People live in the countries of Sub- Saharan Africa, where the average is
63 percent with potable water compared with a global figure of 91
percent

• Most non-potable water will be untreated water extracted directly from

wells, rivers and lakes, which may be contaminated by faeces and may
cause chronic diarrhoea

• as well as bacterial diseases such as botulism, dysentery and typhoid,

and viral infections including hepatitis A and poliomyelitis

• An estimated 1.5 million people a year die from the effects of diarrhoea
and water-borne diseases caused by a lack of access to safe water and
improved sanitation facilities

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 5
 • Over 90 percent of these deaths are of children under the age of five

• This is the number one cause of deaths amongst children worldwide and
the relationship between infant mortality

• Every year, 160 million people are infected with bilharzia from ingesting
parasitic worms and tens of thousands die as a result

• Another 500 million people are at risk of contracting trachoma, a

bacterial infection of the eye; over 150 million people worldwide are
blind or have serious sight impairments as a result of this disease

• In addition to bilharzia, other intestinal helminths (parasitic worms) such

as hookworm infect over 100 million people

• There are over 1.5 million causes of clinical hepatitis A every year

• Poor sanitation that allows drinking water to come into contact with
human waste is the major cause of contamination

• Over 2 billion people worldwide lack access to improved sanitation

facilities and surprisingly, regions with poor levels of sanitation tend also
to have the highest levels of contraction of water- borne infectious
diseases

• Only 2/3s of the world’s rural dwellers have access to improved

sanitation (compared with 82 percent of all urban residents), and

• 80 percent of all the people in the world without improved water also
live in rural areas

• Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest population of any region still without
improved water sources (319 million people)

• Angola and Equatorial Guinea, both in this region, are two of the three
remaining countries in the world in which less than 50 percent of the
population have improved water access

5. Multipurpose dam projects:

Dams are built to hold back reservoir for water supply

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 6
In some countries dams have been built across rivers to increase the supply of
fresh water

For example: Aswan High Dam in Egypt

Reasons for building dam include multi-purpose uses such as water supply for
domestic and industry, irrigation water, increased food output, hydro-electric,
tourism, navigation, flood control

Location for creating a dam and reservoir:

 High precipitation: provides supply of water or less chance of lake drying

up
 Low temperatures: little evaporation or little water loss
 Steep sides or deep valley: good storage potential for HEP
 Steep sided valley: assists construction of dam
 Impermeable rock: water will not steep or drain away
 Wide or flat valley would provide for large population
 Low population
 Mountainous so high rainfall
 Lake: (in valley) provides water
 River: (dammed to) provide water

Dams and reservoir are used for hydro-electric power (HEP)

Advantages of dam:

 Preventing flash floods

 Allows irrigation
 Drinking water supply
 HEP
 Recreation or tourism

 Dams are frequently built to improve navigation along rivers and canals
by ships and barges carrying cargo inland from coastal ports where it
has been offloaded from much larger ocean-going vessels

Electricity produced in a hydro- electric power station:

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 7
  Hydroelectric power stations use the energy inside moving water to
convert to electrical energy.
 The water comes from behind a dam built across a river valley. The
water high up behind the dam contains gravitational potential energy.
 This is transferred to kinetic energy as the water rushes down through
tubes inside the dam.
 The moving water drives electrical generators, which may be built
\inside the dam

Sluice

 Sluice opened
 Water flows through penstock pipe
 Turns turbine
 Which turns generator

 HEP is a sustainable energy source because water can be reused

(renewable). Rainfall continually resupplies water. It produces electricity
without using up water.
Sometimes…
 But in reservoir silt up (fine sand block) over time
 So electricity production decreases
 Until becomes completely silted up and unable to produce electricity

Creation of dam and reservoir could affect the ecosystems of the areas:

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 8
  Loss of vegetation on valley floor or sides
 Animals or birds lose habitat
 Food chain or food web disturbed
 Dam stops up or down stream migration of fish
 Which may stop spawning
 However creates new aquatic habitat or wetlands

Here some of the reasons why some people do not want dams built:

 Homes, villages or communities may be destroyed or people may be

forced to move
 Fertile land flooded
 Loss of jobs or income
 Loss of tribal land and heritage sites
 Destruction of ecosystems, wildlife, habitats
 Effects downstream on water use or fish or sediment
 Weight of dam and reservoir may cause earthquakes
 Dam may break causing flooding
 Danger of water related diseases because water no longer flowing
 Visual pollution
 Noise during construction

These are the most important considerations:

• The geology of the site must be stable, with, no risks of serious Earth
movements such as Earthquakes

• The rock of the dam itself and the bed and walls of the reservoir must be
able to sustain huge hydraulic pressures from the volume of water so as
to avoid potentially disastrous floods

1. Rock type:

• For this reason, there must not be any joints or faults in the underlying
rock structure

• Weaker sedimentary rocks such as sandstone will be avoided and harder

rocks such as granite are preferred

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 9
 • The rock structure also needs to be impermeable and non-porous to
avoid seepage

2. Location
 The optimum location for a dam and reservoir is where there is a
narrowing of the river within a wide and deep valley or canyon
 A narrow cross-section reduces dam length and therefore building
costs
 A large deep valley behind the dam means that a considerable
volume of water can be stored in the reservoir

 Deep valleys also have the advantage that the reservoir created will
have the least surface area possible, which reduces water loss
through evaporation

 This is particularly important in hot dry regions

3. Others:

• Reservoirs need to be constructed as close as possible to the location

where the water (or electricity generated) is going to be consumed

• Such as a city or new iron and steel works

• This not only reduces water and electricity transmission losses during
transport but also lowers transport costs

• Dams need to be build in regions where the annual rainfall is sufficient

and reliable enough to keep the reservoir topped up with water

• The catchment of the river that is being dammed must also have enough
tributary streams and rivers to supply the reservoir with the rainfall run-
off required

• Materials such as stones and binding materials required for the

construction of the dam should be available locally to minimise the costs
of the project

• The site should also have enough space for constructing housing and
services for large numbers of workers

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 10
 • As far as possible, the site for the dam and the valley that will be
submerged should be as cheap as possible and not contain a resident
population who will have to be compensated and relocated

Avoid:

• Avoiding high value agricultural land

• Important ecological, historical or cultural sites such as ancient burial

sites

• The habitats of endangered species will also be a consideration

Evaluating the impacts of multipurpose dam projects:

• Economic development can be defined as measures that improve the

prosperity and quality of life of people living in a country

• Examples include encouraging the setting up of new industrial

businesses and jobs, increasing productivity (output) of existing
industries including farming and expanded services such as banking and
insurance

• As the number of employed people in a country grows, so does the

amount of income tax collected by the government (the tax base)

• Much of this will be spent by the government on improving living

conditions for people such as new roads, railways, hospitals and schools

• MPD contributes to economic development through providing electricity

from a renewable source

• Helping to regulate water

• Distributing fresh drinking water

• Feeding irrigation systems that support new areas of farmland that

boost food production

• In this way they help to ensure energy, food and water security in a
country

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 11
6. Water pollution and its sources

Biological effects of agricultural pollution on river:

Algal growth faster; block light; bacteria in rivers break down dead algae; uses
up large amounts of oxygen to break down pollutants; leaving the river short
of oxygen; causing damage to fish and other water life (Eutrophication)

In developing countries like India, it is difficult to reduce river pollution in large

rivers such as river Ganges, because it is sacred to Hindus; so river burial is a
regular ritual and would be hard to stop for the large Hindu population of India

• The developing countries will often lack

• The infrastructure
• Alternative ways of disposing of waste
• Areas around major rivers are often densely populated
• Lack of education and lack of money

Why water from rivers and lakes may not be safe for drinking:

 Contains toxic or industrial/transport waste or pollutants

 Heavy metals – mercury, lead, copper, arsenic, cadmium and oil or road
salt
 Contains runoff from farms or agriculture
 Pesticides or manure or faeces, urine and nitrates
 Contains domestic waste, pollutans or raw sewage
 Water borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentery, E.coli,
salmonella

7. Impact of water pollution

8. Managing pollution of fresh water

The quality of water supplied to people might be improved by pollution

control, sanitation, filtering, chlorination (kills bacteria), deionising

9. Managing water-related disease

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 12
Water related disease can be water-borne or water-based

Water borne: Typhoid, Cholera

Water based: bilharzia

Water bred: Malaria

Malaria

Malaria a water-bred disease because female mosquito lays eggs in (standing

water) stagnant waters are the breeding grounds for mosquitoes and where
larva pupates

• Malaria is caused by a type of parasite known as plasmodium, which is

spread by the female Anopheles mosquito that mainly bites humans at
dusk and during the night

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 13
 • These mosquitoes bite humans and inject Plasmodium into the
bloodstream, so they are the vectors of the disease.

How malaria spread through a human population:

The vector (mosquito) bites an infected person pick up parasite. When it bites
again it is passed to another person

The life cycle of the plasmodium parasite:

• It begins with a female Anopheles mosquito biting a human to suck

blood to get the nutrients it needs to lay eggs

• If the human is already infected with the plasmodium parasite then the
mosquito sucks out some of the parasites in the host’s blood

• When the mosquito feeds on its next human, it pierces into a blood
vessel and inserts a little liquid to prevent the blood clotting, enabling it
to be sucked out

• The plasmodium parasite is contained within this liquid and so infects

the next individual

• Once in the blood stream, the parasite travels to the liver

• The infection develops in the liver before re-entering the bloodstream

and invading the red blood cells

• The parasites grow and multiply in the red blood cells

• At regular intervals, the infected blood cells burst, releasing more

parasites into the blood

• Infected blood cells usually burst every 48-72 hours, causing bouts of
fever, chills and sweating

• If malaria is diagnosed and treated promptly with appropriate

medication, there is a very high chance of making a full recovery

• However, malaria is a very serious illness that can worse very quickly and
can cause serious complications, including severe anaemia and cerebral
malaria

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 14
 • Anaemia occurs where red blood cells are unable to carry enough
oxygen around the body, leading to drowsiness and weakness

• In rare cases, the small blood vessels leading to the brain can become
blocked, causing seizures, brain damage and coma

• The effects of malaria are usually more severe in pregnant woman,

babies, young children and the elderly

Note: Sporozoite – immature form of plasmodium

Symptoms of malaria:

• After ten days high fever develops

• Fever may be continuous, irregular or twice daily

Preventing transmission:

• There is no vaccination for malaria.

• Infection can only be prevented by stopping individuals from being

bitten.

• People sleep under mosquito nets and wear insect repellent to avoid
bites.

Early methods of controlling malaria:

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 15
 1. Use of cheap medicines, especially Preventive drugs (prophylactics), e.g.
chloroquine, It kills the larvae pupates stage
Problem- so widely used to treat tropical fevers that mosquitoes have
developed resistance to it
2. Spraying the pesticides DDT on the breeding grounds; only small
amounts needed to be used, yet it was highly effective in killing
mosquitoes and it eggs
Problem- its careless use killed many fish as well as beneficial insects
and birds. It has such a bad name that many African governments are
now afraid to use it

• Destruction of mosquito larvae with oil spray or insecticide

• Drainage breeding places of mosquitos

• Drugs to kill parasites in humans. E.g. primaquine

Malaria is an important factor keeping people and countries in Africa poor

because:

Contracting malaria 2 or 3 times a year reduces working capacity

Costs of medicines and preventive measures

Frightens off investment or tourists from outside (non-malarial) countries

High mortality rates among babies and young children encourages high birth
rates keeps people in the poverty trap

The disease is very difficult to fight for a number of reasons:

• Infected humans often do not show symptoms of the disease for months
and even years as the parasite lays dormant in their bodies

• Mapping the distribution of active infected mosquitoes and taking timely

action to control them is therefore very difficult

• Many countries cannot afford to invest in the most modern and

sensitive equipment to both collect and analyse blood samples from
possible victims

• Laboratory tests take over a week to complete, during which time

infected mosquitoes are able to spread parasites to new victims

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 16
 • Mosquitoes and the malaria parasite have constantly shown the ability
to develop resistance to both drugs and insecticides such as chloroquine
and DDT

• In sub-Saharan Africa there are mutated strains of mosquitoes resistant

to pyrethroids, the chemicals used in 70 percent of house sprayings and
the only type used to treat bed nets

• Once a resistant strain has mutated, it spreads fast, causing catastrophic

results in human populations that have no means of combatting it

• Achieving eradication will require MEDCs (where malaria is already

eliminated) to commit huge amounts of money each year for at least
another 25 years

Cholera:

• Cholera is another very serious water- borne disease caused by

consuming water or food contaminated by the bacterium Vibrio cholera

• It affects the small intestine and symptoms include severe diarrhoea,

stomach cramps and vomiting

• Vibrio cholerae multiplies in the intestine, releasing a powerful toxins

which results in violent inflammation of the intestine and production of
a watery diarrhoea

• Without treatment, serious dehydration can occur, which can lead to a

massive drop in blood pressure and death

• One of the main ways in which the disease spreads is through people
drinking or cooking with water contaminated with the faeces of an
infected person

• Cholera is therefore most widespread in those regions of the world with

poor sanitation, particularly parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, south and
Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Central America and the Caribbean

• Natural disasters such as earthquakes or cyclones that result in large

numbers of displaced people congregating in small areas such as
refugee camps often leads to cholera outbreaks as available water
sources become quickly contaminated

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 17
 • People who contract cholera can be effectively treated using oral
rehydration solutions that contains a mixture of salt and glucose
dissolved in purified water

• When a person with cholera is severely dehydrated, antibiotics may be

given by intravenous drip to stop diarrhoea and rehydrate the body
quickly

Antibiotics:

• Antibiotics such as tetracyclines and chloramphenicol, are effective at

destroying the vibrios and decreasing the diarrhoea

• Chloramphenicol is effective against tetracycline-resistant vibrios

Strategies/ways to control and eradicate water-related disease:

Drugs or vaccinations: ________ treat the disease

Vector control or avoidance: Wearing Long sleeves, nets

Vector eradication: Insecticides/oil on water/draining

Improved sanitation: Prevents spread of bacteria

Clean water supply or chlorination: prevents spread of bacteria

Strategies for improving water quality in developing countries

 Increased awareness or education so people do not contaminate with

human or human created waste controls on pollution e.g. development
 Boiling water - kills germs or avoids disease
 Purifying, boiling, filtering – kills germs or avoids disease
 Village pump or pipes or clean water
 Money for dams or similar or pipe clean water

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 18
Access to clean water is important for human health because contaminated
water consists water- borne disease e.g. salmonella or diarrhea, cholera,
dysentery, typhoid,

Diseases which are carried by water

Cholera, typhoid

Diseases which are transmitted by water animals

Malaria, bilharzias

Local people could find ways to improve sanitation like personal hygiene such
as washing, boiling water, not using as toilet

Government – provision of good water disposal (sewerage system), compost

toilets

There are differences in use of water between countries (UK is a developed

country and Bangladesh is a developing country) with different levels of
economic development

In developed countries, people are richer and have a better quality of life so
that washing machines and dishwashers do more of the work than people

Sanitation is almost 100%

Piped water reaches in developed countries by taps

In developing countries hand washing uses less water and it is often done in
rivers or streams instead of houses

Sanitation or Flushing water is in much less than 50% of homes, especially in

rural areas

Water supply from pumps and wells is more commonly located in public places
in developing countries

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 19
Water pollutants:

Mercury, lead, sewage, faeces, urine, heat, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides

The way it affects human - Brain damage, death of food fish

Water related diseases:

Water-based – bilharzia

Water-borne – typhoid, cholera

Water bred – malaria

Control measures:

Example:

Malaria:

Oil on water – stops fly or larvae

Drain – stops flies breeding

Pesticides – kill fly

Prophylaxis – kill parasite

Repellent – stops flies biting

Nets – stops flies biting

Bilharzias:

Molluscicide – kills snails

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 20
Avoid entering water – to avoid snail

Typhoid/cholera:

Treat water – to kill organisms causing it

Method- chlorination/boiling water before use

Better sewage disposal

Use well water

Diseases that is carried to humans by a vector

Bilharzia, malaria

Strategies used to control a vector:

 Drain water to remove breeding site

 Use of insecticide or chemical to kill vector
 Wear clothes or use of nets to prevent vector feeding or biting
 Sterilize male to reduce breeding or reproduction
 Pour oil on water to stop breeding
 Use of fish to eat larvae


Bilharzias:

Snail lives in water (larvae grow and multiply inside the snail) and enters
through the soles of the feet of people working in irrigated fields

The bilharzia life cycle:

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 21
Life cycle:

 Larvae hatch in water

 Larvae enter snails
 Produce cercariae larvae
 These larvae released into water
 Larvae enter humans through skin
 Mature into worms
 Which lays thousands of eggs
 Eggs released into water through urine
 Become larvae in water

The effects of bilharzia on people (humans):

 High temperature (fever) above 38 degcel

 Headache
 Joint and muscle pain
 Cough
 Bloody diarrhea/urine
 Dehydration
 Dark red blotchy raised skin rash
 Chest pain
 Weakness, anaemia, lethargy

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 22
  Paralysis
 Death 20000 – 200000 people per annum
 Kidney or bladder infections
 abdominal pain
 Increases the risk of cancer
 Infertility
 Malnutrition
 Children stunted growth
 Learning difficulties
 Reduced abilities to work
 Lack of income
 Economic consequences or poverty

The ways of preventing and controlling the spread of bilharzia:

 Improved, detection, and treatment or medication of sick people

 Vaccination or use of drugs (e.g. praziquantel, oxamniquine,
metrifonate) or medication
 Do not swim or wade wash clothes or bathe in infested water
 Provide or clean safe water for bathing or washing
 Improve or provide sanitation
 Health or hygiene education
 Wear boots or leg covering
 Vector control or eradication
 Kill or remove snails, larvae and worms
 Destroy snail habitats and food sources by draining or filling in or line
canals (with correct concrete)

Ways in which Countries with low rainfall and few rivers could obtain supplies
of water

 Construct wells or access groundwater or aquifer

 Use of pumps or pressure if artesian well
 Desalination
 By evaporation (thermal desalination) or distillation/reverse osmosis
(use of semi- permeable membrane)

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 23
  Buy it/pipelines from neighbouring countries
 E.g. icebergs

Desalination:

Removing salt from sea water or brackish water

Surface water stores: lake, pond, reservoir, dam, river, swamp, wetland, silo,
tank, rainwater harvesting

Method of extracting groundwater:

 Dig bore well or dig well to access aquifer

 By hand or by electric pump
 Drill well in the right location in an artesian aquifer
 Pressure will cause water to flow without a pump

Reasons why very few countries use desalination to provide drinking water:

 Very expensive or more expensive than most other ways of supplying

water
 Energy-intensive or energy needed to heat the sea water or more
energy is required than for most other ways of supplying water
 Requires access to sea or requires access to ocean or requires a coastline
 Require high levels of technology
 Environmental impacts with the construction and operation
 Large volumes of seawater used or affects ecosystems or kill fish or birds
 Concentrated brine produce needs safe disposal

EVM/NOTES/NOVEMBER 2021 24