Water Systems

By: Lola, Carson, Lea, Landon, and Gavin

Irrigation

Irrigation is to water crops by bringing in water from pipes, canals, sprinklers, or other man-made means, rather than relying on rainfall alone. Places that rely on Natural Rainfall Could not sustain agriculture without irrigation. Irrigation is human activity.

Irrigation effects the environment globally because soil can be over-irrigated due to poor distribution. Irrigation wastes water, chemicals, and may lead to water pollution. The 2 continents of irrigation effects the most are Asia, South America

We can limit the effects by selecting systems that are not as susceptible to evaporation. Using sprinklers can also reduce water use by 5-15%, especially in windy areas. Using a drip system can reduce water use up to 20%.

If you do too much irrigation, it can cause contaminates to enter the watercourse or aquifers by leaching through the soil and overland runoff. Heavy soils are more likely to runoff if the irrigation system applies water at a greater rate than the applied water can infiltrate the soil. Too much irrigation may also cause dissolved nutrients to move through the soil to a place where plants can no longer reach the nutrients.

Rainfall Changes

Rainfall changes are when a storm has increased or decreased from a specific area. Rainfall changes are terrible for the earth and floods the whole earth and takes a long time for the water to evaporate.

Rainfall changes mostly affect places that are closest to the equator due to the heat. Rainfall changes are global and affect the whole world. Colder areas do not get rainfall changes as much and is pretty rare. The reason why it does not hit cold ares is because there are no bodies of water.

Rainfall Changes affect living things by destroying natural habitats and animals homes. This causes the animals to find a new home but can sometimes lead to death.

Things that we can do to limit negative effects on rainfall changes is to carefully manage natural drainage systems and to conserve water.

Bottled Water

Bottled water is water which has been packaged in sealed containers for human consumption. The water can come from a variety of sources including springs, aquifers, or municipal supplies and may be treated to make it fit for human consumption. It is caused by human activity, because humans make the bottled water in its bottles.

Bottled water is popular throughout the world, with the US, China and Indonesia the largest consumers. Collectively accounting for nearly 40% of the global bottled water volume. Bottled water is a global issue, transporting bottled water to market produces air pollution and emissions of carbon dioxide which contribute to global warming.

The use of bottled water is having a harmful impact on the environment. The amount of water used for bottling can add up to millions and millions of litres in Canada every year, which can lead to reduced water tables. These lower water tables can affect local ecosystems and environments. Plastic can also leach toxic chemicals, affecting animals that ingest it, contaminating the animal and human food chains.

Although it is important to always recycle plastic bottles, the best strategy to reduce our ecological footprint is to avoid purchasing them by bringing your own reusable bottles, or to reduce the amount of plastic water bottles purchased whenever possible.

Erosion

Erosion is the natural process of water or wind moving sand, dirt, and other sediment overtime. This happens globally on beaches, rivers and every moving body of water. This means that the soil below your feet is ever-changing.

Erosion effects the environment every day by slowly moving the soil beneath our feet. In the past 150 years, erosion has lost half of the world's topsoil due to poor farming practices like over-grazing and improper tilling or chopping down vegetation.

Erosion can affect the water systems by dragging trash, pollution and potentially infected or bad water into other bodies of water, this can cause locally polluted water to become nationally polluted water and eventually globally polluted water. Things we can do to limit these effects include re-vegetating areas that have a lack of plants to protect the soil from wind and rainfall.

Dams

Dams are barriers that restrict or stop water flow. Dams are also a man made activity.

Dams are global because, they don't just have a local environment impact, but it's clear they play a role in global carbon cycle.

Slow moving, or stopped reservoirs can heat up, ending up in abnormal temperature fluctuations which can affect sensitive species.

Dams have reduced fisheries, degraded river ecosystems, and altered recreational opportunities.

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