Effects of land use on water amount and qualitY

Effects of land use on water quantity and quality

Effects of Land Use on Water Quantity and Quality

Discuss the statement with regards to the management of: -Eutrophication of freshwater, lakes, reservoirs

Streams, rivers, and lagoons are an significant part of the countryside, as they supply water provide, recreation, and transportation for humans, and a location to live for a kind of plants and animals. Groundwater also is an important water resource that serves as a source of drinking water for more than 140 million people in the United Kingdom.

In some areas, contamination from natural and human causes has influenced the use of these waters. For example, routinely happening minerals inside bedrock can weaken the flavour of groundwater and in some situations limit its use. The spilling, leaking, improper disposal, or intentional application of chemicals at the land exterior can result in runoff that contaminates close by creeks and lakes, or infiltration that contaminates underlying aquifers (Barbash, 1996, 22).

The type and severity of water contamination often is directly related to human undertaking, which can be quantified in terms of the intensity and type of land use in the source localities of water to creeks and aquifers. The investigation of patterns of land use and population provides a device in the enquiry of sites with known contamination, and in the proposition and avoidance of future contamination of downstream waters. Studies of contamination causes and transport pathways that sway surface water and groundwater draw upon some disciplines, encompassing hydrology , geology, biological science, dirt research, agriculture, physics, chemistry, and engineering.

Asomewhat easy way to study the effects of land use on groundwater value is to compare the predominant land uses inside a given locality to the concentrations of selected contaminants in water drawn from shallow aquifers inside that area. Analysis of the relative between land use and the magnitude of contamination in a exact locality primarily is founded on the following two assumptions. (Eckhardt, 1995, 1019-1033 )

Surface Water Acidification

First, it is assumed that contaminated groundwater at a well began as uncontaminated recharge (precipitation) that passed through a contaminated area before coming to the well. The locality from which a well derives its water (and associated contaminants) is renowned as the well's groundwater "contributing area." A well's assisting locality can be delineated on a map

Land use and land cover largely work out the type and allowance of contaminants entering creeks, lagoons, and below ground pathways, including aquifers. Some contaminants happen and move naturally (white arrows), while others are produced by human undertakings (hatched arrows), and their movement often is accelerated as a outcome of rainfall that accentuates runoff and infiltration. Through an investigation of aquifer characteristics and the direction and velocity of groundwater flow beside the well. (Kolpin, 1998, 558-566)

Second, it is presumed that the contaminants noticed in groundwater were present within the well's assisting locality and were transported by groundwater flow to the well. The source(s) of contaminants inside a assisting area, such as buried ...