Sustainable Water Management

Introduction

The global crisis has emerged due to extensive consumption of natural sources like energy, water, petroleum, and greeneries. The unrestricted consumption of natural elements has led to retarded ecological balance. The crisis of water has become one of the significant aspects of global crisis as it has been found that only 2.5 % of water is suitable for drinking (Yang, Hyndman and Winkler 12 ). The gradual reduction in the availability of freshwater has made it indispensable to look for sustainability programs that can save water. Hence, water sustainability has been selected as the area of interest for the present research essay.

The purpose of the research essay is to investigate the impact of sustainable water management for dealing with global challenges such as the depletion of water, health concerns coming out of consuming polluted water and termination of marine life. The concept of sustainable water management will be provided at the beginning. Next, to that, the existing global challenges will be discussed. The impact of the sustainability programs on the global challenges will be discussed at the end.

Sustainable water management

The section defines the sustainable water management programs that would deal with global challenges such as water scarcity (Shahzad, Burhan and Ang 52-64). The sustainable water management aims at developing programs such that water consumption can be controlled and used efficiently to quench the vast global water necessity. The sustainable water management comes from the need of developing environmental integrity for committing towards social responsibility (Poff, Brown and Grantham 25-34). Apart from the unrestricted use of water, the leakage in pipes, pump failures, and other infrastructure disputes also contribute towards the need for sustainable water management (Marques, da Cruz and Pires 142-151). The water supply systems require timely maintenance to prevent the unnecessary flow of water. The maintenance is ought to be performed through checking of pipe fractures, internal repair and many more to ensure that there are no infrastructural issues that restrict the flow of water.

In terms of sustainable ways of preserving water, some human practices are required, such as keeping taps closed, using already used water if applicable, using less water to take shower and steamed eating habits. Protection of environment by reducing consumption of water comes under the social responsibility of every human kind (Jacobs, Lebel and Buizer 4591-4596).  The closing of taps after filling buckets helps to restrict the unnecessary flow of water (Gude 87-106). Using dishwater to wash other utensils is another way of controlling water usage. In simpler words, putting a stop to water usage is a manual sustainable approach to water management.

Water reclamation technology is another sustainable approach to restrict the consumption of the huge amounts of water. The reclamation technology is to reuse used water by filtering it. Even the used water from sewage, toilet, and kitchen are also recycled in some parts of the world and is consumed by people as fresh drinking water (Butler, Ward and Sweetapple 63-77). The water reclamation technology is active in cities like Perth in Australia, where the water is recycled through the toilet to tap scheme (Van Franeker and Law 89-96). The sustainable water management has remained successful in controlling water usage, to deal with the global challenge of water scarcity and retaining the stock of freshwater intact.

Global challenges

The global challenges related to environmental disruption have been seen in areas of water scarcity, land pollution, polluted farming and depletion of marine life. Since the area of interest in the present research essay is water sustainability, the global challenges that have triggered the need for sustainability programs for water have been discussed in the section. Due to the disposal of garbage into seawater, the marine littering percentage got increased abruptly. The disposal of an enormous amount of wastes has created a layer in the seawater, which resists the entry of oxygen into the water leading to breathing problems for marine creatures.

The depletion of marine life is one of the significant global challenges that is required to be mitigated using sustainable water management sessions. Salinization has also come as a significant effect due to the scarcity of non-polluted water (Gude 15-63). Water containing a high percentage of toxic elements gets rushed into the fields and increases salinity of soils. The increased salinization of soils resists plant to extract nutrients from soil, leading to toxic farm fields. Salinization is one of the global challenge coming out of fresh water scarcity and release of toxic water into fields.

The increased pollution of water is mainly caused by the release of factory wastes into water bodies. The factory wastes consist of toxic chemicals that increase the chemical context of water and make it toxic (Shahzad, Burhan and Ang 36-45). The toxic water affects marine life, farming and also the health of people because, water from those water bodies gets distributed to people’s houses, as domestic water supply. Sustainable water management programs are required to deal with global challenges.

Effect of sustainable water management on global challenges

The section is concerned with the evaluation of how sustainable water management programs have dealt with the global challenges that have arisen such as scarcity of water, an increase of toxic water content, depletion of marine life and farming pollution.   Sustainable water management is practiced in response to global challenges such as polluted domestic water supply, pollution in farm fields and depletion of marine life. The sustainable management of controlling the unnecessary flow of water is obtained through repairing of leakages and regular maintenance of water pipes (Shahzad, Burhan and Ang). The effect of infrastructural maintenance, as a part of sustainable water management program helps in controlling water leakage. As a result of the sustainable water management program of infrastructural maintenance, the global challenge of water scarcity can be addressed to some extent.

When there will be null, water leakage, the global challenge of water scarcity is controlled to some extent. However, there are also other sustainability programs that have been successful in dealing with the global challenge of water scarcity (Yang, Hyndman and Winkler). Apart from water scarcity, there are also other global challenges such as toxic content of water affecting the domestic supply and the depletion of marine life. The water reclamation process is a sustainability program that is deliberately helpful in controlling over usage of water, thereby dealing with water scarcity. Since water reclamation helps in the recycling of used water, the impact of such sustainable water treatment technology will help in the preservation of freshwater content globally.

The water reclamation process enables the reuse of used water and hence, the same water gets recycled to be used for domestic purposes such as drinking, cooking and in washrooms (Shahzad, Burhan and Ang). Due to the filtration of water that is done through the reclamation process the used water gets filtrated, such that the unhygienic particles can be removed and the water again becomes suitable for consuming. The impact of such sustainable technology for water recycling is perceived in controlling water scarcity, retention of global freshwater content and resisting the waste of water. The repetitive phrases of water collection and filtration recycle the same water and hence saves people from acute water scarcity.

The toile to tap schemes have been widely accepted by countries like Australia to deal with the global challenge of drought. The toilet to tap scheme talks about the reutilization of the wastewater from human toilets for the domestic purposes (Mukherjee and Jensen 5-14). The impact of the sustainability scheme is seen highest in parts of Western Australia, as they experience frequent drought. Despite having disgust to use toilet water for drinking, people has also appreciated the concept, as the water entirely gets recycled and suitable for drinking, which tastes alike fresh drinking water.

The water reclamation process, however does not complies with the global challenge of the depletion of marine life. Due to both manual and industrial pollution, the marine littering got increased exponentially, resulting in increase of the fatality rate of marine organisms. The manual efforts of sustainability such as underground waste disposal instead of littering into the water bodies reduces the global challenge of depletion of marine life (Wang, Li and Li 171-179). The effect of controlling manual littering practices has led to reduced threats in marine life. As a result, of controlled waste disposal practices in water bodies, the marine organisms will be again able to breathe.

The removal of the layer of litters from the surface of water bodies creates a passage of air, which in turn normalizes the respiratory process of the marine animals. The impact of the low littering practices on the beaches has also made water bodies fresh and lack of an unhygienic ingredient. The initiative of lowering manual practices of littering beaches has been taken widely by multiple governments such as the UK, Ireland and many more. The reason behind taking such a sustainability initiative to protect water is the high littering levels on the beaches of Wales. An average of 35 wet wipes have been found on the coast of the UK and have been cleaned by the beach authority (Gude). As an impact of such manual sustainability intuitive the water got cleaned to some extent and the concentration of litters got reduced.

As an impact of the sustainability initiative to reduce littering on beaches, plastic pollution also gets controlled along with water pollution. Due to the water sustainability practice of controlling the human activity of littering, the blockage of drains also gets reduced.  In the Great British Beach Clean event, about 15,000 people participated (Wang, Li and Li 171-179). Such a great number of participation for beach cleaning has led to the cleaning of 500 number of beaches.

The beach cleaning has remained one of the significant water sustainability programs, as it resists natural water bodies from getting polluted through human activities. The impact of frequent maintenance of water pipelines has been seen in the controlled flow of unnecessary water. The entire impact of the sustainability programs has resulted in controlled pollution of water, reduced chances of drought and has enabled people to reduce unnecessary usage of water.

The knowledge gap in the articles lies in limited discussion of the innovative sustainable methods for preserving water. The articles have been more focused towards the concern that has been created due to rising water crisis. However, the need for sustainable water management has been explained broadly in the articles.

Conclusion

The effect of the water sustainability programs has been seen in the eradication of the chances of water scarcity. The water reclamation process, where used water is being recycled by making it suitable for re consumption. The process has saved a huge quantity of water from getting wasted. Manual control measures of keeping water taps closed and preserving used water for using them for other domestic purposes have also contributed to the active water sustainability program.

Works Cited

Butler, D, et al. “Reliable, resilient and sustainable water management: the Safe & SuRe approach.” Global Challenges (2017): 63-77. Online.

Gude, V.G. “Desalination and sustainability–an appraisal and current perspective.” Water research 89.02 (2016): 87-106 ; DOI:10.1016/j.watres.2015.11.012.

Jacobs, K, et al. “Linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable water-resources management.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016): 4591-4596. Online.

Marques, R.C., N.F. da Cruz and J. Pires. “Measuring the sustainability of urban water services.” Environmental Science & Policy 54.01 (2015): 142-151 ; DOI:10.1016/j.envsci.2015.07.003.

Mukherjee, M. and O. Jensen. “Making water reuse safe: A comparative analysis of the development of regulation and technology uptake in the US and Australia.” Safety Science 121.01 (2020): 5-14 ; DOI:10.10925753519304199. 08 April 2020. <https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160105-why-we-will-all-one-day-drink-recycled-wastewater>.

Poff, N.L, et al. “Sustainable water management under future uncertainty with eco-engineering decision scaling.” Nature Climate Change (2016): 25-34. Online.

Shahzad, M.W., et al. “Energy-water-environment nexus underpinning future desalination sustainability.” Desalination 413.01 (2017): 52-64 ; DOI:10.1016/j.desal.2017.03.009.

Van Franeker, J.A. and K.L. Law. “Seabirds, gyres and global trends in plastic pollution.” Environmental Pollution 203.01 (2015): 89-96 ; DOI:10.1016/j.envpol.2015.02.034.

Wang, Q., S. Li and R. Li. “Evaluating water resource sustainability in Beijing, China: Combining PSR model and matter-element extension method.” Journal of cleaner production 206.01 (2019): 171-179 ; DOI:10.1007/978-981-10-5047-3_7. 08 April 2020. <

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