the activities
Where Has All the Water Gone? (Developing a Water Emergency and Management Plan) Description: In this lesson, students will learn to identify how much water is used each day in a community, what activities consume the most water, and how waste and overuse can threaten to leave some users without this essential resource. They will also engage in team problem solving to halt a water emergency and plan for long term water management and community education. Go directly to:
The threat of water scarcity is not always obvious. Drought has been termed the "creeping disaster" because its effects are often not detected until the water shortage is imminent. "If you're in agriculture you can see your crops dying and they understand there's a problem and have to conserve," explains North Carolina Governor Michael Easley. " If you live on a lake, you can see the boats sitting in the mud rather than the water, when the water is down. However, those with a water system such as well water, you don't see it drying up or the level lowering. Just all of a sudden one day, you turn on the spigot and there's no water." To maintain a constant source of available water, conservation must be practiced consistently. The increase in population has put stress on the traditional sources of water. This has required more withdrawal of water from aquifers, which used to be a reliable source of water in times of drought. "While droughts are a natural phenomenon, their severity used to be limited by the natural course of the water cycle and aquifer replenishment. Because we are drawing down these resources, droughts may be more frequent and more severe" (Troubled Waters). "That's the thing we want people to be aware of," warns climatologist Ryan Boyles, "Once we get through this drought doesn't mean it's necessarily over. We're going to have another one in the future and we may have a worse one in the future." 1. Have students watch the video "Troubled Waters" and listen to the NPR Audio report (http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1143708) about the Georgia drought problems. Discuss with your students the issues covered in the documentary. Help them understand that there are a number of factors leading to water scarcity. Drought is an ecological condition, a natural periodic occurrence. But human behavior also plays a part. One such factor is our attitude toward water. We have tended to accept a ready supply of running water as a right. This has led to misuse and waste. "We have taken a clean, abundant supply of ground water for granted and we now have to recognize that it's a precious resource that could become critically scarce," cautions Col. Ray Alexander of the Corps of Engineers. North Carolina Governor Michael Easley puts it succinctly: "I think you can take the position all day long that people have a right to water but that does not mean it's going to be there when you turn on the tap." Depletion of our aquifers, which take hundreds of years to replenish but hardly any time at all to pump out, seriously affects our water supply. "Further south in the New Bern and Jacksonville area, [water levels] are declining at rates of 6 feet per year, and even further south still, near the South Carolina border, some of our aquifers show water level declines in excess of 10 feet per year," says Richard Spruill, Associate Professor of Hydrology at East Carolina University. Crop irrigation techniques need to be improved. "If you look at the water supply globally, seventy percent of everything we're using is for irrigated agriculture," points out Sandra Postel. Water conserving techniques would save huge amounts of water. As populations grow, so does the need for water. In China, for example, the population is in the billions, plus the developing country is turning more toward Western water use patterns, further straining the supply of water. "We're entering a period of water scarcity mainly because population and economic growth have reached the point where we're over tapping the water that's available from nature," Sandra Postel explains. " Water is renewable but it's finite, which means that as populations grow and as economies grow we start to run into limits as to how much more we can take." Even on a household level, many or our behaviors could be changed to abate the stress on our water supply. Allowing faucets and hoses to drip, hosing off driveways rather than sweeping them, sprinkling lawns while it is raining; habits like these waste a lot of water--water we might not always have in abundance. "I definitely think people take water for granted," Bob Oreskovich, Director of Dare County, NC, Desalination/Membrane Technology, tells us. " It comes out of the ground, they think it should be free...However, with regulations getting more stringent and with fresh water getting more scarce, as in the drought that we're seeing this year in North Carolina, water is definitely going to become a more precious resource than it is today and well into the future." Elicit from students their thoughts on water scarcity and lead them to understand that water conservation should be a way of life, not just a reaction to a crisis. 2. Divide the class into teams. Present students with the scenario in the activities section. Direct them to the Army Corps of Engineers Drought Management Web site (http://water.sas.usace.army.mil/drought/QandA.cfm#Generic). This site will give them insight on how to go about constructing a broad drought management plan. 3. Have each member of team visit two or three of the Websites in the resources section below to gain information on the topic. Then have students meet to discuss a plan that will save the most water in an emergency. 4. Have students compute how many gallons of water they can save using their water conservation plan. Infomation for figuring water usage is available in the resources of the Where the Water Goes section below. Students should estimate how much water various activities consume, such as watering lawns, flushing toilets, brushing teeth, etc. They should then determine where they can save the most water with the least difficulty and the least impact on the health and economy of the community. 5. Have students create a public service advertising campaign that will alert the public to the emergency and educate the public on the emergency measures taken. Students may use PowerPoint, audiotape, videotape, TV news simulation, etc. to present their plan. 6. After presenting their plans to the class for discussion, have the teams meet again to make a water management plan that is more fitting for long term prevention of water emergencies. Water Emergency Scenario: The members of your team are the leaders of Altamont, a community of 11,500 people. On another sweltering July day, you have just been informed by your Public Utilities Commissioner that your community will be running out of water in a matter of days at the present rate of use. He says that you can expect to run out if your community uses three million gallons before relief comes in the form of rain. The weather forecast shows no likelihood of rain in the next week. As community leaders, it is your responsibility to come up with ways to conserve water until rains come to refill the community water source. Since you don't know how long this will take, you may need to take drastic measures to meet the community's needs. Industries tend to use a lot of water, but they also hold an important place in the economy of the community. Swimming pools, public and private take a lot of water, but also fill an important recreation need. Agricultural crops are water-intensive, but supply necessary food products. Lawn watering consumes a great deal of your water, but citizens are often quite passionate about the appearance of their property. Toilets account for a large amount of the water used in a household, but this purpose fulfills an important community health service. You and your team will have to face some difficult, and possibly unpopular, choices. You will also need to prepare community service announcements for radio and television to inform the public of the plan. Remember that these ads must inform the public of the reasons for the water restrictions and motivate them to support the plan. Try to develop announcements that briefly but pointedly get your message across and will grab the attention of the viewer/listener. Keep in mind that every conservation measure will affect the way members of the community live and work. You have an important task ahead. Waste no time. A list of Web resources follows so that you and your team can gather information with which to make you decisions. After developing your emergency plan, assess whether you think your water problems are over. Will the return of the rains be the end of your water conservation plan? After the emergency has past, how will you change your water management plan to prevent further water shortages? Amend your emergency plan to make it more suitable for long-term use, easing the severity while making a workable everyday plan that everyone can share in. Remember the words of Jennifer Platt, Water Conservation Manager for the town of Cary, NC:
Have each student do a full water audit of their own family's water usage, performing the following activities:
Home Water Awareness What is a Water Shortage?
Where the Water Goes:
Water Saving Tips
Related Lesson Plans on the Web: Water, Water Everywhere (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/19981208tuesday.html) Thirsty for Drought Relief (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20030128tuesday.html) Dust in the Wind (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20000425tuesday.html?pagewanted=all)
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