Water Supply

A supply of water is critical to the survival of life as we know it. People need water
to drink, animals need water to drink, and plants need water to drink. The basic
functions of society require water: cleaning for public health, consumption for
industrial processes, and cooling for electrical generation. In this chapter, we
discuss water supply in terms of:

The direction of our discussion is that sufficient water supplies exist for the world,
and for the nation as a whole, but my areas are water poor while others are water
rich. Adequate water supply requires engineering the supply and its transmission
from one area to another, keeping in mind the environmental effects of water
transmission systems. In many cases, moving the population to the water may be
less environmentally damaging than moving the water. This chapter concentrates
on measurement of water supply, and the following chapter discusses treatment
methods available to clean up the water once it reaches areas of demand.

THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE AND WATER AVAILABILITY

The hydrologic cycle is a useful starting point for the study of water supply. This
cycle, illustrated in Fig. 6- 1, includes precipitation of water from clouds,
infiltration into the ground or runoff into surface water, followed by evaporation
and transpiration of the water back into the atmosphere. The rates of
precipitation and evaporation/transpiration help define the baseline quantity of
water available for human consumption. Precipitation is the term applied to all
forms of moisture falling to the ground, and a range of instruments and
techniques for measuring the amount and intensity of rain, snow, sleet, and hail
have been developed. The average depth of precipitation over a given region, on
a storm, seasonal, or annual basis, is required in many water availability studies.
Any open receptacle with vertical sides is a common rain gauge, but varying wind
and splash effects must be considered if amounts collected by different gauges
are to be compared.
Water Treatment

Is any process that improves the quality of water to make it more acceptable for a
specific end use. The end use may be Drinking, Industrial water supply, Irrigation,
River flow maintenance or many other uses, including safety returned to the
environment. Water treatment removes contaminants and undesirable
components, or reduces their concentration so that the water become fit for its
desired end-use. This treatment is crucial to human health and allows human to
benefit from both drinking and irrigation use.

4 kind of water treatment process

Coagulation and Flocculation
Coagulation and flocculation are often the first steps in water treatment.
Chemicals with a positive charge are added to the water. The positive charge of
these chemicals neutralizes the negative charge of dirt and other dissolved
particles in the water.

Sedimentation
Is a physical water treatment process using gravity to remove suspended solids
from water. Solid particles entrained by the turbulence of moving water may be
removed naturally by sedimentation in the still water of lakes and oceans.

Filtration
Once the floc has settled to the bottom of the water supply, the clear water on
top will pass through filters of varying compositions (sand, gravel, and charcoal)
and pore sizes, in order to remove dissolved particles, such as dust, parasites,
bacteria, viruses, and chemicals.
Disinfection
After the water has been filtered, a disinfectant (for example, chlorine, and
chloramine) may be added in order to kill any remaining parasites, bacteria, and
viruses, and to protect the water from germs when it is piped to homes and
businesses

Distribution of Water
Is a part of water supply network with components that carry potable water from
a centralized treatment plant or wells to water consumers in order to adequately
deliver water to satisfy Residential, Commercial, Industrial and fire fighting
requirements

Distribution of Earth’s Water

Earth’s oceans contain 97% of the planet’s water, so just 3% is fresh water, water
with low concentrations of salts. Most fresh water is trapped as ice in the vast
glaciers and ice sheets of Greenland. A storage location for water such as an
ocean, glacier, pond, or even the atmosphere is known as a reservoir