CHAPTER II

WATER RESOURCES
PLANNING AND
DEVELOPMENT
2.2. PLANNING FOR PRIORITIZING WATER
RESOURCES PROJECTS
BY: EMMAN COSME G. VIRTUDAZO
KIN B. QUIÑONES
Water resource projects are constructed to develop or manage the available
water resources for different purposes. According to the National Water
Policy (2002), the water allocation priorities for planning and operation of
water resource systems should broadly be as follows:

01 Domestic Consumption
This includes water requirements primarily for drinking,
cooking, bathing, washing of clothes and utensils and flushing
of toilets.

02 Irrigation
Water required for growing crops in a systematic and
scientific manner in areas even with deficit rainfall.

03 Hydropower
This is the generation of electricity by harnessing the power of
flowing water.

04 Ecology / Environment restoration

Water required for maintaining the environmental health of a
region.
Water resource projects are constructed to develop or manage the available
water resources for different purposes. According to the National Water
Policy (2002), the water allocation priorities for planning and operation of
water resource systems should broadly be as follows:

05 Industries
The industries require water for various purposes and that by
thermal power stations is quite high.

06 Navigation
Navigation possibility in rivers may be enhanced by increasing
the flow, thereby increasing the depth of water required to
allow larger vessels to pass.

07 Other uses

Like entertainment of scenic natural view.

1. Domestic Water Consumption

All around the world the water consumption per inhabitant is very various, for instance an
American needs in average 500 liters a day, a western European 150 liters and a African only
50 liters a day.

Even if these differences tend to decrease with the time no one is equal in the water uses.
And another difference is a consequence of the people's way of life, indeed in the
countryside people uses less water than in the city. An other example is the age of people
because young and old persons use less water than the average.

There are several factors to explain this discrepancy. The amount of available water is maybe
the most important factor, for instance water is a very precious good in Africa because the
water is rare. Another factor is the water price, more richer people are more water they are
able to consume.

At home, actually the drinking water is only 1 or 2 % of our total water consumption.
 Spain’s National Statistics Institute reported that
average household water consumption in Spain was
137 litres per person per day in 2012. That number far
exceeds the minimum required per person,
according to the World Health Organisation.
How much water is It’s clear that water sustainability—the greatest
consumed per day? guarantee for its availability—requires responsible
consumption and proper management. The following
consumption data sheds light on our daily relationship
with water:
• A bath: 150-300 litres
• Shower: 50-100 litres
• Flushing a toilet: 10 litres
• Washing dishes by hand: 23 litres
• Dishwasher: 20-40 litres.
• Washing machine: 40-80 litres
• Defrosting food under the tap: 25-25 litres
• Leaving the water running for 1.5 minutes while
you brush your teeth can use more than 18 litres.
• Washing your car with a hose: 200-500 litres.
How much water is consumed per day?
According to the WHO (World Health Organization): ”The basic need for water includes
water used for personal hygiene, but defining a minimum has limited significance as the
volume of water used by households depends on accessibility”.

First, access needs to be defined. Basic access is the availability of a source of water that is
at most 1,000 metres or 20 minutes away that affords the possibility of reliably obtaining at
least 20 litres per day per family member.

The WHO uses certain metrics to estimate water needs according to the needs that are
being met. For example, basic access allows for consumption, hand washing and basic
hygiene, but it doesn’t guarantee laundry or bathing. These limitations have a notable
impact on health.
 Accessibility of
Water

Intermediate
Optimal access
access

Intermediate access is where people have Optimal access allows for the
access to 50 litres per day at a distance of consumption of 100 litres per
less than 100 metres or 5 minutes, covering person per day on average,
laundry and Supplied continuously through
bathing as well as basic access uses. In this multiple taps and which meets
case, the impact on health is low. all consumption and hygiene
needs.
In conclusion, as paradoxical
as it may seem, access to
water for human consumption
is not always directly linked to
availability.
Worldwide, 1.1 billion people
have no access to any type
of improved drinking-water
source. As a result, 1.6 million
people die every year from
diarrheal diseases (including
cholera), of which 90% are
children under 5.
Access to 50-100 litres per
person per day ensures a
low impact on health
Expected population growth (8.1
billion people by 2025), with a
high concentration in cities,
together with the effects of
climate change, threatens to
increase social unrest if steps are
not taken immediately to support
access to water for the entire
population.
2. Irrigation

Irrigation water use includes water that is

applied by an irrigation system to sustain
plant growth in agricultural and
horticultural practices. Irrigation also
includes water that is used for pre-
irrigation, frost protection, chemical
application, weed control, field
preparation, crop cooling, harvesting,
dust suppression, and leaching salts from
the root zone.
 Water use
for Irrigation

Agriculture is by far the largest water use at global level. Irrigation of agricultural lands
accounted for 70% of the water used worldwide. In several developing countries, irrigation
represents up to 95% of all water uses, and plays a major role in food production and food
security. Future agricultural development strategies of most of these countries depend on
the possibility to maintain, improve and expand irrigated agriculture

Water is a resource that may create tensions among countries down and upstream.
Irrigated agriculture is driving much of the competition since it accounts for 70-90% of water
use in may of these regions.
3. Hydropower

By taking advantage of gravity and the

water cycle, water have tapped into one
of nature's engines to create a useful form
of energy.

Today, harnessing the power of moving

water to generate electricity, known as
hydroelectric power, is the largest source
of emissions-free, renewable electricity in
the worldwide.
Converting moving water to electricity
Hydroelectric power plants generate electricity using the
energy from flowing water, called ‘linear kinetic energy’, and
energy from pressure, called ‘pressure potential energy’. The
water has to move with sufficient speed and volume to spin a
propeller-like device called a turbine, which in turn rotates a
generator to generate electricity.

To increase the volume of moving water, impoundments or

dams are used to collect the water. An opening in the dam
uses gravity to drop water down a pipe called a penstock. The
moving water causes the turbine to spin, which causes
magnets inside a generator to rotate and create electricity.
 Converting moving water to electricity
Hydropower can also be generated
without a dam, through a process known
as run-of-the-river. In this case, the volume
and speed of water is not augmented by
a dam. Instead, a run-of-river project spins
the turbine blades by capturing the kinetic
energy of the moving water in the river.

Generators at Hoover Dam. Photo: Cobolhacker/Wikimedia

Commons
Some steps are being taken to
move fish around the dams,
such as putting them in barges
or building fish ladders, but
success has been limited.
Downstream fish passage can
also be a challenge since young
fish can be chewed up in the
turbines of the dam as they
head towards the ocean.

Fish ladder on John Day Dam in Oregon. Photo: U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers
Although the generation of hydropower does not emit air pollution or greenhouse gas
emissions, it can have negative environmental and social consequences.

• Dams that have flooded areas with live vegetation can emit methane, a powerful
global warming gas, as that organic material decomposes.
• Hydropower projects can reduce the flows in rivers downstream if the upstream flows
are trapped behind a reservoir and/or diverted into canals that take the water off
stream to a generation unit.
• Dams can also block the migration of fish that swim upstream to reach spawning
grounds.
• Lowering the flows in a river can alter water temperatures and degrade habitat for
plants and animals.
• Less water in the river can also reduce oxygen levels which damage water quality.
• Water is typically stored behind a dam and released through the turbines when power
is needed. This creates artificial flow patterns in the downstream river that may be very
different from the flow patterns a river would naturally experience.
4. Ecology / Environment Restoration

Restoration ecology is the study of renewing

a degraded, damaged, or destroyed
ecosystem through active human
intervention. Restoration ecology specifically
refers to the scientific study that has evolved
as recently as the 1980s.

Land managers, laypeople, and stewards

have been practicing restoration for many
hundreds, if not thousands of years
(Anderson 2005), yet the scientific field of
"restoration ecology" was first identified and
coined in the late 1980s by John Aber and
William Jordan.
The Society for Ecological Restoration defines ecological restoration as an “intentional
activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health,
integrity and sustainability” (SER 2004).

The practice of ecological restoration includes wide scope of projects including: erosion
control, reforestation, removal of non-native species and weeds, revegetation of disturbed
areas, daylighting streams, reintroduction of native species, as well as habitat and range
improvement for targeted species. The term "ecological restoration" refers to the practice
of the discipline of "restoration ecology".
5. Industries
Energy is needed to pump, treat, transport and desalinate water. It is also obvious that water is
needed to produce electricity in hydropower plants. However, many are unaware that almost all
thermal power plants (coal, nuclear, solar-thermal, geothermal, biomass, natural gas combined
cycle power plants), can also require huge amounts of water, especially for cooling purposes.

Thermoelectric power plants are caused for 40% of

the freshwater withdrawn every year in the US and
for 43% in Europe, just as much as the agriculture
sector.

Although most of the water is not consumed and is

returned to the water source, these huge volumes
of water withdrawn by the power sector have an
impact on the ecosystem and on the water
resources of a region.
THERMAL POWER PLANTS

Background

Thermal power plants generate around 80

percent of the electricity produced in the world,
by converting heat into power in the form of
electricity. Most of them heat water to transform
it into steam, which spins the turbines that
produce electricity. After passing through the
turbine, the steam is cooled down and
condensed to start the cycle again, closing the
so-called steam cycle.

Although power plants require water for several processes (steam cycle, ash handling, flue gas
desulfurization systems, among others) most of the water requirements – usually about 90% of the
total – are for cooling purposes
THERMAL POWER PLANTS

Why is cooling necessary?

Thermoelectric power plants boil water to create steam, which then spins turbines to
generate electricity. The heat used to boil water can come from burning of a fuel, from
nuclear reactions, or directly from the sun or geothermal heat sources
underground. Once steam has passed through a turbine, it must be cooled back into
water before it can be reused to produce more electricity. Colder water cools the
steam more effectively and allows more efficient electricity generation
THERMAL POWER PLANTS

In conclusion, Power plants across the country contribute to water stress.

This tremendous volume of water has to come from somewhere. Across the country, water
demand from power plants is combining with pressure from growing populations and other
needs, and is straining our water resources—especially during droughts and heat waves.

The state power authority warned that several thousand megawatts of electrical capacity might
go offline if the drought continued to persist.
6. Navigation
Navigation of rivers to transport people and goods precedes historical record. However, within
the last few centuries, navigation structures have significantly augmented the ability of industry
to transport goods to and from inland ports.

In many cases, improvements in river navigation have provided an economical method of

transporting large quantities of grain, petroleum, coal, metals and ores, fertilizers and chemicals,
forest products, and other cargo, but the improvements have not come without a cost.

Navigation structures have been necessary to increase river depths, eliminate meandering, and
reduce water velocities in existing rivers. These structures are often expensive in monetary,
societal and environmental costs.

Navigation dams form a deep, low velocity reservoir in locations where passage was once
impractical because the river was too shallow or currents were too swift. Multipurpose dams are
often used to provide a steady supply of water in times when flows would normally be low.
River Morphology and Sediment Transport

In general, natural rivers are almost never straight. Straight channels develop secondary
currents that meander between riverbanks. At the points where the secondary currents are
strongest, erosion develops, and at the points where the currents are weak, deposition
occurs.

The secondary circulation patterns in the river cause bends to develop in the river. The newly
formed bends accentuate the strength of the secondary currents. At the bends, higher
velocity water is restricted to the outside of the bend.

Consequently, most erosion occurs on the outside of a river bend and most deposition occurs
on the inside of the bend. Given that the channel bed consists of erodible material, and that
the channel does not have an excessively large sediment load, the originally straight channel
becomes more sinuous, and a meandering river develops.
Meander Formation

(i) original channel is straight with uniform cross section

(ii) alternating pattern of erosion and deposition develops as a result of secondary currents
(iii) secondary currents intensify and banks erode
(iv) curvature of stream increases, intensifying outer bank erosion and inner bank deposition
(v) meanders are fully formed and do not increase in size, but they continue to migrate.
River Navigation

Canal lock and lock-keeper's cottage on the Aylesbury Arm of Lock on the River Neckar at Heidelberg in Germany
the Grand Union Canal at Marsworth in Hertfordshire, England

A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between
stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways.

Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is
not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a more direct route to be taken.
 Locks on the Rideau Canal, Entrance Valley, near Parliament
Hill, Ottawa, Canada

When a stretch of river is made navigable, a lock is sometimes required to bypass an obstruction
such as a rapid, dam, or mill weir – because of the change in river level across the obstacle.

In large scale river navigation improvements, weirs and locks are used together. A weir will increase
the depth of a shallow stretch, and the required lock will either be built in a gap in the weir, or at
the downstream end of an artificial cut which bypasses the weir and perhaps a shallow stretch of
river below it. A river improved by these means is often called a Waterway or River Navigation
7. Other Uses
Natural views of Body of Water

Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

Halong Bay, Vietnam

7. Other Uses
Natural views of Body of Water

Iguazu Falls, Brazil and Argentina

Cao Cristales, River of Five Colors in Colombia

Thank You