Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink. How can we conserve water?

Question

No silly answers please.

Answer 1

WATER DISTRIBUTION,

CONSERVATION & HARVESTING

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25% of the planets surface is land

75%of the surface is water and it is rising

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97%of the Earths water is salt

fresh water is only 3% of all the Earths water

most of it is beyond out reach

now much ice is melting and running into the seas fresh water lost for ever.

STORAGE or Location of % of the fresh water

ice and glaziers 74%

groundwater 800 meters + 13.5 %

groundwater less than 800meters 11.o%

Lakes 0.3%

soils 0.006%

Atmospheric in circulation 0.0035%

rivers 0.03%

frozen land or permafrost is not included and represent an unavailable storage of 40%

so of the 3% about 11.6 ,is easily available to us ,in rivers, lakes and ground water surface aquifers,more and more of this is becoming contaminated

overpopulation of an extra 70 million people a year (increasing all the time )and expanding agriculture ,which uses 70% of available potable water supplies ,has brought the good(sweet) water suplies to critical levels ,some countries have been in trouble already quite a while .

now climate change and desertification because of irresponsible agriculture ,overgrazing and deforrestation is damaging world fresh water production .

it is a good reason for concern and if we do not rectify matters by changing agricultural methods ,reforrest ,stop deforrestation,become more economic with water use ,stop producing more people ,stop wasting and contaminating water, we will be in serious trouble all round

and could end up looking like Mars

and these are some of the things we can do

EFFICIENT WATER USE

IN THE HOUSE

one can connect the sink straight to the toilet sistern and so use the water twice ,first to have a shave and then to flush the toilet

also if you bend the ball valve you can regulate the level of the sistern

and always have your grey water and black water seperate

so that the sink and shower water goes directly into the garden saving on irregation and at the same time ,making the sewage smaller and easier to deal with ,this also goes and iregates the garden but via a sitern of two compartments and a french drain ,on which you plant trees,

ON THE LAND

economic systems of irregation like drip irregation

and design using a lot of stone walls ,that condense water in the night

and planting leafy plants for the same purpose

building wind breaks ,to counter act the drying effects of the wind and farm towards agro forestal ,using as many trees as posible to limit evaporation .using shade nets before we have tree cover

and use MULCH

by cutting down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall,they will cover the ground and put even more organic matter on top,you can use saw dust,leaves green or dry,and when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most benificial way(for the quality of you soil)to prepare the land for planting

to prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).

mulch is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface

the top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

the humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.

the mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and,

WATERHARVESTING

the natural way of nature is to evaporate moisture for clouds and this gets blown to places with less water any way ,what obstruct the clouds from getting to deserts ,tend to be mountains that are in the way,

but generally speaking ,the normal weather patterns spread rain evenly over the planet to balance out the temperatures and humidity.

As far as catching rain is concerned ,we do this all the time ,and have done so already since Babylonian times,and is a part of the more advanced Agriculture,that existed with the Egyptians,Central ,and south American indigenous peoples,and many others ,today we call this water harvesting.

In Permaculture the rule is to harvest water to the point of Zero runoff.

this means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

by building dams,ponds or swales, with interconecting ditches,

if there are enough of these ;the places ,where before the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,(in a matter of hours or days),It now runs into absorbant dams or swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subteranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.

Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.

And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbant one and turning the area in to a sponge.

in Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence,One can find many remnants of Waterharvesting,such as aquaducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

in Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.

to find out more about Water harvesting I recomend:

the designers manual by Bil Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.

and is the best all round book you can get.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])

some other writers that are on the internet are

david Holmgren

Larry Santoyo

Kirk Hanson

Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,

One-Straw Revolution

The Road Back to Nature

The Natural Way of Farming

http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu...

Simon Henderson

and Bill Molisson.

a representitive of the concept in USA is

Dan Hemenway at [e-mail]

[e-mail]

http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames....

http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo...

Source(s):

http://spaces.msn.com/byderule

Answer 2

I'm still surprised that we haven't made an effort to mass purify sea water through Flash distillation or some other technology that may have been developed since I was in the Navy. As a former Marine Engineer, we purified our own sea water while we were at sea. It still had to be treated. But, even then we used the same treatment techniques as the Municipalities. Our water was cleaner than city water.

When we were in a port. A lot of places, even in the U.S. The water couldn't pass a purity test. We had to use the water we purified in our tanks prior to our arrival, while we were in port.

We have the technology and knowledge. Do we have the will to give up our doom and gloom attitude and do what the military and some other countries have been doing for 50 years?

Answer 3

In our house we put buckets in the shower, you get about

5 litres of water in the bucket before the water gets hot.

We then use this water in the washing machine.

The water from the machine goes out into the garden to water the plants.

If you have a bath, wait for the water to go cold and use it on pot plants or bucket it out to wash verandas or paths.

Limit showers to 3 mins.

You can wash the car with 1 bucket of water, if you wash and then wipe as you go.

Only wash clothes when you have a full load.

Turn off the tap when cleaning your teeth.

Put the plug in the sink when you need to wash hands after a dirty job, like gardening.

Remember every drop counts, and it cuts your water bill as well.

Answer 4

Water conservation on a daily basis:

1) Take showers intead of baths

2) Turn off water while brushing teeth

3) Wash dishes in sink full of soap, and not using running water...but only to rinse.

4) Water lawn less frequently (believe me, its more likely that the grass DROWNS rather than die from dehydration)

5)Wash larger loads of clothing at a time.

Answer 5

Take short showers.  Use an efficient clothes washer.  Water your plants with reclaimed water or captured rainwater.

The person who said mulch is right.  I put mulch in my garden and the mulch helps the soil retain moisture enough so that I don't have to water as often.

Answer 6

Digging chars (trenches) to harvest rain water. Let the water soak into ground.

Using non-soapy bath water, rinse water in gardens for wtaering plants.

Big native shade trees instead of lawns.

Dont keep taps open more than necessary.

Big trees, trenches on hills/mountains to harvest and retain water.

Answer 7

The single biggest way?

There are tens of millions of Americans who are using vast amounts of water (and mney) tosustain lawns composed of grasses that are imported into regions they are not adapted to.  Instead of learning a little about the local ecology and using plants that are adapted to where they live.

And, just to make sure they waste as much water and money as they possibly can, they get rid of all the trees.  Which also runs up their power bills.  Houses width trees to shade them use about half as much power for airconditioning in the summer.