Unit 7: Soil, Pest and Water Management

Discussion assignment

Your posts should cover the questions below in full, and be at least 300 words long. Then reply to and peer-review at least three other posts by next Wednesday 11:59PM UoPeople Time, and rate the posts and replies.

This week we are going to look at the topic of water quality vs. water quantity. Make sure your post is in your OWN words. Don’t copy from sources you use for information.

Some links to help you:

Water for Life Decade: Water Quality

Water for Life Decade: Water scarcity

Water Resources: Quantity and Quality

Water Quality for Ecosystem and Human Health

1. Please list two bits of information, statistics or facts that you found at some of these links which interested and/or surprised you?
2. Explain, in your own words, what the difference is between water quality and water quantity?
3. Is water quantity or quality the biggest issue in your local village/town/city? Why? Explain.
4. Are there disputes, violence or wars over water in your local village/town/city?
5. Look up what IWRM is: define it.*
6. Would IWRM work to help water issues in your local village/town/city?

* Some links to help you:

What is IWRM?
Water for Life Decade: Integrated Water Resources Management
Integrated Water Resources Management Plans

Any materials cited should be referenced using the style guidelines established by the American Psychological Association (APA).

1. Please list two bits of information, statistics or facts that you found at some of these links which interested and/or surprised you?

It is new for me that every day 2 million sewage is going into our water cycle and the people die from the polluted water (United Nations, 2015).

This is a big problem and should be solved soon because the water is most important for human life.
It is a bad cycle because polluted water also goes into the atmosphere which results in acid rain.

The acid rain disturbs the plants from growing. Fewer plants result in less oxygen production. One-fifth of the population of the world lives in regions with physical scarcity to water  (United Nations, 2015).

2. Explain, in your own words, what the difference is between water quality and water quantity?

Water quality is the cleanness of water, the specific pollution of toxins or pests in a specific amount of water for example. Quantity means the amount of water that is available for use.

3. Is water quantity or quality the biggest issue in your local village/town/city? Why? Explain.

In my town is water quantity a bigger issue than the quality. The quality of water is in Germany very good.

We have good wastewater treatment plants here. The issue is that water here has a long way to go, it comes from some storage seas in the near, next to pipelines from other treatment plants.

The water supply companies store the wastewater in big cisterns for further cleaning. After they clean the water it goes back to the freshwater cycle. “New” and freshwater are supplied from other seas in the near and wells. So the amount of water is always a problem. Also, it is very expensive here.

4. Are there disputes, violence or wars over water in your local village/town/city?

No there are no disputes, violence or wars or something similar about water in my town. Also not in my country.

5. Look up what IWRM is: define it.*

I have the understanding of IWRM that it is a process which coordinates the use of the water in different branches. We have different use cases of water with different priorities. We have for example water for the people – for life, drink, washing and similar activities.

But we also have an industry which uses water for the production of goods. There are also two other use-cases, water for food production and plants. IWRM means here in my understanding that the organization coordinates the use of the raw water in these four branches and makes sure that the whole cycle of water goes correctly as planned.

Next to distribution of the water, the IWRM also plans the cleaning of the water (“What is IWRM? – THE CHALLENGE – Global Water Partnership”, 2016).

6. Would IWRM work to help water issues in your local village/town/city?

Yes, I think the method could be work in my county and help to optimize the water flow and reduction of the costs.

References

Decade, Water for Life, 2015, UN-Water, United Nations, MDG, water, sanitation, financing, gender, IWRM, Human rights, transboundary, cities, quality, food security. (n.d.). Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/quality.shtml

Scarcity, Decade, Water for Life, 2015, UN-Water, United Nations, MDG, water, sanitation, financing, gender, IWRM, Human right, transboundary, cities, quality, food security. (n.d.). Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml

What is IWRM? – THE CHALLENGE – Global Water Partnership. (2016). Gwp.org. Retrieved 22 December 2016, from http://www.gwp.org/The-Challenge/What-is-IWRM/

Sincerely,

Michél

Dear Andrew,

thank you for your statement to the question of our instructor.

I agree with your meanings. I think the problem of water availability is a big problem in developing countries. The few water well’s in Africa, for example, are controlled by some companies, like Nestlé. They sell the clean water to the people. So they are dependent then. Money is often a problem, also for industrial countries, the companies often want a margin for their services.

They clean the water and this is cost effective, surely. But the problem is the big margin they often calculate in the costs.

Such services should be government controlled, not private.

Sincerely. Michél