John F.

Kennedy:
“Anyone who can solve the problems of
water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes -
one for peace and one for science”

Name:
WATER RESOURCES Shaker Chakra

ENGINEERING
ESSAY
The water challenge

Water means life. It is a basic resource in all human activities. Since early
times, people have been searching for adequate water supply systems to
meet their needs, and historically, most cultures were established and grew
around major water sources. This means that water is a major factor
determining the demographic map of the whole world, Yet water is
becoming scarce in quantity and inadequate in quality in many areas around
the world, not gaining access to enough clean water is one of biggest risk
factors facing water resources engineers.
As a fundamental requirement of life, water is more important than food,
shelter, light and warmth. Yet shockingly, 1 out of 6 people do not have
access to enough water today
Fortunately, there are engineering solutions out there but the absolute
necessity of water makes any project concerning it a risky one

Why is accessing enough clean water a

challenge?

1- 98% of water on this planet is seawater

And therefore, too saline to use for drinking or irrigation. The remaining
2% of water is fresh but 1.6% is trapped in polar ice caps and glaciers.
Leaving just 0.4% available to us. This 0.4% of useable water is found in
rivers, underground, in vapour and locked within cell structures of plants.

2- Water pumps aren’t sustainable

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 According to Engineering for Change, more than 30% of hand pumps have
failed within 2-5 years. That means there are 250,000 dysfunctional pumps
pumps and it’s one of the reasons why water wells fail

3- Agricultural irrigation consumes too much useful water

Agricultural irrigation is the method of supplying water to plants. This
consumes enormous quantities of water, with irrigation often exceeding
80% of total water use in developing countries. When clean water is in
limited supply, it’s simply inefficient to use 80% of it on agriculture.

Water Resources Engineering

Water-resources engineers design systems to control the quantity, quality,
timing, and distribution of water to support human habitation and the needs of
the environment. Water-supply and flood-control systems are commonly
regarded as essential infrastructure for developed areas, and as such water-
resources engineering is a core specialty area in civil engineering.
Water-resources engineering is also a specialty area in environmental
engineering, particularly with regard to the design of water-supply systems,
wastewater-collection systems, and water-quality control in natural systems.

-Water resources engineering can be broadly divided into the three categories
1- Hydrogeology or Groundwater engineering
2- Hydrology
3- Hydraulics

Hydrogeology
Hydrogeology is the study of groundwater, it deals with how water gets into the
ground (recharge), how it flows in the subsurface (through aquifers) and how
groundwater interacts with the surrounding soil and rock (the geology).

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As a Hydrogeologists you might:

 Design and construct water wells for drinking water supply, irrigation schemes and
other purposes
 Try to discover how much water is available to sustain water supplies so that these do
not adversely affect the environment 
 Investigate the quality of the water to ensure that it is fit for its intended use
 Design schemes Where the groundwater is polluted to try and clean up this pollution
 Design construction dewatering schemes and deal with groundwater problems
associated with mining
 Help to harness geothermal energy through groundwater-based heat pumps
Hydrogeologists are also involved in attempting to solve some of the big
questions facing the world today, including sustainable water supply, food and
energy production; environmental protection; and coping with climate change.
They work closely with a wide range of people, from individual farmers and
well owners; to other scientists and engineers

Hydrology
Hydrology is primarily associated with watershed and river modeling and
understanding interactions between atmospheric, surface, and subsurface water
Studying the movement, availability, and quality of water are the jobs of a
hydrologist.  More specifically hydrologists study the chemical properties,
biological interactions, and the physical processes that govern the hydrologic
cycle.

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The water cycle or hydrologic cycle is a process by which water is
continuously cycled around the earth.  This happens through different pathways
and at different rates but the central concepts remain the same.  Water
evaporates from the ocean, condenses as clouds, moves over land, and
precipitates.  From there it can enter ground water, evaporate again, or enter a
stream or lake.  It will eventually find its way back to the ocean either by
falling as precipitation, flowing with a river, or by moving ever so slowly with
ground water.  The hydrologic cycle is also a process that transfers heat
energy.  Heat is transported pole ward by water being evaporated and then
condensing which releases heat.  Without the water cycle the climate would be
much more frigid and areas away from the equator would be much less
habitable.
Studying these different aspects allow hydrologists to do many things such as
calculate water budgets.  This process involves tracking where all the water
goes in a watershed and creating an equation with inputs and outputs to
understand water surplus and deficit.  Once completed this budget may be used
by city planners to calculate drinking water availability, farmers to calculate
irrigation needs and availability, industries to calculate if they can produce
certain items, and mining companies to determine if excavation is cost-
effective, Studying floods is another thing that hydrologists do.  This can
involve creating flood plain maps, modeling stream flow, and predicting what
may happen under certain scenarios.  Hydrologists also study pollution by
looking at the sources, transportation mechanisms, and the ultimate fate of the
pollutant.  This involves looking at both point source pollution where the
source is known and nonpoint source pollution where the source is not known. 

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Groundwater and surface water are investigated to see how the pollutant travels
and how it reacts in nature. The observed data are used to determine where it
will end up and if it is harmful to the aquatic environment.  Much of what
hydrologists do involves field work, lab work, and modeling work.  This
creates a more complete picture of the hydrologic cycle and aids policy makers
in making their decisions involving water.

Hydraulics
Hydraulics is branch of science concerned with the practical applications of
fluids, primarily liquids, in motion, it emphasizes the mechanics of water flow,
including pressurized flow, open channel flow and flow-structure interactions
It is related to fluid mechanics, which in large part provides its theoretical
foundation, Hydraulics deals with such matters as the flow of liquids in pipes,
rivers, and channels and their confinement by dams and tanks. Some of its
principles apply also to gases, usually in cases in which variations in density
are relatively small.
Liquids in motion or under pressure did useful work for man for many
centuries before French scientist-philosopher Blaise Pascal and Swiss
physicist Daniel Bernoulli formulated the laws on which modern hydraulic-
power technology is based. Pascal’s law, formulated in about 1650, states that
pressure in a liquid is transmitted equally in all directions, when water is made
to fill a closed container, the application of pressure at any point will be
transmitted to all sides of the container. In the hydraulic press, Pascal’s law is
used to gain an increase in force; a small force applied to a small piston in a
small cylinder is transmitted through a tube to a large cylinder, where it presses
equally against all sides of the cylinder, including the large piston.

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Bernoulli’s law, formulated about a century later, states that energy in a fluid is
due to elevation, motion, and pressure, and if there are no losses due to friction
and no work done, the sum of the energies remains constant. Thus, velocity
energy, deriving from motion, can be partly converted to pressure energy by
enlarging the cross section of a pipe, which slows down the flow but increases
the area against which the fluid is pressing
Until the 19th century it was not possible to develop velocities and pressures
much greater than those provided by nature, but the invention of pumps
brought a vast potential for application of the discoveries of Pascal and
Bernoulli. In 1882 the city of London built a hydraulic system that delivered
pressurized water through street mains to drive machinery in factories. In 1906
an important advance in hydraulic techniques was made when an oil hydraulic
system was installed to raise and control the guns of the USS “Virginia.” In the
1920s, self-contained hydraulic units consisting of a pump, controls, and motor
were developed, opening the way to applications in machine tools,
automobiles, farm and earth-moving machinery, locomotives, ships, airplanes,
and spacecraft
The growth of fluid-power technology since World War II has been
phenomenal. In the operation and control of machine tools, farm machinery,
construction machinery, and mining machinery, fluid power can compete
successfully with mechanical and electrical systems (see fluidics). Its chief
advantages are flexibility and the ability to multiply forces efficiently; it also
provides fast and accurate response to controls. Fluid power can provide a
force of a few ounces or one of thousands of tons.
Hydraulic-power systems have become one of the major energy-transmission
technologies utilized by all phases of industrial, agricultural, and defense
activity. Modern aircraft, for example, use hydraulic systems to activate their
controls and to operate landing gears and brakes. Virtually all missiles, as well
as their ground-support equipment, utilize fluid power. Automobiles use
hydraulic-power systems in their transmissions, brakes, and steering
mechanisms. Mass production and its offspring, automation, in many industries
have their foundations in the utilization of fluid-power systems.

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