Global Water Resources and Use

The hydrosphere component of the Earth system is made up of water. The water molecule consists of one
oxygen and two hydrogen atoms held together by hydrogen bonds. The density of water is at a maximum
at 40C. Ice is less dense than liquid water. The latent heat of fusion (i.e. the heat required to convert 1 kg
of ice to water without changing the temperature) is 0.334 kJ/kg. The latent heat of vaporization (i.e. the
heat required to convert water to vapour without a change of temperature) is 2300 kJ/kg. . Humans need
water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, and industry. About 70 % of the human body is made up of
water; no living organism can exist without water.

Water can broadly be categorized as

 Freshwater:

o low concentrations of dissolved salts (less than 100 mg per litre);

o Only 3% of Earth's water is freshwater (2/3 is frozen);

o Ex: lakes, rivers, ponds, groundwater, glaciers, and ice caps.

or

 Saltwater:

o large concentrations of dissolved salts;

o 97% of Earth's water it saltwater;

o Saltwater mostly refers to oceans.

The total volume of water on Earth is about 1 400 million km3 of which only 2.5 percent, or about 35
million km3, is freshwater. Most freshwater occurs in the form of permanent ice or snow, locked up in
Antarctica and Greenland, or in deep groundwater aquifers. The principal sources of water for human use
are lakes, rivers, soil moisture and relatively shallow groundwater basins. The usable portion of these
sources is only about 200 000 km3 of water — less than 1 per cent of all freshwater and only 0.01 per cent
of all water on Earth. Much of this available water is located far from human populations, further
complicating issues of water use.
Biota refers to the total water contained within the biosphere

Glaciers and icecaps cover about 10% of the world's landmass. These are concentrated in Greenland and

Antarctica and contain ~70% of the world's freshwater. Unfortunately, most of these resources are located
far from human habitation and are not readily accessible for human use. Ninety percent of the world's
frozen freshwater is at the South and North poles, with the remaining 4% spread over 550 000 km 2 of
glaciers and mountainous icecaps measuring about 180 000 km3.
Groundwater

If you dig deeply enough anywhere on Earth, you will hit water. Groundwater as is rarely a distinct water
body (large caves in limestone aquifers are one exception). Rather, groundwater typically fills very small
spaces (pores) within rocks and between sediment grains. The water table is the top of the saturated zone.
It may lie hundreds of meters deep in deserts or near the surface in moist ecosystems. Water tables
typically shift from season to season as precipitation and transpiration levels change, moving up during
rainy periods or periods of little transpiration and sinking during dry phases when the rate of recharge
(precipitation minus evaporation and transpiration that infiltrates from the surface) drops. In temperate
regions the water table tends to follow surface topography, rising under hills where there is little
discharge to streams and falling under valleys where the water table intersects the surface in the form of
streams, lakes.

Above the water table lies the unsaturated zone, also referred to as the vadose zone, where the pores
(spaces between grains) are not completely filled with water. Water in the vadose zone is referred to as
soil moisture. Although air in the vadose zone is at atmospheric pressures, the soil moisture is under
tension, with suctions of a magnitude much greater than atmospheric pressure. This fluid tension is
created by strong adhesive forces between the water and the solid grains, and by surface tension at the
small interfaces between water and air. The same forces can be seen at work when you insert a thin straw
(a capillary) into water: water rises up in the straw, forming a meniscus at the top. When the straw is
thinner, water rises higher because the ratio of the surface area of the straw to the volume of the straw is
greater, increasing the adhesive force lifting the water relative to the gravitational force pulling it down.
This explains why fine-grained soils, such as clay, can hold water under very large suctions. Water flows
upward under suction through small pores from the water table toward plant roots when
evapotranspiration is greater than precipitation. After a rainstorm, water may recharge the groundwater by
saturating large pores and cracks in the soil and flowing very quickly downward to the water table.
Ground water is by far the most abundant and readily available source of freshwater, followed by lakes,
reservoirs, rivers and wetlands:

• Groundwater represents over 90% of the world's readily available freshwater resource.

• The amount of groundwater withdrawn annually is roughly estimated at ~600-700 km3, representing
about 20% of global water withdrawals.
Most freshwater lakes are located at high altitudes. Many lakes, especially those in arid regions, become
salty through evaporation, which concentrates the inflowing salts.

Reservoirs are artificial lakes, produced by constructing physical barriers across flowing rivers, which
allow the water to pool and be used for various purposes. The volume of water stored in reservoirs
worldwide is estimated at 4 286 km3.

Wetlands include swamps, bogs, marshes, mires, lagoons and floodplains. The total global area of
wetlands is estimated at ~2 900 000 km 2. Estimating the average depth of permanent wetlands at about
one metre, the global volume of wetlands could range between 2 300 km3 and 2900 km3.

Supplies of freshwater (water without a significant salt content) exist because precipitation is greater than
evaporation on land. Most of the precipitation that is not transpired by plants or evaporated, infiltrates
through soils and becomes groundwater, which flows through rocks and sediments and discharges into
rivers. Rivers are primarily supplied by groundwater, and in turn provide most of the freshwater discharge
to the sea. Over the oceans evaporation is greater than precipitation, so the net effect is a transfer of water
back to the atmosphere. In this way freshwater resources are continually renewed by counterbalancing
differences between evaporation and precipitation on land and at sea, and the transport of water vapour in
the atmosphere from the sea to the land. About 505 000 km 3, or a layer 1.4 metres thick, evaporates from
the oceans annually. Another 72 000 km3 evaporates from the land. About 80 per cent of all precipitation,
or about 458 000 km3/year, falls on the oceans and the remaining 119000 km 3/year on land. The
difference between precipitation on land surfaces and evaporation from those surfaces (119 000 km3
minus 72 000 km3 annually) is run-off and groundwater recharge — approximately 47 000 km 3 annually.
Residence times vary from several thousand years in the oceans to a few days in the atmosphere. Millions
of people worldwide depend on groundwater stocks, which they draw from aquifers—permeable geologic
formations through which water flows easily. Very trans missive geologic formations are desirable
because water levels in wells decline little even when pumping rates are high, so the wells do not need to
be drilled as deeply as in less trans missive formations. Under natural conditions many aquifers are
artesian, i.e the water they hold is under pressure, so water will flow to the surface from a well without
pumping. Aquifers may be either capped by an impermeable layer (confined) or open to receive water
from the surface (unconfined). Confined aquifers are often artesian because the confining layer prevents
upward flow of groundwater, but unconfined aquifers are also artesian in the vicinity of discharge areas.
This is why groundwater discharges into rivers and streams. Confined aquifers are less likely to be
contaminated because the impermeable layers above them prevent surface contaminants from reaching
their water, so they provide good-quality water supplies. Water has an average residence time of
thousands to tens of thousands of years in many aquifers,

but the actual age of a water sample collected from a particular well will vary tremendously within an
aquifer. Shallow groundwater can discharge into streams and rivers in weeks or months, but some deep
groundwater is millions of years old—as old as the rocks that hold the water in their pores.

Groundwater Hydrology: How Water Flows

The pore structure of soils, sediment, and rock is a central influence on groundwater movement. This is
determined:

· porosity: the proportion of total volume that is occupied by voids. Porosity is not a direct function of
the size of soil grains— Porosity tends to be larger in well sorted sediments where the grain sizes are
uniform, and smaller in mixed soils where smaller grains fill the voids between larger grains. Soils are
less porous at deeper levels because the weight of overlying soil packs grains closer together.

· permeability: how readily the medium transmits water, based on the size and shape of its pore spaces
and how interconnected its pores are. Materials with high porosity and high permeability, such as sand,
gravel, sandstone, fractured rock, and basalt, produce good aquifers. Low-permeable rocks and sediments
that impede groundwater flow include granite, shale, and clay. Groundwater recharge enters aquifers in
areas at higher elevations (typically hill slopes) than discharge areas (typically in the bottom of valleys),
so the overall movement of groundwater is downhill. However, within an aquifer, water often flows
upward toward a discharge area.

Hydraulic head: The hydraulic head at a particular location within an aquifer is the sum of the elevation
of that point and the height of the column of water that would fill a well open only at that point. Thus, the
hydraulic head at a point is simply the elevation of water that rises up in a well open to the aquifer at that
point. Thus the hydraulic head is the combination of two potentials: mechanical potential due to elevation,
and pressure potential. These are usually the only two significant potentials driving groundwater flow,
hence groundwater will flow from high to low hydraulic head. Depending on local rainfall, land use, and
geology, streams may be fed by either groundwater discharge or surface runoff and direct rainfall, or by
some combination of surface and groundwater. Perennial streams and rivers are primarily supplied by
groundwater, referred to as base flow. During dry periods they are completely supplied by groundwater;
during storms there is direct runoff and groundwater discharge also increases.

Depletion of Freshwater Resources

In many parts of the world people are extracting water from aquifers more quickly than the aquifers are
replenished by recharge. In addition to draining aquifers, excessive groundwater pumping changes
groundwater flow patterns around wells and can drain nearby rivers and streams. This happens because
pumping changes the natural equilibrium that exists in an undeveloped aquifer with discharge balancing
recharge. When pumping starts, groundwater stores are depleted in the vicinity of the well, creating a
cone of depression in the hydraulic head. If a new water source such as a river or stream is available close
by, the well may capture (draw water from) that source and increase its recharge rate until this inflow
matches the pumping rate. If no such source is available and pumping draws the water table down far
enough, it will dry up the aquifer or deplete it so far that is it not physically possible or affordable to
pump out the last stores of water.

Pumping quickly lowers the pressure within confined aquifers so that water no longer rises to the surface
naturally. In unconfined aquifers, air fills pores above the water table, so the water table falls much more
slowly than in confined aquifers.Overuse of groundwater can also reduce the quality of the remaining
water if wells draw from contaminated surface sources or if water tables near the coast drop below sea
level, causing salt water to flow into aquifers.

Increase in salinity

Groundwater extraction and irrigation can increase salt concentrations in water and soils in several ways:
- irrigation increases the salinity of soil water when evaporation removes water but leaves salt behind.
This occurs when irrigation water contains some salt and irrigation rates are not high enough to flush the
salt away. Saline water in the vadose zone can then contaminate surface water and soils.

-Irrigation raises the water table and lifts saline groundwater near the surface into the root zone. This
occurs when irrigation efficiency is poor, so a large fraction of irrigation water infiltrates into the soil, and
groundwater flow is slow. A similar problem occurs in some regions when trees are cut down, reducing
transpiration and increasing the rate at which water flushes through the vadose zone. The increased
infiltration flushes high concentrations of salt to the water table and lifts the water table toward the
surface. Salinization occurs in coastal areas, where excessive groundwater pumping draws seawater into
aquifers and contaminates wells. In coastal aquifers freshwater floats on top of denser seawater. When
this lens of freshwater is diminished by withdrawals, seawater rises up from below.

Water Pollution

Many different types of contaminants can pollute water and render it unusable. Pollutants include:

· Microorganisms such bacteria

· Disinfectants and water disinfection by-products including chlorine, bromate, and chlorite

· Inorganic chemicals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury

· Organic chemicals such as benzene, dioxin, and vinyl chloride

· Radionuclides including uranium and radium

These pollutants come from a wide range of sources. Microorganisms are typically found in human and
animal waste. Some inorganic contaminants such as arsenic and radionuclides such as uranium occur
naturally in geologic deposits, but many inorganic and most major organic pollutants are emitted from
industrial facilities, mining, and agricultural activities such as fertilizer and pesticide application.
Sediments (soil particles) from erosion and activities such as excavation and construction also pollute
rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. As discussed in Unit 3, "Oceans," availability of light is the primary
constraint on photosynthesis in aquatic ecosystems, so adding sediments can severely affect productivity
in these ecosystems by clouding the water

Water in the atmosphere

• thermodynamics (through condensation and evaporation)

• cloud formation as well as precipitation effects),

• cleansing of the atmosphere by rainout (e.g. removal of substances within clouds such as hygroscopic
(water-absorbing) aerosols), washout (removal of aerosols and dissolution of soluble atmospheric gases
through capture by falling raindrops),

• chemistry of the atmosphere (as a solvent or participant in reactions), and

• absorption of radiation. Water is a major greenhouse gas.

The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is limited by the saturation vapour pressure.