Wetlands and waterbodies.docx

8/14/2019 Wetlands and waterbodies.docx

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Wetlands and waterbodies

Water management is the activity of planning, developing, distributingand managing the optimum use of water resources. In an ideal world. Watermanagement planning has regard to all the competing demands for water andseeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands. Thisis rarely possible in practice. Water is an essential resource for all life on theplanet. Of the water resources on Earth only three per cent of it is not salty andtwo-thirds of the freshwater is locked up in ice caps and glaciers. Of the remainingone per cent, a fifth is in remote, inaccessible areas and much seasonal rainfall inmonsoonal deluges and floods cannot easily be used. At present only about 0.08per cent of all the worlds fresh water. is exploited by mankind i n ever increasingdemand for sanitation, drinking, manufacturing, leisure and agriculture

Much effort in water management is directed at optimizing the use of water andin minimizing the environmental impact of water use on the natural environment.

Successful management of any resources requires accurate knowledge of theresource available, the uses to which it may be put, the competing demands forthe resource, measures to and processes to evaluate the significance and worthof competing demands and mechanisms to translate policy decisions into actionson the ground.

For water as a resource this is particularly difficult since sources of water cancross many national boundaries and the uses of water include many that aredifficult to assign financial value to and may also be difficult to manage inconventional terms. Examples include rare species or ecosystems or the very longterm value of ancient ground water reserves.


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Managing water in urban settings

Half of the worlds people now live in towns and cities , a figure expected to reachtwo-thirds by 2050. In the areas surrounding urban centres, agriculture must

compete with industry and municipal users for safe water supplies, whiletraditional water sources are becoming polluted with urban wastewater. As citiesoffer the best opportunities for selling produce, farmers often have no alternativeto using polluted water to irrigate their crops. Depending on how developed acitys wastewater treatment is, there can be significant health hazards related to

the use of this water. Wastewater from cities can contain a mixture of pollutants.There is usually wastewater from kitchens and toilets along with rainwater runoff.This means that the water usually contains excessive levels of nutrients and salts,

as well as a wide range of pathogens. Heavy metals may also be present, alongwith traces of antibiotics and endocrine disruptors, such as oestrogens.

Developing world countries tend to have the lowest levels of wastewatertreatment. Often, the water that farmers use for irrigating crops is contaminatedwith pathogens from sewage. The pathogens of most concern are bacteria,viruses and parasitic worms, which directly affect farmers health and indirectlyaffect consumers if they eat the contaminated crops. Common illnesses include

diarrhoea, which kills 1.1 million people annually and is the second most commoncause of infant deaths. Many cholera outbreaks are also related to the reuse ofpoorly treated wastewater. Actions that reduce or remove contamination,therefore, have the potential to save a large number of lives and improvelivelihoods. Scientists have been working to find ways to reduce contamination offood using a method called the 'multiple-barrier approach'.

This involves analysing the food production process from growing crops to sellingthem in markets and eating them, then considering where it might be possible tocreate a barrier against contamination. Barriers include: introducing saferirrigation practices; promoting on-farm wastewater treatment; taking actions thatcause pathogens to die off; and effectively washing crops after harvest in marketsand restaurants.


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A wetland is an area of land whose soil is satturated with moisture eitherpermanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially orcompletely by shallow pools of water. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, andbogs, among others. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater, orbrackish. The world's largest wetland is the Pantanal which straddles Brazil,Bolivia and Paraguay in South America.

Wetlands are considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems. Plant lifefound in wetlands includes:

Mangrove,

water lilies,

cattails,

sedges,

tamarack,

black spruce,

cypress,

gum, and many others. Animal life includes many different amphibians, reptiles,birds, insects, and mammals.

Wetlands have historically been the victim of large-scale draining efforts for realestate development, or flooding for use as recreational lakes. By 1993 half theworld's wetlands had been drained. Since the 1970s, more focus has been put onpreserving wetlands for their natural function sometimes also at greatexpense. Wetlands provide a valuable flood control function. Wetlands are very

effective at filtering and cleaning water pollution,(often from agricultural runofffrom the farms that replaced the wetlands in the first place). To replace thesewetland ecosystem services enormous amounts of money have been spent onwater purification plants and remediation measures, constructing dams, leveesand other artificial flood controls.


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Undisturbed Water Cycle

Rainwater runs off the land into water bodies. It also percolates into the soil.Percolation recharges groundwater and filters pollutants. Through both pathways,water makes its way into our creeks, ponds, wetlands, rivers, and oceans.

Impacted Water Cycle

Development puts impervious surfaces, roads, sidewalk, and roofs, thatprevent percolation. Most of the rainwater runs off the land carrying


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pollutants into water bodies. Without percolation, flooding is morefrequent and severe.

Of course, we have to return for a third time back to P-REX, this time tosingle out one of their projects, the Pontine Systemic Design .

The result of Alan Berger's year as the Prince Charitable Trust RomePrize recipient in Landscape Architecture, at the American Academy inRome, in collaboration with Case Brown, this project proposes to re -introduce a gigantic new wetland machine to cleanse and adaptivelyreuse one of the highly polluted zones of Italy's Lazio region, thedrained Pontine Marshes . It is both a productive filtration system and aregional recreation area.

Quoting the project summary at length:

Choosing a gigantic, consolidated wetland site will likely be more viablein the complex patchwork of land ownership. Given Latinas situation

distributed treatment areas would be both enormously complex topurchase and ineffective to manage. The Wetland Machinesdimensions are directly related to the amount of wetland area neededto treat the amount of water in the Canale Aque Alth the majorcollector for this highly polluted zone. At 220 l/s, with a load around50+ mg/l of N, at least 2 square kilometers of treatment wetland will berequired. The design retro-fits and widens existing canals to serve asflow distributors. Furthermore, soil cut/fill operations are used forterraforming shallow ridges and valleys to hold/treat water and makeraised areas for new public space and program. At 2.3 sq. km., the newwetland machine will drastically improve the regional water supply andprovide needed open space for recreation. At only 6 km from Latina,
http://www.theprex.net/http://www.theprex.net/http://www.theprex.net/http://www.theprex.net/iWeb/P-REX/projects-pontine%20design.htmlhttp://www.theprex.net/iWeb/P-REX/projects-pontine%20design.htmlhttp://www.theprex.net/iWeb/P-REX/projects-pontine%20design.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_marsheshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_marsheshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_marsheshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_marsheshttp://www.theprex.net/iWeb/P-REX/projects-pontine%20design.htmlhttp://www.theprex.net/


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the site could house programs and environments almost completelylacking in the region large open landscapes with diverse vegetation.Extensive edge habitat diversity or programs shallow shoals for

juvenile fish and swimming, starker edges for fishing and water storage.Early this summer, the President of Latina Province launched a

feasibility study to evaluate the potential of this wetland machine .


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Bibliografie:

1) Wetlands and waterbodies (Wolfram Kircher)2) Wikipedia.org3) Wetland Conservation ( William J. Mitsch , James G. Gosselink ) 4) Wetland machines (pruned.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-wetland-

machines
http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22William+J.+Mitsch%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22William+J.+Mitsch%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22James+G.+Gosselink%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22James+G.+Gosselink%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22James+G.+Gosselink%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22James+G.+Gosselink%22http://www.google.com/search?hl=ro&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22William+J.+Mitsch%22

Wetlands and waterbodies.docx

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