Review: Jim Beaty’s lecture - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• Indiana’s landscape
• Geology & climate that affects farming
• Soil monoliths
• Changes in the late 1800’s affecting Indiana agriculture
• The 2 things that catapulted the U.S. past Europe in agriculture
• Anything else?

• Hybrid corn
• What do you think?
• This summer’s drought footprint
• What do you think?

Water

One of Our Basic Needs

• What are the concerns about water quantity?
• What are the concerns about water quality?

• How much fresh water is available?
• Understand the water cycle (components and flow)
• Understand where we get our water from.

• Discuss the topic that your table was given and come to a consensus (5 minutes)
• Amount of water
• Water cycle
• Watersheds and water use
• Wells
• Report back

• What percent of the Earth’s water is fresh water?

• Fresh Water – 2.4%
• Salt water – 97.6%

• What percent of fresh water is:
• Groundwater?
• Surface water?
• Ice & snow?

• Fresh, surface water – 0.8%
• Groundwater – 12%
• Ice and snow – 87.2%

• Liquid fresh (surface) water is found in:
• Atmosphere
• Ground water (soil moisture)
• Lakes & reservoirs
• Moisture in plants and animals
• Rivers and streams
• Wetlands
• Rank these from the one that has the most fresh water to the one that has the least (1 …..6).

• Lakes & reservoirs - 45.7%
• Ground water - 23.8% How is this different that the previous GW (12% of all fresh water)?
• Moisture in plants and animals - 23.8%
• Atmosphere - 4.8%
• Rivers and streams - 1.6 %
• Wetlands - 1.3%

• What are the major components of the water cycle?

• What is a watershed?
• Why do we discuss/study/use the term watershed?

• Watershed - an area or region of land that drains into a lake, stream or river.
• Ridges of higher land on the ground separate watersheds from each other.
• The quantity and quality of water in streams, rivers, or lakes are dependent on what happens in it’s watershed.

Where the water goes.

*

* Kankakee watershed, draining to IL River (straightened to drain wetlands for crops)

• What percent of Indiana’s drinking water comes from surface water?

• What percent of Indiana’s drinking water comes from surface water?
• 40% of Indiana households drink surface water.
• 60% of Indiana households use ground water, including everyone who uses a well.
• Public water systems use both ground and surface water, depending on where they are located and what is available.

• Where do wells pull water from?
• What type of geologic formations are used (2 most prominent)?

• Wells draw water from aquifers that hold water
• The two prominent types of geologic formations used:
• Sand or sand & gravel formation that stores water in the spaces between particles
• Rock formation that stores water in fissures or cracks and joints

• How can wells become contaminated?
• What can you do to protect your well?

• Major Points from the last lecture:
• Amount of fresh water available
• Understand the water cycle (components and flow).
• Watersheds
• Wells
• Today:
• Protecting your well
• 2012 Drought
• Water consumers
• Indiana’s water shortage plan
• Pollution examples – maybe….

Zone of Management

Zone of Exclusion

Well

Well

• Protect the well casing
• Inspect the casing and cap regularly
• Keep well records and know where they are
• Protect the well from contaminants
• Landscape around the well to protect it from lawn mowers and other equipment
• Follow all maintenance recommendations
• Well life span is usually 20 to 30 years

• How did the summer’s drought affect you/your family/friendswater supply?

• The January-July period was the warmest first seven months of any year on record for the contiguous United States. The national temperature of 56.4°F was 4.3°F above the long-term average.
• More than 40,000 daily heat records were broken during the six months.
• The first seven months of 2012 were drier than average, ranking as 15th driest January-July on record.

• The hot, dry summer followed a warm winter. In many Western river basins, snowpack — the lifeblood of rivers and essential for irrigation — was a fraction of the historical average.
• Not even the stereotypically wet Southeast was spared. Central Georgia is mired in its second historic drought in the last five years, and the Flint River, vital for the state’s agricultural corridor, is seeing its lowest July flows ever.

Instruments on NASA’s Terra satellite compare plant growth in the first part of July to average conditions over the last decade. Green areas show vigorous growth, whereas brown areas indicate stunted crops.

(Image courtesy NASA)

• When the demands on a hydrologic system increase — when cities grow, when farming becomes more intensive and when water withdrawals increase— the consequences of heat and cloudless summer months are magnified.
• In other words, a moderate dry period may now produce more serious effects than it would have in the past. A city of 100,000, for instance, is much more vulnerable than a city of 40,000, if water-use behaviors remain the same.
• It is an unsettling conclusion, especially as scientists discover historical droughts more pernicious than the present-day and as climate change threatens part of the U.S. with an even warmer, drier future.

• U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared all of Missouri’s 114 counties primary disaster areas.
• Roughly one-third of all U.S. counties now have a federal disaster declaration because of drought.
• In Nebraska, state officials are telling certain farmers to stop irrigating so that the state can meet water-delivery obligations to Kansas, where some rivers are flowing at less than 1 percent of normal.
• In Colorado, farmers have asked the governor to allow emergency pumping from restricted aquifers.

• Dr. Jane Frankenberger
• YouTube video
• What can this drought teach us?

• Worldwide
• There are three water users: agricultural, domestic, and industrial.
• What percent % does agriculture use?
• What agricultural practice uses the most water?
• Agriculture uses:
• 67% of water withdrawn (total amount removed for any purpose)
• 85% of consumption (water withdrawn for human use)

• The agricultural practice that uses the most water is irrigation (particularly inefficient methods)

History:

• 1988: Drought focused attention on need for statewide plan to minimize impacts of a water shortage
• 1991: Indiana General Assembly enacted HB 1260 which required DNR to develop Water Shortage Plan
• 1994: Water Shortage Plan completed with input from Industry, Agriculture, Public Water Supplies, Municipalities, Environmental Groups, Government Agencies, etc.

July 10, 2012

• Developed by a Task Force (as required by the state Senate Enrolled Act No. 369)
• Suggested Model Ordinance
• Development of a “Water Management Strategy” by Local Unit of Government
• Adoption and Implementation of Ordinance for Effective Management of Water during Temporary Water Shortage
• Development of Water Shortage Plan Web Page, www.in.gov/2423.htm

• Increase public awareness of value of water
• Increase public knowledge of wise water use
• Provide economic incentives for desirable water management practices
• Enhance sum of net benefits from water resources
• Reduce frequency, duration, and severity of
• Water shortages
• Provide economic development consistent with water supply outlook

• Ecological protection is understood to be one of the recognized “beneficial uses” of water in the State.
• Therefore, the Water Shortage Task Force recommends that the 80-Percent Flow Duration (Q80) stream discharge for the months of May through October be used as a trigger to initiate a local action process to protect aquatic and riparian habitat by monitoring minimum streamflow in surface waters during a shortage.

• First Priority is for domestic purposes described in IC 14-25-1-3.
• Second Priority is for the use of health and safety
• Third Priority is for power production with contingency planning provisions.
• Fourth Priority is for industry and agriculture with contingency planning provisions.
• Fifth Priority is for power production, industry and agriculture without contingency planning provisions.
• Sixth Priority is for any other purpose.

• Encourage the Legislature to establish a sustainable Water Planning Task Forceto coordinate regional water supply and demand planning, and data collection efforts.
• Improve regional water conservation, allocation and management throughout Indiana.
• Protect public health and safety during water shortages.

• Implement policies and programs that encourage efficient use, including conservation of water in wet, normal, and dry years, and allocation during water shortage.
• Study the supply and demand by establishing water use databanks that are standardized and shared through metering and reporting requirements.
• Promote installation of accurate water metering devices at all withdrawal and/or end use points.

July 17, 2012

• To: Owners/Operators of Significant Water Withdrawal Facilities
• Applicable to all counties in Indiana
• Issued by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Department of Homeland Security
• Requested a voluntary reduction of current water use of 10-15%

• Center-pivot sprinklers are commonly used in the High Plains.
• Large quantities of groundwater pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer allows these semiarid western lands to yield abundant harvests.

• Water is being extracted 100 times the natural replacement rate (recharge).
• Water level in the aquifer dropping at the rate of five feet per year.

Eight states draw water from the aquifer: Texas, New Mexico, South Dakota, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.

• A report released by the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District indicates area agriculture producers are drawing water from the Ogallala Aquifer at unsustainable rates.
• The report also predicts that it will dry up within the next 30 years.
• Ag producers have a different view and said the report has been manipulated to take control of the resource, not to conserve it.
• Cotton producers said they feel like the Conservation District is using its current report to justify regulations to restrict groundwater and aquifer usage.