Inquiry 7
Intro
Water is one of the most important things for the human body and pretty much every living thing. In this inquiry we will discuss the effects of a drought and how to mitigate them. Droughts are dangerous periods of time with close to no water that can be really tough to get through. We found that the best way to lower the effects is to use a process called deep water desalination combined with a warning system.
What causes a drought
A drought is caused by drier conditions and you get drier conditions when there is no precipitation. So a drought is mainly caused by a lack of precipitation. This can mean there is no water going down the rivers. And eventually you use too much water and you aren't getting enough if you go into a drought. If it is really hot and dry air can evaporate water making the drought occur faster. If a place is dry and doesn't have any rain it doesn't mean that they are in a drought. It has to be far below average because it might just be a naturally dry place.
What are the effects of droughts
A drought can come up very fast. In some places it can only take 2 weeks before affecting farmers and their crops. Before long you will not be able to wash your car or even use hoses. Another effect is a heat stroke. A heat stroke can mean death or weakened immune systems giving viruses and other diseases a chance to enter the victim's body.
One of the many effects of a drought is you will have a lack of water. This means you can’t do all the things you want to. For example you can't water your land or use Hoses because they use too much water resulting in the ground forming cracks.
Droughts can lead to hunger because if all the farms have dry land and the crops are not growing then there are none in the supermarket.
Another reason why droughts are so bad is because they lead to an increase in
chance for a wildfire. Since all the trees are dried up, a wildfire could get out of control very quickly.
We are not the only creatures that are affected by droughts. Wildlife is heavily affected by droughts as well. Grass and plants will have shriveled containing hardly any nutrients for animals.
In some of the worst cases of droughts it can even lead to war due to people needing water and food. If you are in a drought, you have less water and you might have very little food. People might go off to get water and this leads to war to get fresh water and supplies.
Some of our power comes from Hydro Stations. These stations use water from rivers which could lessen in flow due to hardly any participation.
Different types of droughts
There are different types of droughts. Some affect different parts of society.
For example a Hydrological Drought is when it affects water supply like streams, rivers, and lake levels. Rivers have dried out due to droughts affecting wildlife.These affects affect us as well. Most water in water shy regions is groundwater since it is not affected by sunlight or evaporation. It is a good source of water but will be affected by a Hydrological Drought.
Agricultural Drought is the impact it has on the agriculture parts like farmers. It affects them because it dries up the soil due to the hot temperatures making it tough for plants to grow.
Meteorological Drought is when rainfall is below average. It is based on the amount of dryness/rainfall for a period of time.
How do we measure when a drought going to happen
There is a scale that the amount of precipitation is measured on. A mild drought is -1 to -1.99 on the scale. A severe drought is -3 to -3.99. So the lower the minuses the worse the drought.
SPI means Standardised Precipitation Index
Ways to mitigate the effects of droughts
Agricultural drought solution
How to minimize the effects of an Agricultural drought on your land.
Cover land. This is when you cover your land so that the soil doesn't dry up most people when there is a drought they use barley because it does not use that much water so it is perfect to use because it covers the soil from drying up and it does not use that much water from the soil.
Warning sistems
An early warning system will help prepare people for an incoming drought.
These systems record local participation and climate. They gather the data and from there people can analyze the situation and if there is a possible drought incoming.
Deep Sea Water Desalination
Deep sea water Desalination is a process where salt gets parted from Seawater, creating fresh drinking water. There are two ways to do this process. One of them is heating the water up until it evaporates. This is occurring naturally as the sun evaporated the ocean water. The second way is to press the water through a filter like sponge which forces the water to part with the salt. A negative of this method is that it produces Brine as a by product which is water with height amounts of salt. The brine can be harmful to marine life if it is produced in high quantities.
What has happened recently
What should we do to lower the effects of a drought?
We found that the best way to lower the effects is to use a process called deep water desalination combined with restricting water. The Deep sea Water desalination will help get sustainable water from the sea that is filtered and the water restrictions will help conserve water as the drought hits. But it would cost a lot of money to make and would use a lot of power to use. As we talked about before the power might go out if you run on Hydro Stations.
Conclusion
In Conclusion we found that the best way to mitigate the effects of a drought is to use deep water desalination to ensure that we have a sustainable source of water that lasts for everyone and have a warning system in place before the drought hits.
Bibliography
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do6cC05LuDscrete.
https://knowledge.unccd.int/drought-toolbox
https://www.aquasana.com/info/different-types-of-drought-pd.html
https://niwa.co.nz/climate/information-and-resources/drought-monitor
https://www-nzgeo-com.ezproxy.kotui.ac.nz/stories/otherwise-fine-2/
https://inquiry.tbc.school.nz/inquiries/7-natural-hazards
https://www.c2es.org/content/drought-and-climate-change/
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/multimedia/infographics/drought_public_health.html
https://www.liveabout.com/effects-of-drought-1203684
https://www.ctc-n.org/technologies/early-warning-systems-droughts