Water Management and Irrigation Quiz

Water Resources Management 1

• Course offered by KU LEUVEN and Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Instructor: Prof. Dr. ir. Anne Gobin
• Course covers water resources management, case study analysis, and major water challenges.
• Course objectives include overview of global water challenges, comparing country/region challenges with global ones, connecting global issues to country specific issues.

Outline

• Major Challenges for Water Resources Management
• Introduction to case study analysis in group
• Individual case study (google form)

Objectives

• Overview of water challenges at a global scale, with a future perspective
• Comparing country/region challenges with global challenges and challenges of fellow students
• Linking global water challenges to a major water challenge in the user's country/region (google form exercise)

SDGs and Water

• Strong relation: health, sanitation, life, climate, sustainable cities, poverty, hunger, food production, growth, innovation, education.
• Medium relation: responsible consumption and production, sustainable cities and communities.

Major Challenges Related to Water Security

• Water-related disasters (droughts, flooding)
• Water and sanitation (drinking water, water pollution, human health)
• Water for energy (hydro-electricity)
• Water for ecosystems (quality, quantity)
• Water for food production
• Water-related migration and conflicts

Water Related Disasters: Droughts + Floods

• Global deaths from disasters over a century: annual death tolls have decreased significantly in the 20th century
• Global reported natural disasters by type (1970-2019): significant increase in reported natural disasters
• Droughts: annual people affected by drought (1996-2015): high numbers in Ethiopia, India, and China
• Types of drought: meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, ecological
• Ecological drought leads to desertification

Water Related Disasters: Floods

• Probability of occurrence and likelihood of changes in net precipitation (2010-2050): most dry areas will become drier, wet areas wetter
• Severity of occurrence in different regions (China 2021, Europe 2021, Brazil 2021, Morocco 2024, Central Europe 2024)
• Specific examples of devastating floods in various countries and regions in 2021.
• Heavy rains causing floods: El Niño (Peru)
• Sea floods (inundation from the sea): historic flooding (1953) across several countries and regions

Water Related Disasters: Floods - Risk

• Risk equation: probability of occurrence (likelihood) x severity of occurrence
• Increase in potential risk: climate change (more extreme rainfall), increase in the surface area of deltas, coastal areas, and river systems, population expansion in risky areas, uneven distribution of people at risk
• Unequal distribution of people at risk (200 million in Northern latitudes and 1450 million in Southern latitudes)
• Global flooding events (1996-2015): highlights distribution globally

Water and Sanitation: Disasters/Diseases

• Average annual impact from disasters, diseases and conflict: flooding and droughts affect many people, lack of sanitation is a major killer
• People affected, people killed (from diarrhea and cholera), economic damage globally

Urbanisation, Water and Sanitation

• Mega cities increasing, slums without access to sanitation/drinking water
• Population density (2010/2050): shows growing urban areas as areas of high water demand/need
• Water demand from Kinshasa, Mumbai

Water and Sanitation: Access to Sanitation & Drinking Water

• Globally 4.5 billion people have access to toilets
• Good progress since 1990: 2.1 Billion more people gained access
• Globally 6 billion have access to mobile phones
• Safe containment and discharge of wastewater: importance for human and ecosystem safety, with unequal access between city centers and slums

Water and Sanitation: Water Pollution

• Discharge of wastewater into surface water: resulting algal blooms, deoxygenation, and aquatic ecosystem loss
• Number of lakes with harmful algal blooms will increase by 20% by 2050
• 21 million people, including children, live within 5km from lakes with high turbidity (water cloudiness)

Water and Sanitation: Pollution, Wastewater

• Discharge of chemicals, plastic, and other waste into surface water, causing pollution
• Polluted water from the textile industry (lead, cadmium, chromium): impacting nearly 140 million people
• Floating rubbish in rivers: worsened since the 1990s, damaging water quality in Latin America, Africa and Asia
• Plastic inputs to oceans: pathway of primary plastic production, global plastic waste, coastal waste, and mismanaged waste: creating a large input to the world's oceans (8 million t per year)

Water and Sanitation: Drinking Water and Wastewater Treatment

• Drinking water – highest priority
• Wastewater treatment – increasing priority
• Creating a win-win by re-use: for drinking water - high standards of hygiene, for agriculture – welcome of nutrients but not bacterial contamination.
• Primary, secondary, and tertiary water treatment: steps in removing nutrients and contamination for safe drinking water

Water and Sanitation: Wastewater Treatment and Re-use

• Wastewater treatment and reuse:
• Pumping water to treat using various techniques: ultra filtration, reverse osmosis
• After treatment and use, flows back to wastewater treatment plant.

Water for Energy: Hydropower

• Hydropower use in 2020: 4.4 PWh per year
• Projected increase in 2050: 6.2 PetaWh (80% increase)
• Displacement of people, disturbed sediment and flow dynamics in rivers, sediment trapping, ecological flow for aquatic life, fish migration, economic analysis (optimistic)

Water for Energy: Dam Construction

• Current dams, planned new dams (3,700): planned hydropower increase is especially large in the Amazon, Congo, Yangtze and Himalayan river Basins.
• Displaced people, tensions and conflicts linked to dams
• Types of dam, tunnelling and power-house constructions.

Water for (Aquatic) Ecosystems: Quantity and Quality

• Biodiversity dependent on water quantity and quality
• Need for ecological flows and mitigation of eutrophication problems in rivers and aquifers
• Higher temperatures lead to more algal blooms
• Wetlands decline globally, being drained for agriculture

Water for Ecosystems: Quantity and Quality

• Ecosystem valuation: benefits exceeding costs of water-related investments. Global GDP and Economic Value of Ecosystem Service Costs
• Ecosystems experience decline and loss of services from land use change
• Declining wetlands, declining Coastal Mangroves: loss over the past 1996 years to 2021

Soil Erosion, Water for Ecosystems

• Soil erosion carries away large amounts of soil, reducing ability to regulate water, carbon and nutrients
• Impacts of transporation of nitrogen and phosphorus off land: major effects on water quality

Water for Ecosystems: Quantity and Quality

• Freshwater ecosystem protection is essential
• Nature-based solutions for climate change/extreme weather, wastewater treatment, and rejuvenating ecosystems
• Inter-sector/border coordination and monitoring/data key

Water and Food Production: Competition

• Increasing competition for water
• Water stress negatively impacts agricultural and economic development
• Water stress regions 2010-2050
• Levels of water stress globally.

Water for Food Production

• Gap in crop yields in irrigated agriculture, by 2050
• Improved water management increasing crop yields in irrigated agriculture
• Gap in crop yields for irrigation globally by 2050

Water for Food Production - Irrigation

• Water use for irrigation globally: 70%
• Need to improve crop yields; improving crops per drop, methods from gravity to sprinkler/ drip
• Irrigation decline compared with population growth in California
• Potential water savings in California: from deficit irrigation, scheduling, efficient technology

Water for Food Production: Ground Water Stress Index

• Groundwater stress index: highlights regions under high/low/extreme stress for groundwater use
• Shows regions with high water demands dependent on groundwater
• Shows distribution of wheat, maize, rice, cotton, and other crops used in areas with high water demand

Water for Food Production: Evapotranspiration

• Evapotranspiration: consumptive use of water
• 70% of fresh water used globally for irrigation, unevenly distributed (higher in semi-arid areas)
• Sustainable salt balance by leaching
• Catchment management

Water for Energy Crop Production

• Food and feed for harvesting,
• Grass and fodder for grazing, Energy crops, and Wood production for industrial use.
• Increased energy crop production: causes significant land/water competition

Migration and Conflicts linked to water

• Water stress encourages migration - people move from drylands
• Drought, Flooding, Sea level rise causes migration, displacement patterns globally
• Saltwater intrusion: results from exploited aquifer in 20% of the world: causes soil salinisation
• 630 million people potentially at risk from rising sea levels
• Water related conflicts globally

Course Structure

• Part 1: Major challenges in water resource management
• Part 2: Introduction to case study analysis in groups (3-4 students)
• Part 3: Individual case study (Google Form)
• Regional examples covering water resources, challenges from past years
• Student groups select a case study for implementation and write a presentation for grading
• Specific Do's and Don'ts in writing the presentation and case study

Case Study Selection

• Select a region of interest and a country
• Select a major water resource challenge and its management
• Formulate key problems and challenges
• Apply the DPSIR framework to the case study
• Follow a scientific writing and reporting style

Evaluation Criteria

• Thematic aspects/analysis of hydro-social system
• Identification of key problems/challenges
• Stakeholder analysis
• Current response to the system
• Results/discussions/recommendations, DPSIR framework application
• Reflection on response R, discussion of DPSI & R
• Conclusions and recommendations, quality of report
• Layout, structure, and size (maximum 10 pages)
• Photo use optional

Additional Points

• Tools for report writing (e.g., Zotero, Mendeley, Endnote) are mentioned
• Data for reports, and course activities given on Google Forms.

Test your knowledge on water management, irrigation methods, and the impact of climate change on water security. This quiz covers essential concepts related to irrigation efficiency, agricultural productivity, and the challenges posed by water-related disasters and conflicts. Dive into the details of how water influences our environment and society.