Transformation Project Essay

By Anonymous -
Conley Ball
Ms. Alldredge
English 8
June 7, 2017

Water Harvesting:
A Solution To The Drought
In a large city like Los Angeles, up to 10 billion gallons of water can be drained into the ocean during an average rainstorm. This water is not useful, because it is mixed with trash, but what if water was collected before it even got into the gutter? Rainwater harvesting is a good way for everybody to collect their own water. Not only can you collect water from your roof, but there are also ways to collect water from fog and air. There are two major ways to gather water from the air. The first way is Radiative. It collects mist, dew, and fog by radiating the heat into the night sky; this is called fog catching. The second way is Active. It pulls air from outside, and then uses refrigeration to cool it, turning it to liquid; this is called dehumidification (Wikipedia Air Wells). Southern California is an area that often experiences severe droughts. A good way to conserve water during the drought is to collect your own water.
The drought in Southern California is still severe in Santa Barbara County. Southern California experiences droughts periodically and has done so for hundreds of years. These droughts are usually tied to El Niño (Wikipedia). A good example is the drought we are currently experiencing, which peaked around El Niño. Our primary source of water is Lake Cachuma; during the drought we pull out more water from the lake than the amount the lake naturally collects. Lake Cachuma has to be filled with pipes from the San Francisco Bay. Everybody who uses water supplied by their city is affected by this, and water becomes very expensive. This is a naturally occurring problem, but is not apparent until there are large populations present to upset the balance. This drought, however, means more than just more expensive water.
A drought also hurts the environment around it. Droughts mean less irrigation water, which can easily lead to food shortages. Droughts can also lead to an increase of wildfires, animal habitat damage, and dust storms (Wikipedia). We have seen many signs of the drought here in Santa Barbara as well. The Sherpa Fire is a good example. In some areas a drought can lead to a decrease in energy production because decreased rain means decreased water flow resulting in less electricity from hydroelectric dams.
There have been many attempts to stop the drought, from desalination to making artificial rain. One attempt to conserve water during the drought is desalination. Desalination takes water from the ocean, and takes out salt and other pollutants to create clean water. Unfortunately, desalination, while a good idea, is usually too expensive for cities to invest in it. Another attempt to stop the drought is weather control. A few companies have attempted to place particles in clouds to encourage the to rain. Unfortunately, this idea has not actually been proven to work, is incredibly expensive, and may use dangerous chemicals.
Water harvesting may be a good solution. Rainwater harvesting takes the water from your roof, and puts it into a rain barrel. In Santa Barbara, the average building could collect 8,116 gallons of water a year. If all of the buildings in Santa Barbara collected rainwater, they would collect 36 million gallons in one year, which is 12% of Santa Barbara’s water use. This would negate the need for groundwater collecting in Santa Barbara. An alternate solution could be dehumidification. Dehumidifiers take water out of the air. One problem with this is that they need a lot of electricity. A dehumidifier connected to a solar panel would use the drought against itself; it would use sunny days to create electricity, which would result in water from the air. A normal dehumidifier can collect 15 gallons of water per day.
Rainwater collection and dehumidification would reduce the need for water to be collected from the rest of the environment, making the effects of the drought less severe. Large-scale rainwater collection would be incredibly helpful to both cities and the people in them.






WORKS CITED:






"Green Infrastructure." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 14 Sept. 2016. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://www.epa.gov/region8/green-infrastructure>.

"Catchment Area." Rainwater Harvesting. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <http://rainwaterharvesting.tamu.edu/catchment-area/>.

"WATER HARVESTING." Welcome to WaterWise Web Site - Water Harvest. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://cals.arizona.edu/cochise/waterwise/waterharvest.html>.

"Air Well (condenser)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 02 May 2017. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_(condenser)#Types>.

Stinson, Liz. "A Bamboo Tower That Produces Water From Air." Wired. Conde Nast, 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://www.wired.com/2015/01/architecture-and-vision-warkawater/>.

"Air Well (condenser)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 02 May 2017. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_(condenser)#Types>.

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