Importance of Water Water is one of the most important substances on earth.

All plants and animals must have water to survive. If there was no water there would be no life on earth. Apart from drinking it to survive, people have many other uses for water. These include: Cooking, washing their bodies, washing clothes, washing cooking and eating utensils such as billies, saucepans, crockery and cutlery, keeping houses and communities clean recreation such as swimming pools, keeping plants alive in gardens and parks. Water is also essential for the healthy growth of farm crops and farm stock and is used in the manufacture of many products. Sources of Water Surface water: !urface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland. Under river flow: Throughout the course of the river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a combination of the visible free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub"surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain called the hyporheic #one. Ground water: !ub"surface water, or groundwater, is fresh water located in the pore space of soil and rocks. It is also water that is flowing within a$uifers below the water table. !ometimes it is useful to make a distinction between sub"surface water that is closely associated with surface water and deep sub"surface water in an a$uifer %sometimes called &fossil water&'. Desalination: (esalination is an artificial process by which saline water %generally sea water' is converted to fresh water. The most common desalination processes are distillation and reverse osmosis. (esalination is currently e)pensive compared to most alternative sources of water, and only a very small fraction of total human use is satisfied by desalination. Frozen water: !everal schemes have been proposed to make use of icebergs as a water source, however to date this has only been done for novelty purposes. *lacier runoff is considered to be surface water. Water Management Water management is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the management of water resources. +eople in this field are concerned with ensuring that a supply of clean, potable

water will be available to people who need it, while balancing the needs of industry and the environment. A number of different topics fall under the umbrella of this field, from sewage treatment to wetlands restoration. ,any national governments have departments that are in charge of water resources, and regional governments often have smaller offices of their own to focus on this issue. -ne area of water management involves handling the water in the natural environment. This includes monitoring the amount of water in the environment, seasonal and annual changes in water levels and other characteristics, and keeping an eye on the cleanliness of water supplies. It can also include things like keeping waterways fully navigable, eradicating invasive species from protected environmental areas, and flood control measures which can range from building levies to e)panding wetlands to create a trap for floodwaters. -ther people in this field are more concerned with how humans use water. A large area of it is concerned with the use of water in industry and agriculture. !ince conservation is of growing importance in many regions of the world, many water management specialists see agriculture and industry as prime areas for water recycling and reclamation. ,onitoring water use in these areas also allows governments to be proactive about industrial and agricultural pollution. Water pollution Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies %e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans, groundwater'. Water pollution affects plants and organisms living in these bodies of water and, in almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and populations, but also to the natural biological communities. Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without ade$uate treatment to remove harmful compounds. Causes of water pollution The specific contaminants leading to pollution in water include a wide spectrum of chemicals, pathogens, and physical or sensory changes such as elevated temperature and discoloration. While many of the chemicals and substances that are regulated may be naturally occurring %calcium, sodium, iron, manganese, etc.' the concentration is often the key in determining what is a natural component of water, and what is a contaminant.