Underground Water

Report written for the Minister of Climate Change and

Water, Senator Hon Penny Wong.

Author: Xiong Zhi

Position: 1st year student
Submission date: 23/Sep/2009

Abstract
With the increasing amount of world population and factories, there is a conflict
between the demand of underground water resource and underground water
contamination. In the first part of this report, importance of groundwater has been
given. After that, this report detail that the way of groundwater been polluted and
effect of groundwater contamination. In the third part of body text shows that the
responsibilities of government and citizens in protecting groundwater. In the end of
this report, some recommendations will be provided to the senator Hon Penny Wong,
the Minister of Climate Change and Water. These recommendations are:
 Education and public information for human to understand the importance of
underground water and how to protect it.
 Government should monitor the use of underground water in Agriculture,
Industrial and Domestic. Making some policies depends on the particularly
situation.
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 Using technology in protecting groundwater, like improve the irrigation system to
avoid waste of groundwater in Agricultural activities.
 Using renew water in some area instead of groundwater.

All the information in this report comes from scholarly journals, electronic book and
websites.

Contents
1.0 Introduction………………………………………………….4

2.0 Introduction to underground water

2.1 Definition of ground water……………………………4
2.2 Structure of Earth water………………………………4
2.3 Use of Underground Water…………………………….5
2.4 Importance of groundwater……………………………5
2.5 How to get groundwater………………………………5
2.6 Relationship between groundwater and surface water..6

3.0 Underground water contamination

3.1 Sources of groundwater pollution………………………7
3.2 Effect of Groundwater Contamination…………………7

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 3.3 Protect Groundwater from the source of

contamination………………………………………….8
4.0 Responsibilities for protecting underground water

…………………………………………………8
5.0 Conclusion…………………………………………….10

6.0 Recommendation………………………………………10
7.0 References………………………………………………10

1.0 Introduction
This report attempts to show the idea of how important underground water is and the
way it been polluted. This report is written for the senator Hon Penny Wong, the
Minister of Climate Change and Water. With the rapidly increasing of world’s
population and factories. The demand of underground water resource and
underground water contamination, the conflict becomes more and more outstanding.
The scope of this report will detail the use of underground water. Some
recommendations are provided after details about the Introduction to Underground
Water and Underground water contamination. It will be helpful to using underground
water in a better way to reduce the conflict between demand of underground water
and underground water contamination.

Scholarly journals, electronic-book and Websites are the main method to get all the
information below.

This report is divided into three sections. First section introduces the importance of
underground water and the use of underground water around human’s daily life.
Second section talks about the sources of underground water contamination and how
to protect underground water from many particular polluted cases. Lastly, a list of
recommendations has been provided to improve the use of underground water.

2.0 Introduction to Underground Water

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2.1 Definition: Groundwater is the water under earth surface, exist in the gap of
rocks (Nelson 2009).

2.2 Structure of Earth’s water:

Groundwater is the main resource of water use in the world. There are 99 percent
water in the earth which cannot be used by humans, only 1 percent of earth water can
be used by humans. In the 1 percent, groundwater takes 99 percent of it for humans’
use water in the earth (USGS 2009). Take Western Australia water resources as an
example, every year, Western Australia uses 1796 gigalitres water in average. In the
1796 gigalitre water use, 1138 gigalitres come from underground water and 658
gigalitres come from surface water. Therefore groundwater is very important for
human’s water use, a protection of groundwater is essential (Australian National
Resource Atlas 2009)

2.3 Importance of groundwater:

Underground water is an important resource for human’s water use. Groundwater is
the most used natural resource in the world; approximately 2000 million people use
underground water. Groundwater has been widely used in Agricultural, Industrial and
Domestic area (International Union of Geological Sciences 2009).With the amount of
world population and factories increasing, the way human use land has changed. Once
underground water is polluted, it will be very hard and take a very long time to clean
it up (International Union of Geological Sciences 2009).Therefore to ensure 2000
million people’s water use, an importance of underground water for human should be
notice for everyone.
To address the important of groundwater internationally is a major concern that the
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evidence of groundwater is wasting in domestic and commercial use ( mining,
construction, factories and agriculture) is high in volume waste and government didn’t
train people how to use groundwater properly.

2.4 How to get groundwater:

To get groundwater is an important procedure during the groundwater use. Because in
most case, groundwater is lying under earth surface, so for getting groundwater from
under land surface, a well is essential to put the water up to the surface (Cushing and
sons 2009). But a problem may be happened by using a well. Wells may be a pathway
for contaminants get into groundwater. So a well water test and watertight well cover
are needed to avoid contaminants get into groundwater (Raymond 2009).
Mining, Agriculture and groundwater usage, government should regulate so that the
contaminants and toxic should minimize contaminants get into groundwater.
Should have a qualification of training plus equipment to get groundwater for usage
of both domestic and commercial.

2.5 Groundwater Replenishment:

Groundwater replenish from snowmelt and rainfall
(http://www.geographypages.co.uk/gwater.htm). In some countries like Australia,
groundwater replenish only from rainfall (Strategen, 2004). The replenishment of
groundwater is a water cycle, water on the ocean, lake and steam evaporate to the sky,
become cloud, when the water storage in the cloud fall on the earth surface, it will
infiltrate through soil, come to the water table and discharge back to the ocean, lake
and stream again.
(http://ponce.sdsu.edu/groundwater_sustainable_yield.html)

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2.6 Relationship between groundwater and surface water:
“Groundwater differs from surface water because of the contrasting physical and
chemical environment in which it occurs, although the water itself is essentially part
of the same overall cycle.” Firstly, Surface water moves in the stream, whereas
underground water flows in the aquifers. So, surface water moves faster than
groundwater. Secondly, the recycle is different. For surface water, when the rain drop
on the surface lake, the surface water will evaporate to the atmosphere in couple days,
when it drop again on the soil, it will become to groundwater; For underground
water,. when the rain falls on permeable ground comes to the water table, it becomes
to ground water. After a long time, when underground water discharge into surface
like river, lake. The groundwater will become to surface water again.(Albert
Tuinhof,et al. 2002).
Land clearance have been an major issue for the groundwater and surface water
protection, from early British colonies era and after second war the population has
increase( housing, road, commercial building.), due to a bad town planning, this has
damaged the ground and river system. Because of the land clearance, it have effect the
eco-system of a water from the river to a rain.

3.0 Underground water contamination.

3.1Sources of groundwater pollution:
The sources of Groundwater pollution can be divided into four sectors:
1) Natural: groundwater contains some inclusions during the process of groundwater
recycle, during the recycle, the quality of groundwater can be changed by some
chemical compounds like Ca, Mg, As and B.
2) Agricultural: Agricultural waste may pollute groundwater during the process of
farm work, like washing the pesticide sprayers. Also in the store place of chemical
which is outdoor, may carried by rain and wind and take to the place which has
groundwater.
3) Industrial: During industrial operations, cool water is very important for
processing and cleaning purpose. When the used water from industrial operation
comes back to the river or just store in septic tanks may polluted groundwater. For
instance, the leak of fuels and mining tail. They can pollute underground water in
many ways.
4) Residential: Human daily activities can make many kind of pollution, like
throwing rubbish in public place, because the public place cannot afford so much
rubbish, so the rubbish will go to landfill. Groundwater will be polluted by land
filling. More than that, if the drainage near the groundwater, it is very easy to
pollute underground water.

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3.2 Effect of Groundwater Contamination
One effect of groundwater pollution is polluted water can be a threat of human health.
Normally, groundwater is cleaner than surface water, because groundwater is under
earth surface, getting protected from the rock and soil. But with the amount of world
population and factories increasing, the way human use land has changed. Once
underground water is polluted, it will be very hard and take a very long time to clean
it up (International Union of Geological Sciences 2009). Take waterborne illness as an
example, people can get waterborne illness in these four ways: Firstly, drinking
contaminated water; Secondly, contact with water, like showering, doing water
sports（swimming）；Thirdly，breathing vapor form of contamination water;
Lastly, not enough water supply, which people cannot get enough water for showering
and washing, so that could make some kind of pestilence. Therefore avoid
groundwater contamination is essential for human’s health, a series of protection can
be use to avoid groundwater contamination.

3.3 Protect Groundwater

There are many ways to protect groundwater from contamination. Things like
wellhead protection plan, code of practice, test the water quality, give education to the
human and planning of land use are all good way to protect underground water. Take
code of practice as an instance, code of practice has an important impact in diffuse
source of pollution. This kind of pollution can be reduced in the beginning of
pollution. More examples on protecting groundwater, land use planning can help
protect both diffuse and point source of pollution, with the evaluation of the weakness
of groundwater which can be polluted from contamination and a risk of side effect.
Therefore many tools can be used in protecting groundwater, all the ways mention
above need cooperation between government and citizen.

4.0 Responsibilities for protecting underground water:

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4.1 Government’s responsibilities:
Government plays an important role on protecting groundwater. In Australia, the
government takes the responsibilities for managing groundwater, and they are trying
to show their leader’s role in changing policy and focusing on the resolution of
solving issues on groundwater. A series of programs is on the way to protect
groundwater, like “National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training”, “Water
Smart Australia”, “Raising National Water Standards”, “Great Artesian Basin
Sustainability Initiative” and “Groundwater Action Plan”. In the program “National
Centre for Groundwater Research and Training”, the Minister for Climate Change and
Water, Senator Penny Wong, and the Minister for Innovation and Research, Senator
Kim Carr have declared that a new sixty million dollars National Center for
Groundwater Research and Training is set in Flinders University. This center plays an
very important role for the issue of water use in the future. Senator Penny Wong said,
“The new National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training will undertake
important work to help us manage our groundwater in a more sustainable way”. The
objective of this center is to train the next generation become to expert of
groundwater.) Therefore, government takes many responsibilities in protecting
groundwater, but the actions of government are too general and it will take a long
period to achieve the goals. So cooperation between government and citizens is
essential for protecting groundwater.
Both government and citizens have their responsibilities in protecting groundwater.

4.2 Citizens’ responsibilities:

Citizens’ responsibilities for protecting groundwater are much more specifically than
government’s. Citizens can do some small things in their daily life to protect
groundwater. Such as, take care of dispose hazardous product. Firstly, don’t pour
hazardous product down the drain. There are some hazardous substances in the
hazardous product. Once hazardous substance enters to the septic system, it will affect
the ability of septic tank system to handle human wastes. Groundwater may be
contaminated by the hazardous substance if it comes to the ground. Secondly, don’t
put hazardous product in the rubbish bin. Landfill cannot handle the hazardous
substance, once water comes through the landfill, it will be polluted and infiltrate
them into the water table. At last, don’t pour hazardous product on the ground.
Hazardous substance can leaking through the soil get into the water table and pollutes
it. Therefore, human need to use and dispose hazardous product properly. Human can
use as less hazardous product as possible, use not hazardous product instead of
hazardous product. In addition, people can help their community to centralize collect
hazardous product to dispose them properly.

5.0 Conclusion
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These research findings show that groundwater takes the biggest percentage of usable
water in the world and most of human daily activities are related to groundwater. So
protecting groundwater is very important for human’s daily life. However,
groundwater is been polluted from different ways. Once people’s drinking water been
polluted is will be very hard and cost a lot of money to clean it, people will get sick
because of drinking polluted water. Therefore, both government and citizens have
responsibilities for protecting underground water. Government plays a leader role in
setting laws and policies to enforce industries and citizens protecting groundwater,
while citizens can do some small things happen in the daily life to contribute for the
protection. In the end, it is recommended that government can use different tools to
improve efficiency use of groundwater and protect it.

6.0 Recommendations
After all the analyst of groundwater issues in this report, some recommendations been
provided for the senator Hon Penny Wong. These recommendations are all possible
way to improve efficiency use of groundwater and protect it.
 Education and public information for human to understand the importance of
underground water and how to protect it.
 Government should monitor the use of underground water in Agriculture,
Industrial and Domestic. Making some policies depends on the particularly
situation.
 Using technology in protecting groundwater, like improve the irrigation system to
avoid waste of groundwater in Agricultural activities.
 Using renew water in some area instead of groundwater.

8.0 Reference
Australian National Resource Atlas. 2009. http://www.anra.gov.au(accessed
September 22, 2009)

Cushing and sons. 2009. http://www.cushingandsons.com(accessed September 22,

2009)

International Union of Geological Sciences. 2009. on of

http://www.yearofplanetearth.org(accessed September 22, 2009)

Lyle S. Raymond, Jr.,n.d. Groundwater Pollution.

http://www.mqtinfo.org (accessed September 23, 2009)
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Nelson S.A http://earthsci.org(accessed September 22, 2009)

Raymond, L. S. 2009.(http://www.mqtinfo.org(accessed September 22, 2009)

USGS (http://ga.water.usgs.gov(accessed September 22, 2009)

Wiley, J. 1984. Health Aspects of Groundwater Pollution

http://md1.csa.com/ (accessed September 22, 2009)

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