Invisible Pollution: The Impact of Pharmaceuticals in the Water Supply

AAOHN Journal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (12) ◽  
pp. 533-533
Keyword(s):  
Membranes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Latifah Abdul Ghani ◽  
Nora’aini Ali ◽  
Ilyanni Syazira Nazaran ◽  
Marlia M. Hanafiah

Seawater desalination is an alternative technology to provide safe drinking water and to solve water issues in an area having low water quality and limited drinking water supply. Currently, reverse osmosis (RO) is commonly used in the desalination technology and experiencing significant growth. The aim of this study was to analyze the environmental impacts of the seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant installed in Kampung Pantai Senok, Kelantan, as this plant was the first installed in Malaysia. The software SimaPro 8.5 together with the ReCiPe 2016 database were used as tools to evaluate the life cycle assessment (LCA) of the SWRO plant. The results showed that the impact of global warming (3.90 kg CO2 eq/year) was the highest, followed by terrestrial ecotoxicity (1.62 kg 1,4-DCB/year) and fossil resource scarcity (1.29 kg oil eq/year). The impact of global warming was caused by the natural gas used to generate the electricity, mainly during the RO process. Reducing the environmental impact can be effectively achieved by decreasing the electricity usage for the seawater desalination process. As a suggestion, electricity generation can be overcome by using a high-flux membrane with other suitable renewable energy for the plant such as solar and wind energy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 561-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Suginaka ◽  
Ken Okamoto ◽  
Yohei Hirano ◽  
Yuichi Fukumoto ◽  
Miki Morikawa ◽  
...  

AbstractIntroductionThe catastrophic Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 created a crisis in a university-affiliated hospital by disrupting the water supply for 10 days. In response, this study was conducted to analyze water use and prioritize water consumption in each department of the hospital by applying a business impact analysis (BIA). Identifying the minimum amount of water necessary for continuing operations during a disaster was an additional goal.ProblemWater is essential for many hospital operations and disaster-ready policies must be in place for the safety and continued care of patients.MethodsA team of doctors, nurses, and office workers in the hospital devised a BIA questionnaire to examine all operations using water. The questionnaire included department name, operation name, suggested substitutes for water, and the estimated daily amount of water consumption. Operations were placed in one of three ranks (S, A, or B) depending on the impact on patients and the need for operational continuity. Recovery time objective (RTO), which is equivalent to the maximum tolerable period of disruption, was determined. Furthermore, the actual use of water and the efficiency of substitute methods, practiced during the water-disrupted periods, were verified in each operation.ResultsThere were 24 activities using water in eight departments, and the estimated water consumption in the hospital was 326 (SD = 17) m3per day: 64 (SD = 3) m3for S (20%), 167 (SD = 8) m3for A (51%), and 95 (SD = 5) m3for B operations (29%). During the disruption, the hospital had about 520 m3of available water. When the RTO was set to four days, the amount of water available would have been 130 m3per day. During the crisis, 81% of the substitute methods were used for the S and A operations.ConclusionThis is the first study to identify and prioritize hospital operations necessary for the efficient continuation of medical treatment during suspension of the water supply by applying a BIA. Understanding the priority of operations and the minimum daily water requirement for each operation is important for a hospital in the event of an unexpected adverse situation, such as a major disaster.SuginakaH,OkamotoK,HiranoY,FukumotoY,MorikawaM,OodeY,SumiY,InoueY,MatsudaS,TanakaH.Hospital disaster response using business impact analysis.Prehosp Disaster Med.2014;29(5):1-8.


Water Policy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiqing Han ◽  
Yuxiang Dong

Water supply is an important freshwater ecosystem service provided by ecosystems. Water shortages resulting from spatio-temporal heterogeneity of climate condition or human activities present serious problems in the Guizhou Province of southwest China. This study aimed to analyze the spatio-temporal changes of water supply service using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model, explore how climate and land-use changes impact water supply provision, and discuss the impact of parameters associated with climate and land-use in the InVEST model on water supply in the region. We used data and the model to forecast trends for the year 2030 and found that water supply has been declining in the region at the watershed scale since 1990. Climate and land-use change played important roles in affecting the water supply. Water supply was overwhelmingly driven by the reference evapotranspiration and annual average precipitation, while the plant evapotranspiration coefficients for each land-use type had a relatively small effect. The method for sensitivity analysis developed in this study allowed exploration of the relative importance of parameters in the InVEST water yield model. The Grain-for-Green project, afforestation, and urban expansion control should be accelerated in this region to protect the water supply.


2021 ◽  
pp. 14-20
Author(s):  
M. I. LOSKIN ◽  

The current state of agricultural land reclamation in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), its role in agricultural production of the republic, taking into account the impact of climate change on irrigation facilities, is considered. It has been established that at present in the sphere of public administration in the field of land reclamation in the republic there are estuary irrigation systems, drainage systems and agricultural water supply facilities, as well as group water pipelines for water supply of rural settlements and irrigation of agricultural land.


Author(s):  
Tullia Bonomi ◽  
Letizia Fumagalli ◽  
Valeria Benastini ◽  
Marco Rotiroti ◽  
Pietro Capodaglio ◽  
...  

The study is developed through scientific cooperation between the University of Milano-Bicocca and the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA) of the Valle d’Aosta Region. Its aim is to produce a decision-support tool to help the Public Administration’manage groundwater and public water supply. The study area is the plain of Aosta, between the cities of Aymavilles and Brissogne; in this area groundwater represents the main source of public water supply. The valley is oriented east-west, along the Baltea for a length of 13.1 km and a width of 4.6 km. The textural and hydrogeological properties of the deposits are strictly connected to glacial deposition and to the subsequent sedimentary processes which took place in glacial, lacustrine and fluvial systems. The study is based on available well information in the Aosta plain - including water wells (133) and piezometers (121) - which have been coded and stored in the well database TANGRAM,. The database facilitates interpretation of the well data, and it allows three-dimensional mapping of subsurface hydrogeological characteristics through database codification and ordinary kriging interpolation. The study is designed to achieve two objectives. The first is to provide the Aosta Public Authorities with a well database in order to simplify groundwater management. The second is to provide Public Authorities with a groundwater flow model of the local aquifer. The model integrates surface and subsurface flows in order to fully account for all important stresses, both natural and anthropogenic, on the groundwater system. It provides a tool for testing hypotheses (such as the impact of new wells) and thereby allows science-based management of the aquifer resource.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Yohei YAMAGUCHI ◽  
Kento TAMURA ◽  
Naoki YOSHIKAWA ◽  
Koji AMANO ◽  
Seiji HASHIMOTO

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
Enrique Campbell ◽  
Amilkar Illaya-Ayza ◽  
Joaquín Izquierdo ◽  
Rafael Pérez-García ◽  
Idel Montalvo

Water Supply Network (WSN) sectorization is a broadly known technique aimed at enhancing water supply management. In general, existing methodologies for sectorization of WSNs are limited to assessment of the impact of its implementation over reduction of background leakage, underestimating increased capacity to detect new leakage events and undermining appropriate investment substantiation. In this work, we raise this issue and put in place a methodology to optimize sectors' design. To this end, we carry out a novel combination of the Short Run Economic Leakage Level concept (SRELL- corresponding to leakage level that can occur in a WSN in a certain period of time and whose reparation would be more costly than the benefits that can be obtained). With a non-deterministic optimization method based on Genetic Algorithms (GAs) in combination with Monte Carlo simulation. As an example of application, methodology is implemented over a 246 km pipe-long WSN, reporting 72 397 $/year as net profit.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Koh Liew See ◽  
Nayan Nasir ◽  
Saleh Yazid ◽  
Hashim Mohmadisa ◽  
Mahat Hanifah ◽  
...  

Clean water supply is a major problem among flood victims during flood events. This article aims to determine the sites of well water sources that can be utilised during floods in the District of Kuala Krai, Kelantan. Field methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were applied in the process of selecting flood victim evacuation centres and wells. The data used were spatial data obtained primarily, namely the well data, evacuation centre data and flood area data. The well and evacuation centre data were obtained by field methods conducted to determine the position of wells using global positioning system tools, and the same for the location of the evacuation centres. Information related to evacuation centres was obtained secondarily from multiple agencies and gathered into GIS as an evacuation centre attribute. The flood area data was also obtained via secondary data and was digitised using the ArcGIS software. The data processing was divided into two stages, namely the first stage of determining the flood victim evacuation centres to be used in this research in a structural manner based on two main criteria which were the extent to which an evacuation centre was affected by the flood and the highest capacity of victims for each district with the greatest impact to the flood affected population. The second stage was to determine the location of wells based on three criteria, namely i) not affected by flood, ii) the closest distance to the selected flood victim evacuation centre and iii) located at different locations. Among the main GIS analyses used were locational analysis, overlay analysis, and proximity analysis. The results showed that four (4) flood evacuation centres had been chosen and matched the criteria set, namely SMK Sultan Yahya Petra 2, SMK Manek Urai Lama, SMK Laloh and SK Kuala Gris. While six (6) wells had been selected as water sources that could be consumed by the flood victims at 4 evacuation centres in helping to provide clean water supply, namely Kg. Keroh 16 (T1), Kg. Batu Mengkebang 10 (T2), Lepan Meranti (T3), Kg. Budi (T4), Kg. Jelawang Tengah 2 (T5) and Kg. Durian Hijau 1 (T6). With the presence of the well water sources that can be used during flood events, clean water supply can be distributed to flood victims at the evacuation centres. Indirectly, this research can reduce the impact of floods in the future, especially in terms of clean water supply even during the hit of a major flood.


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