Ground and Surface Water Interactions: Lab Report Insights

1 Ground and Surface Water Interactions Laboratory Genaro Garcia III SCI 207: Our Dependence Upon the Environment Professor Nguyen 11/27/2023 Ground and Surface Water Interactions Laboratory

2 Introduction Water is a valuable resource for humans as not only is our source of drinking but is used for everything from food to clothing. Learning about how groundwater and surface water can be affected is important since only about 0.018% of water is available for consumption. The limited supply means we need to take care of resources and make sure it stays clean. Contaminated water would be a terrible thing as waterborne diseases like pneumonia, helicobacter pylori which creates gastric ulcers, and parasites like amoebae (Fewtrell & Bartram, 2001). We would be able to treat the water, but it is best to prevent contamination before it happens. My hypothesis for activity one is that, if you remove the water from the well, then the reservoir will remain the same. The reason is that the reservoir is the back up for the aquifer not the wells. I would predict that it would have the aquifer refill the well but since the aquifer is big enough. It would not use much water from the reservoir mean little to no change. Activity two I predict that, if you pollute the water from the reservoir, then it will pollute the groundwater supply. The reason is that the groundwater supply would be contaminated since the contaminated water from the reservoir would leak into the aquifer. Which ends up being the source for the well water. Even if there is a small about of polluted water, should be enough to contaminate the wells. The last activity my hypothesis is, if you add fertilizer to the new model, then the pond water and drinking reservoir will be polluted. I believe that this would occur since the house is on top of a hill. This would cause the water to run off the hill and go into the water supply. Both the well and the pond are at the bottom of the hill so it would cause the sources to become polluted. Results

3 Data Tables and Observations Activity One In the first well that had the higher soil we will refer to well A. It didn’t have any water in it after I had taken out the water from the well. I would assume that it would be due to the water being absorbed by the higher content of sand. After two minutes it looked like the level went back to the original markings. The reservoir did go down as the well-drained out. For well 2, the one that had a lower starting level. Which I would say since it had less sand it went down to the reservoir faster than well A. It took longer for me to drain our well B compared to well A. The same thing the water got back to same level as marking A. I would say the white straws made it hard to see if I was marking it accurately as I was having trouble seeing the level. The reservoir level ended up being the clay level when both wells were done being tested. Activity two When I injected the pollution, it stayed in the reservoir. I used a 12ml syringe and it did not turn all the water red. But the longer it sits there the slower that it was taking over the water supply. I did add some more water before I added the polluted water. The reservoir had a lot of sand, and the instructions weren’t clear on how much water needed to be there. After waiting for the minute, I can look in the well and see that the water change color a little a very fade pink color looks like the pollution is slowing getting to the well levels. The straws were hard again to see the water levels and color when I ran the test. That is why I need to look at the wells themselves to see if the water was getting contaminated inside the well. Activity three My observations regarding this activity are not as accurate as they would have been. The reason being that when I added water to the pond it all collapsed. This caused it to blend back

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4 with the land. When I added water to the fertilized section the sand ran off the clay base the longer, we let it stand. When we checked the area of the clay, we could see that the water was not affected by the fertilizer. The water was a light brown mix of sand and water. The clay did a good job of blocking the water from penetrating the water. The well on the other side of the model’s water had pinkish to orange looking color. The well being the farthest away it seems to take the longest to be affected. The pond water was fulling polluted with fertilizer, but since the pond collapsed at me, I am not sure if the is because of run off or error on the build. Graphs and Photographs

5 Activity one Well A was the area the had the higher sand level. point C and A on the straw were the same level. Point B was lower about a cm from the bottom of the straw. Well B was the area that had the lower sand level. point C and A on the straw were at the same level. Point B did not record any water in the straw at all. Activity two

6 Used well A for activity 2 the level was the same for before and after the water was contaminated. Activity Three

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7 This is what the model looked like once the pond collapsed and is what I used to get my results for the activity.

8 This is a water sample of the area that had clay around the well. I was not able to draw a 10ml sample, but it is brown color water. This would be due to the mixture of sand and water.

9 This is a sample of water for the well on the opposite side of the clay well. The water is a light orange pinks color.

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10 This sample comes from the pond water after the pond collapsed. It is a light red color. Analysis Activity one hypothesis is, if you remove the water from the well, then the reservoir will remain the same. When looking at the straw test it does not answer the hypothesis since the water level did come back to the well. We are not able to see if the water level is returning due to the aquifer or the water reservoir. When looking at the observations we can see that the water

11 level in the reservoir did go down as the wells regained the water back. The visual of seeing the reservoir level dropping is proof to reject the hypothesis. For activity two we are testing the hypothesis, if you pollute the water from the reservoir, then it will pollute the groundwater supply. When we look at the straw images, we can see that the water level is the same. Since it was I white straw instead of a clear one it was difficult for me to see if there was maybe a light color change. I looked inside the wells after doing the straw test and saw pinkish water in the wells. The observations would be the information that I need to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis can be accepted with the visual proof that the reservoir did pollute the well water. For activity three the hypothesis is, if you add fertilizer to the new model, then the pond water and drinking reservoir will be polluted. The images give the best information to evaluate the activity. The one image I would not take accurately is the pond sample since the pond collapsed. The observations would be a good support as to why the images may not be as accurate as they should be. When looking at the data it does support my theory that both the pond water and drinking well were polluted. I would have to say that we do need to reject the hypothesis due to the error of the lab. The pond collapsing may have been the reason why both water sources have been polluted. Discussion This lab is important as it shows how an aquifer works and how different causes can pollute the sources. In activity one we learn how the reservoir works with the well and aquifer. The second activity shows what happens if you directly pollute the water and how it affects the well. The third activity shows how even with it being not in direct contact with water. The fertilizer can still affect the water supply. It is important to protect our water sources, so we do not have water issues like the Inaouene river. It has large stocks of pollutants, but it supplies the

12 water to the Idriss reservoir the largest dam in Morocco (Laaraj, et al., 2020). This now causes them to have to find ways to get fresh water to the city. The main challenge with the lab was the accuracy of the test. In activity one and two I would say that the straw being white caused issues. The fact that they make clear straws would be a better way to mark the straw more accurately. The third activity I had was the pond collapse when creating the model. This ruined the results for the well water and pond water. I can not say if the polluted water really did happen due to run off. I could have been due to more water in the well area that might have not been there. References Fewtrell, L., & Bartram, J. (2001). Water quality. [electronic resource] : guidelines, standards, and health : assessment of risk and risk management for water-related infectious disease. IWA Pub. Laaraj, M., Benaabidate, L., & Mesnage, V. (2020). Assessment of inaouene river pollution for potable water supply, northern Morocco. Journal of Ecological Engineering, 21(7), 68–80. https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/125450

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Lab Report week 3

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