1A.
The city I am from is Seoul located in South Korea. My city runs its water supply by draining out the river water and is run by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The water we use is named “Arisu” and it used to be the name of Han River, the main river source for water supply, and now stands for Seoul’s brand of tap water. To be more significant, ‘Ari’ means big in Korean traditional language and ‘Su’ means water. Furthermore, as Seoul has four distinct seasons, precipitation gap between the seasons leads to defined differences in the water quality. Also, as Han River became more polluted by the people of Seoul, the city is strictly managing and developing the water quality. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the purification of water work in this order: Intake stations, Pre-chlorination, powdered activated carbon, mixing basins, condensing stations, depositing reservoirs, filtering stations, advanced water purification facility, post-chlorination to discharging stations.
Source:
Click to access Seoul-Tap-Water-Arisu-English.pdf
1B.
Record of water usage on February 5th 2016 (Friday)
| Activity | Amount of water used (gallons) |
| Shower (Morning and Night combined) | 5 gallons * 10 minutes * 2 times = 100 gallons |
| Bathroom (Toilet): 8 times | 1.6 gallons * 8 = 12.8 gallons |
| Drinking (water bottle used) | ½ gallon |
| Brushing Teeth (2 times) | 1 gallon * 2 = 2 gallons |
| Face cleansing (2 times) | 1 gallon * 2 = 2 gallons |
| Washing dishes (1 time for dinner) | Approximately 27 gallons |
| Cooking (soup and rice) | 1 gallon |
Total = 145.3 gallons per day
1C.
If I were to live in an area where water usage is restricted to two gallons per day, I think it would be hard for me to live the way I used to and would start to define where I should use water or not. In this case, I think I would prioritize the water consume and my sanitation usage. Human basic needs are food, shelter and clothing. Therefore, I would place my water consumption more than any other needs I have to use. I would drink less than I used to but still put in on the top of my needs. Also, I would definitely shower shorter and shower within three or four days just to help myself to stay clean. Brushing teeth would still be essential for me, therefore I would try to use minimum of water to clean my teeth. For cooking, I would try to cook without water. Moreover, I don’t think I can use water for laundry or washing dishes. In the end, even after the reduction of water usage, I would most definitely fail to live this life. Comparing this life to the daily life I had, there is approximately 143 gallons of water difference. Therefore, I will fail to live this life. As shown in 1B, I place my sanitary on top of my priorities but if I had to live with 2 gallons, I would completely shorten in down so water consumption could be provided. Through this experience, I have learned and realized that geography is essential for water use. If there aren’t water resources around the geographic scale, it is hard to consume and use water in our lives. Not only does the geography matters, sadly socio-economic status matter as well.
Hello Eunice! My name is Rachael and I found your paragraph for 1a to be very interesting. It was very cool learning about the water supply in South Korea. It is definitely different than what we see in the U.S. I especially liked how you explained the meaning behind the name of your water source. It was all very informative to me. When it came to answering 1c, our answers were very similar. I definitely agree that we still need to focus on the necessities, such as food, water, and shelter and cut out the less needed activities. I really enjoyed reading your response. If you’d like to check out mine, the link is http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/08/module-4-rachael-donnelly/
Hi Eunice! My name is Emily and I found your post very interesting. I liked how you explained the origin of the name of your water source, the “Arisu”. It was interesting that your town uses the river for its water source, while my hometown uses a local reservoir. In comparison to the amount of water we both used, you used somewhat more than me, but I wasn’t far behind with 133 gallons/day. I liked how you included cooking in your water usage – that was something that I forgot to take account for. Here is a link to my blog post: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/07/water-tracking-usage/