Part 1A.

For my home town of Downingtown, PA, the Downingtown Municipal Water Authority (DMWA) is responsible for providing water to over 10,000 people in five local counties. The source of the water is surface water from the East Branch Brandywine Creek. The DMWA is permitted to take up to 3.8 MGD (million gallons per day), but on average supplies 1.2 MGD to customers. The watershed for this intake covers 64 sq. miles and 12 municipalities in Chester County. The major use for the land within the watershed is agricultural (62%) with forested land (32%) and some urban developed areas (4%). The DMWA owns and operates a water filtration plant where the surface water source goes through an extensive treatment process involving chemical additions, mixing, flocculation, settling, filtration and disinfection prior to distribution. Once the water is treated, it is pumped through a distribution network of buried pipes to each household that relies on county water. For my house, we have a septic take that directly collects our waste water, and the water company empties it on a regular schedule. Once the company treats the waste water, it is dumped back into the local water system.

Part 1B.

Part 1C.

In my experiment to only use 2 gallons of water a day, I knew from the beginning that dishwashing, showering, and toilet flushing were the three areas I really needed to cut back on. I decided that I would completely remove showering from my day, effectively cutting out 50 gallons. While I still brushed my teeth twice, I made sure to turn the water off while brushing in order to save water. Instead of flushing every time I went to the bathroom, I decided only to flush when I went #2, which cut my toilet-related water usage from 15 gallons to 6 gallons. I found it difficult to cut down on my drinking water usage, so that stayed at 1 gallon. Seeing that I am normally a very clean guy, and that I already skipped a shower for the day, I had a hard time cutting down on my hand/face washing, so that stayed around 5 gallons. I tried to limit the water I used while washing my dishes by turning the water off while I was scrubbing them. Overall, my water consumption for the day was around 25 gallons, which I would consider to be a failed attempt at the 2 gallons a day experiment. While I was able to cut my water usage down by a significant amount, I was still nowhere close to achieving the goal of 2 gallons. I had no clue that I actually used this much water on a daily basis, and I still struggle with imagining how so many people are able to manage to survive with so little water. Geography is pertinent to water use because it is closely associated with the source of the drinking water for many people. If there are a large number of agricultural fields spraying fertilizer as well as multiple power plants within a watershed, the runoff from those can pollute the water. A geographical location in which there is little to no water sources often creates huge problems for people living in those areas. In these situations, water conservation is a universal practice, as it is vital to the survival of the people.