Part 1-A: The water supply chain in my hometown of Pottstown, PA depends on whether you have a well or you use the township’s water. Personally, my family uses water from a well that is located in our backyard. The water well was drilled when my family first moved into our house in 2002. There are underground water tables that we drilled a hole to in order to access the water. So the water from underground travels through the pipes that we drilled with, into my house and out of the tap. Once it goes down the drain, the water travels into sewer drains under the streets and is then transported to either one of two locations. The first would be the North Coventry Township Water Treatment Plant, so the water can try to be purified and reused. The second location for the extra water is straight into the Schuylkill River, about 2 miles from my house.

Part 1-B:

Part 1-C: If I had to live on only two gallons of water per day, I would use that water for brushing my teeth, washing my hands, showering, flushing the toilet and drinking. In this experiment, my priorities would be drinking water and daily hygiene (shower, washing hands, brushing teeth). In order to cut down water, I could attempt to only shower every other day and try to only use about a gallon of water. I could just clean my body with soap and then wet a washcloth and rinse my body, and wash my hair. Also, when going to the bathroom, I could cut down all of that water by just not flushing at all. If more people would not flush the toilet, until they were the last person to use that toilet for a while, we could conserve so much water. I could also quickly wash my hands so that I kill some germs, and then use hand sanitizer after to kill the rest of the germs. Another way that I could cut down on water usage would be to only use water to quickly rinse out my mouth after brushing my teeth. So I would devote 0.5 gallons of my water to drinking because I need that to stay alive. Then I every other day I would use 1 gallon of water to showering, and the other 0.5 gallons to brushing my teeth and washing my hands. On the days where I do not shower, I could use the 1 gallon to shave, do the dishes, or wash my clothes. This experiment epically failed. I could sometimes get away with not flushing the toilet, but it was impossible for me to only shower with one gallon of water every other day. The amount of water saved for brushing my teeth and washing my hands worked out nicely, but since I couldn’t bathe with one gallon of water, it didn’t even matter. I do not think that I could ever live in this type of lifestyle because as seen in part 1-B, I use almost 34 times as much water on a daily basis. I would have to make some serious, drastic changes in my life if I lived off of 2 gallons of water per day. Geography has a huge impact on water usage because a lot of countries that rely on large amounts of water everyday, like China or India, do not even have this necessary water supply. They need to import lots of water into their country. And most countries that have access to large amounts of water, do not necessarily need all of it. Most countries that contain deserts or dry lands are the countries that do not have a lot of access to water. The countries that have a lot of rainforests and other wetlands do have plenty of water access. Geography is very important to water usage.