a). I live in Chester County, Pennsylvania. More specifically, I am from Paoli, a smaller town within Chester County. This area is approximately twenty miles west of Philadelphia. Using http://www.chesco.org/158/Water-Resources-Authority I was able to get a wealth of knowledge about the source of water for not only my county, but my town specifically. I also gained an understanding about the treatments that it goes through to get from the source to my faucet! Chester Country has approximately 2,438 miles of streams, creeks, and tributaries, and 780 square miles of underlying watersheds. These aquifers and streams exist as 21 watersheds. Paoli resides within the Valley Creek watershed. A water shed is bordered by natural boundaries (mountains, hills, etc.) that keep precipitation and runoff within that area. It is from this watershed that Paoli sources its water supply. After the water collection process, it goes through the the seven main steps of the water purification process: Coagulation, Flocculation, Sedimentation, Disinfection, pH Adjustment, Fluoridation, and Filtration. These steps are pretty integral to all water purification processes and after seeing these steps outlined on CCWRA I was able to look online for a more in-depth explanation about what each step was responsible for.
b). Below is my water usage chart for a single day. Obviously this can change with the day if I happen not to run the dishwasher, need to do laundry, or anything else. I think this demonstrates a fairly accurate day.
| Water Use | Occurences | Total # Gallons |
| Teeth Brushings | 2 | 2 |
| Hand Washings | 4 | 4 |
| Face Shavings | 1 | 1 |
| Showers (10 mins.) | 2 | 100 |
| Toilet Flushes | 4 | 12 |
| Water I Drank (8 oz.) | 8 | 0.5 |
| Dishwasher Loads | 1 | 10 |
| 129.5 |
c). Living on two gallons would be quite the drastic change to my daily habits! I always take take a shower in the morning, and I always take a shower when I get home from practice. Eliminating these showers would take me down to 29.5 daily gallons. I would continue to eliminate all forms of hygiene (teeth brushing, hand washing, and face shaving) so that my daily gallons would decrease down to 22.5. If I was in a location like Mozambique or Haiti, I would imagine I wouldn’t have access to toilet flushing as easily or dishwasher loads. After that I’m pretty much at my .5 gallons of drinking water and any additional water for washing my clothes/dishes. I think this example is extremely dependent on your location; 2 gallons with normal human interaction (not smelling bad) in a place like Pennsylvania would be very disruptive.
From my daily water usage today my main water usage came from showering, dishwasher loads, and toilet flushes. I think priority wise, this is a fairly decent water usage table. Its under the average water usage for someone in the United States, and even though two showers represent 83% of my water usage, two showers is perfectly normal especially after exercising. I think if I were to look at cutting down my water usage, I would eliminate my shower in the meaning (thus cutting my water usage by 60%. To reference the paragraph above, I think two gallons a day in the location I am would fail. Not using water on any hygiene would be extremely noticeable to my peers and would simply be disruptive to my daily life. I think this really highlights how geography accounts for water usage. The area that I live in (both geographically and economically) allow me to use the water that I do. I were in a different location such as Mozambique or Haiti, this would be a totally different situation.
I find it very interesting that you were able to obtain such an extensive amount of information about your water supply chain from your hometown as I was not as lucky with my research. I also found it very interesting that you explained that a watershed is surrounded by natural boundaries because it needs to be in order to keep precipitation and runoffs in that area.
I too, would sometimes have two showers a day; one in the morning and then one after my workout. But cutting it down to one shower a day cuts down a ridiculous amount of water. I did not realize how much water a shower uses and after researching and going through this module I feel determined to cut down on my showers since they use such a large amount of water.
Hi my name is Aaliyah here is the link to my blog https://sites.psu.edu/geog30/?p=44117&preview=true.
I live in Pennsylvania and I agree that using only two gallons of water would be very disruptive to any human interaction. Showering also took up a huge portion of my water. I also workout so eliminating showers is not a very good option for me. To save water I hand washed dishes instead of using the dishwasher