Part 1A: I live in State College, Pennsylvania, home of the University Park campus of Penn State. Here the water is mainly supplied through the run-off coming from Tussey Mountain. From there it then makes its way into the ground water table. Subsequently State College and the surrounding boroughs obtain their water through wells located in various places around the area. This water can then be stored in water towers and/or brought to one’s home through the plumping system, of course. Once the water has been used in one’s home and then goes down the drain it is taken to one of the many waste water treatment plants in the area. Finally this water, though it is clean enough to be recirculated, is instead sold to companies for various uses and for agricultural purposes.

Part 1B: For this section I recorded data for an average weekend day where nearly all of the household tasks need to be completed in my house. I chose to gather information for Saturday, February 6^th, 2016.

1 shower (~15min)………………………………………………………………….. 5 gallons

1 dishwasher load………………………………………………………………… 10 gallons

1 hand dishwashing load…………………………………………………… 20 gallons

2 clothes washing loads……………………………………. 25 gallons each => 50gallons

7 toilet flushes……………………………………………..  3 gallons each => 21 gallons

8 8oz water glasses………………………………………………….. 8 oz. each => 64 oz.

12 hand washings……………………………………………… 1 gallon each => 12 gallons

1 teeth brushing……………………………………………………..…… 1 gallon

Total……………………………………………………………….. 119 gallons and 64 ounces

Part 1C:

We use water in cooking, washing clothing, dishes, taking baths, washing hands, drinking water, flushing toilets, brushing teeth and in the summer, also watering our indoor and outdoor plants and flowers. Even our heating and refrigerator use water! Unfortunately I couldn’t do much about the refrigerator or the heating; however in an attempt to live on two gallons per day, I still drank the same amount of water, as I viewed this to be a necessity. On Sunday it was not necessary to wash the clothing. Dishes were still a priority as were hand washings and toilet flushes. I ended up doing most of the same things, although I was more cognizant of how much water was being used. During the experiment, I planned when I should wash my hands to cut down on water usage. This meant that I handled all dirty items first and then washed my hands. Showers were cut down to about 5-7 minutes and dishwasher loads were completely full before running the cycle. Further water saving tactics would take more than a day to implement unfortunately. Overall, I’m sad to say that the experiment did not succeed in my household, as we still ended up using more than 2 gallons of water, however we did cut down our usage from 119 gallons (from above) to about 42 gallons. Although this was just an individual action, if we put the entire class together, it would become a collective effort to conserve our water! The trouble comes in when no one thinks about the consequences of their actions, which can lead to such problems like the Tragedy of the Commons.

Geography in incredibly important when talking about water. Depending upon where one lives, one might have access to too much water or not enough due to climate and area. This is why many older towns, especially in Europe were built on or very close to a river or water source.