Environmental Impacts of Water Use
The Far-Reaching Environmental Impacts of Water Use
When human actions disrupt the Earth’s fragile water cycle, the results can be disastrous, and they may be irreversible.
Two critical phenomena threatening our freshwater ecosystem are saltwater intrusion and aquifer collapse.
Saltwater Intrusion
Almost 600 million acres of the world’s irrigated farmland has been damaged by salt build-up. Although this can happen naturally, much is caused by human activity. In fact, saltwater already affects 28% of the irrigated farmland in the United States.
If fresh water is pumped too quickly from subsurface water deposits, groundwater levels decrease. Water extraction drops the level of fresh groundwater, reducing its water pressure and allowing saltwater to flow further inland.
Aquifer Collapse
Aquifers are underground reservoirs of fresh water, located below the water table. When wells pump more water out of the aquifer than can be naturally replenished, some bad things can happen. Wells may dry up or become more costly to operate. Surface water in streams and lakes may be depleted. And land subsidence may occur.
With land subsidence, when water is taken out of the soil, the soil can collapse, compact and drop. The result is a depression of the land around the drawing well. Subsidence can occur gradually over time, when the altitude of an area slowly decreases. Or it can cause a more sudden disruption in the form of sinkholes, which is a sudden collapse of soil that opens a hole in the ground.
Water Loss Management Solutions
from 540 Technologies
Leak Detection Data Loggers
Discover the hidden leaks in your underground network. Our non-disruptive, leak detection loggers offer magnetic installation, continuous monitoring, notification alarms, and flexible deployment options.
All loggers feature rugged construction and are powered by low-cost, replaceable batteries, some with up to a 10-year battery life.
We’ll work with you to recommend a scalable plan so you can quickly and easily monitor 100% of your distribution system.
Leak Detection Data Logger Installation
Can’t allocate staff time to install the data loggers? Don’t worry. 540 Technologies will install them for you! Our team will work closely with key staff from your organization to implement the custom deployment plan we’ve collaborated with you to develop.
Whether your deployment involves permanent placement or a “lift-and-shift” operation, we have the resources you need for your logger installation from start to finish, with no disruption of service to your customers.
Leak Pinpointing
Once data loggers have confirmed what you already knew – that you have leaks in your underground network – how do you find those leaks without doing a lot of extra digging?
Using sophisticated ground microphones and leading-edge data correlators, our water loss experts will show you how to pinpoint leaks within 12 inches of the source and avoid unnecessary digging and service disruptions.