HOW TO HAVE POTABLE WATER?

March 19,2012 Vergara Carlo T. BSIE 1-A Mrs. Ma. Corazon D. Diyco

Introduction
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually consumed or used in food preparation. Typical uses include washing or landscape irrigation. Potable water is water which is fit for consumption by humans and other animals. It is also called drinking water, in a reference to its intended use. Water may be naturally potable, as is the case with pristine springs, or it may need to be treated in order to be safe. In either instance, the safety of water is assessed with tests which look for potentially harmful contaminants.

Statement of the Purpose

The research tries to explain on how to have portable water. It was done to help our community to know how to have potable water and also to manage our environment. How to save it and how to help our environment. In this research, the reader will understand what we need to do in order to help ourselves for the future.

Statement of the Scope

The research looks into the importance of potable water. Why potable water is important to our life? What happen if we do not take potable water in our body? What treatment needed in potable water? What are the types of treatment needed in having
potable water? What are the sources of potable water?

Methodology
1. http://www.aomega.com/mpure/water.htm 2. http://www.excelwater.com/eng/b2c/about_8.php 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources

Discussion
Why potable water is important to our life?

Water makes up more than two thirds of human body weight, and without water, we would die in a few days. The human brain is made up of 95% water, blood is 82% and lungs 90%. A mere 2% drop in our body's water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on smaller print, such as a computer screen. (Are you having trouble reading this? Drink up!) Mild dehydration is also one of the most common causes of daytime fatigue. An estimated seventy-five percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration. Pretty scary statistic for a developed country where water is readily available through the tap or bottle water. Water is important to the mechanics of the human body. The body cannot work without it, just as a car cannot run without gas and oil. In fact, all the cell and organ functions that make up our entire anatomy and physiology depend on water for their functioning.

Water serves as a lubricant

Water forms the base for saliva Water forms the fluids that surround the joints. Water regulates the body temperature, as the cooling & heating is distributed through perspiration. Water helps to alleviate constipation by moving food through the intestinal tract and thereby eliminating waste - the best detox agent. Water helps to regulate metabolism

What happen if we do not take potable water in our body?

If the body does not have an adequate supply of water through a daily intake of fluids, it will draw on sources from within the body. This in turn will cause the body to shut down, as the cells become dehydrated from a lack of water. The first signs of dehydration are a general feeling of being really thirsty. Upon feeling thirsty, we usually drink something, however if this thirst is not met, other symptoms will start to occur. As the body continues to lose water, which is not being replaced, our daily life can become affected. A lack of water will affect the way we work including our concentration and we may start to experience dizziness, fatigue and a general weakness of the body. Joints will begin to ache and become quite painful and you could suffer bouts of headaches, muscle cramps and constipation. Externally, your skin will lose its healthy glow and hair and nails will become brittle and dull. If you notice that you are not urinating very often (less than 4 times a day) or if your urine has a strong smell and is dark yellow in colour, this could be a sign of dehydration and you should try to drink more water. If you do not remedy this in time, chronic dehydration could lead to a much more serious illness such as problems with the heart or kidneys or high blood pressure.

What treatment needed in potable water?

Public Water Systems Public Water Systems (PWSs) come in all shapes and sizes, and no two are exactly the same. They may be publicly or privately owned and maintained. While their design may vary, they all share the same goal - providing safe, reliable drinking water to the communities they serve. To do this, most water systems must treat their water. The types of treatment provided by a specific PWS vary depending on the size of the system, whether they use ground water or surface water, and the quality of the source water. Tapping a Source of Water Large-scale water supply systems tend to rely on surface water sources, while smaller systems tend to rely on ground water. Around 35 percent of the population served by community water systems (CWSs) drink water that originates as ground water. Ground water is usually pumped from wells ranging from shallow to deep (50 to 1,000 feet). The remaining 65 percent of the population served by CWSs receive water taken primarily from surface water sources like rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Treating Raw Water The amount and type of treatment applied by a PWS varies with the source type and quality. Many ground water systems can satisfy all Federal requirements without applying any treatment, while others need to add chlorine or additional treatment. Because surface water systems are exposed to direct wet weather runoff and to the atmosphere and are therefore more easily contaminated, federal and state regulations require that these systems treat their water. Water suppliers use a variety of treatment processes to remove contaminants from drinking water. These individual processes may be arranged in a "treatment train" (a series of processes applied in sequence). The most commonly used processes include filtration, flocculation and sedimentation, and disinfection for surface water. Some treatment trains also include ion exchange and adsorption. Water utilities select a combination of treatment processes most appropriate to treat the contaminants found in the raw water used by the system.

What are the types of treatment needed in having potable water?

Flocculation/Sedimentation Flocculation refers to water treatment processes that combine or coagulate small particles into larger particles, which settle out of the water as sediment. Alum and iron salts or synthetic organic polymers (used alone or in combination with metal salts) are generally used to promote coagulation. Settling or sedimentation occurs naturally as flocculated particles settle out of the water. Filtration Many water treatment facilities use filtration to remove all particles from the water. Those particles include clays and silts, natural organic matter, precipitates from other treatment processes in the facility, iron and manganese, and microorganisms. Filtration clarifies water and enhances the effectiveness of disinfection.

Ion Exchange Ion exchange processes are used to remove inorganic contaminants if they cannot be removed adequately by filtration or sedimentation. Ion exchange can be used to treat hard water. It can also be used to remove arsenic, chromium, excess fluoride, nitrates, radium, and uranium. Adsorption Organic contaminants, unwanted coloring, and taste-and-odor-causing compounds can stick to the surface of granular or powder activated carbon and are thus removed from the drinking water. Disinfection (chlorination/ozonation) Water is often disinfected before it enters the distribution system to ensure that potentially dangerous microbes are killed. Chlorine, chloramines, or chlorine dioxide are most often used because they are very effective disinfectants, not only at the treatment plant but also in the pipes that distribute water to our homes and businesses. Ozone is a powerful disinfectant, and ultraviolet radiation is an effective disinfectant and treatment for relatively clean source waters, but neither of these are effective in controlling biological contaminants in the distribution pipes.

What are the sources of potable water?

Surface water Surface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland. Surface water is naturally replenished by precipitation and naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation, evapotranspiration and sub-surface seepage. Although the only natural input to any surface water system is precipitation within its watershed, the total quantity of water in that system at any given time is also dependent on many other factors. These factors include storage capacity in lakes, wetlands and artificial reservoirs, the permeability of the soil beneath these storage bodies, the runoff characteristics of the land in the watershed, the timing of the precipitation and local evaporation rates. All of these factors also affect the proportions of water lost. Under river flow Throughout the course of a river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a combination of the visible free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain called the hyporheic zone. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may greatly exceed the visible flow. The hyporheic zone often forms a dynamic interface between surface water and true ground-water receiving water from the ground water when aquifers are fully charged and contributing water to ground-water when ground waters are depleted. This is especially significant in karst areas where pot-holes and underground rivers are common.

Ground water Sub-surface water, or groundwater, is fresh water located in the pore space of soil and rocks. It is also water that is flowing within aquifers below the water table. Sometimes it is useful to make a distinction between sub-surface water that is closely associated with surface water and deep sub-surface water in an aquifer (sometimes called "fossil water"). Desalination Desalination is an artificial process by which saline water (generally sea water) is converted to fresh water. The most common desalination processes are distillation and reverse osmosis. Desalination is currently expensive compared to most alternative sources of water, and only a very small fraction of total human use is satisfied by desalination. It is only economically practical for high-valued uses (such as household and industrial uses) in arid areas. The most extensive use is in the Persian Gulf. Frozen water Several schemes have been proposed to make use of icebergs as a water source, however to date this has only been done for novelty purposes. Glacier runoff is considered to be surface water.

Conclusion
Potable water is a need of every living thing in this world. In every processes or treatments that water conducted, it is very important. We have so many sources in getting potable water. Having a treatment in water to have potable water is very difficult because some of the processes need some effort to apply. This study talks about on how to have potable water and also on how we can take advantage on how we can help our environment.

Recommendation
For those who will research about potable water, try to figure out what other treatment that can make potable water. Try to find if it is possible to have potable water using sea water and other sources. We all know that sea water is not potable for human and it is very harmful if we drink it. So try to have a research about making sea water to be potable.