This, in turn, can affect habitat quality for plants and animals that live downstream. Biodiversity may be lost if aquatic plants and animals cannot tolerate changing water conditions. When large volumes of water are pumped from a stream or river, water chemistry can change significantly with a drop in water level. Temperatures may rise and oxygen levels may drop, affecting aquatic species that don't have a wide tolerance. Biodiversity may also be reduced if invasive species, such as the zebra mussel or golden algae, are introduced into a waterbody during the drilling process.
This isolation may be due to human practices or natural occurrences which drive aggradation or in‐stream incision. When high flows occur under these physical conditions, the stream or river has a restricted area to flow and higher flow velocities and energies are produced. Ideally, during high flows the river system would be able to over top its banks and spread over a large flat area surrounding the river, the floodplain (Figure 1). Floodplain reconnection reestablishes the connection between the stream system and its floodplain. This is accomplished through lowering or setting back natural or constructed levees currently blocking the flow of water out of the main channel.
Assistance with funding the installation of levees, making grants available and having community fundraisers will help assist in accomplishing the goals of this plan. Support of The Department of Environmental Protection will help to institute recommended guidelines pertaining to flooding prevention and protection of the environment from flooding. Anthropogenic impacts on river flooding are visible in changed river management practices. (Daniel, Florax & Rietveld, 2009). Examples of urbanization that increases the risk of river floods include construction in floodplains, channel straightening, building of dikes, and construction activity generating impermeable surfaces includes transport infrastructure and residential areas.
Hagg Lake, with a storage capacity of 53,600-acre feet, is the impoundment created by Scoggins Dam. Hagg Lake water is currently used for river flow restoration, municipal water supply and agricultural irrigation needs throughout the Watershed. The reservoir has park and recreation facilities operated by Washington County. The Water Supply Feasibility Study addresses aspects of raising Scoggins Dam by 20-feet and by 40-feet. Raising Scoggins Dam would affect tributaries to Hagg Lake as well as Scoggins Creek downstream of Scoggins Dam.
One of it’s problems was the square-pallet chain pump. I can interpret from the three men in the photograph (Doc.8), that pumping the water was not an easy task. It would have required multiple men with great upper body strength and great endurance. Technology also had its beneficial inventions, such as the Noria. The Noria was used to transfer water to an irrigation canal (Doc.3) which was powered by fast flowing streams (Doc 2).
Assess the relative importance of physical and human causes of river flooding (15) Floods can be caused by certain human activities such as urbanisation. The build up of impermeable surfaces like concrete pavements and buildings means that when there is high levels of precipitation, infiltration is not possible and rainwater flows straight to the river channel as surface runoff, increasing river discharge and potentially causing a river to flood. Also, deforestation is another human cause of flooding; deforestation reduces interception and evapotranspiration. This means more water reaches the river, increasing discharge. However, physical causes can also have large impacts and can be the main cause of a flood.
The extended holding of the waste fluid in the pits could lead to their seepage into the ground, especially if the pits are not lined with plastic. This contaminates the water sources around. In addition, any overflows, for instance caused by heavy rains, allows the fluid to contaminate water in the sources. Large volumes of fluid is required (thousands of gallons of water is used per well) and its disposal is an issue too (Schmidt, 2011). Proper disposal methods should be effected to ensure the water aquifers around do not get contaminated.
This limits aquatic life, which reduces the supply of fish. Current policies are primarily aimed at reducing waste disposal into rivers and reduction of nitrogen and phosphorous use. These policies are subject to various issues such as increased food prices and complexity in the understanding of the true relationship between algae and nutrients. Therefore, the policies have not been effective. It is important to research on ways of controlling draught and limiting algae growth because it will mitigate further expansion of the Gulf of Dead Zone.
Waste management companies and the EPA addressed some of the issues in the 1980s by adopting the “dry tomb” philosophy of landfill construction which focused on isolating garbage from its immediate surroundings. Also new landfills would have liners that protected groundwater from “leaking garbage juice” and a series of pipes to funnel out said juices. Royte points out that the problem is, even the best plastics will ultimately leak and break. Also, this problem is going to exist as long as landfills do. More updated methods of accelerating decomposition have been introduced in more recent years, however, these liquids are still potentially leaking.
It is common to consider pollution to streams as being transported from industries and cities which release waste water into water courses such as lakes, rivers and streams through designated and established point sources. A bigger problem, however, actually comes from other unidentified sources where possibility of these contaminants being absorbed into the soil or transformed through natural processes before reaching the waterways is hindered by large impervious areas around the water body and short peak runoff times.