<p>In
the context of climate change, increasing demands for freshwater make it
necessary to manage our water resources in a sustainable way and find
innovative ways to extend their life. An integrated water management approach
needs to consider anthropogenic water use and reuse which represent major
components of the current water cycle. In particular, unplanned, or de facto,
indirect water reuse occurs in most of the U.S. river systems; however, there
is little real-time documentation of it. Despite the fact that there are
national and state agencies that systematically collect data on water
withdrawals and wastewater discharges, their databases are organized and
managed in a way that limits the ability to combine reported water data to
perform large scale analysis about water use and indirect reuse. To better
document these issues and to demonstrate the utility of such an analysis, I
studied the Wabash River Watershed located in the U.S. Midwest. Existing data
for freshwater extraction, use, discharge, and river streamflow were collected,
curated and reorganized in order to characterize the water use and reuse within
the basin. Indirect water reuse was
estimated by comparing treated wastewater discharges with stream flows at
selected points within the watershed. Results show that during the low flow
months of July-October 2007, wastewater discharges into the Wabash River basin
contributed 82 to 121% of the stream flow, demonstrating that the level of
water use and unplanned reuse is significant. These results suggest that
intentional water reuse for consumptive purposes such as landscape or
agricultural irrigation could have substantial ecological impacts by
diminishing stream flow during vulnerable low flow periods. This research also
completed a time series watershed-scale analysis of water use and unplanned
indirect reuse for the Wabash River Watershed from 2009 to 2017. Results
document the occurrence of indirect water reuse over time, ranging from 3% to
134% in a water-rich area of the U.S. The time series analysis shows that
reported data effectively describe the water use trends through nine years,
clearly reflecting both anthropogenic and natural events in the watershed, such
as the retirement of thermoelectric power plants, and the occurrence of an extreme
drought in 2012. Results demonstrate the feasibility and significance of using
available water datasets to perform large scale water use analysis, describe
limitations encountered in the process, and highlight areas for improvement in
water data management.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/13058951 |
| Date | 16 December 2020 |
| Creators | Maria Julia Wiener (9465605) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/ASSESSMENT_OF_WATER_USE_AND_INDIRECT_WATER_REUSE_IN_A_LARGE_SCALE_WATERSHED_THE_WABASH_RIVER/13058951 |
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