Suzanne's Mom's Blog

When I get discouraged about what we’re doing to the planet, I remind myself of all the young people coming along who like to solve problems.

Today’s post is about those who are addressing water scarcity. Akhila Ram, a high school student in Lexington, Massachusetts, won a science award for her groundwater-measuring gadget. And at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), there are young professors focused on reusing wastewater to save on potable water.

Collin Robisheaux writes at the Boston Globe, “Akhila Ram, a 12th-grader at Lexington High School, isn’t exactly like other high school students. In her free time she enjoys baking, painting – and inventing technologies to map out groundwater levels across the United States in order to monitor problems like water depletion.

“Ram’s invention is a computer model that uses machine learning to interpret data collected by NASA’s GRACE satellite in order to predict groundwater within a few feet of its actual level. While groundwater monitoring tools already exist, they can be expensive to install.

“Ram’s system could give farmers, well owners, and local officials a cost-effective method of monitoring groundwater. According to Ram, this model is the first to use a statistical approach on a large region to predict changes in groundwater levels. …

“The inspiration behind the invention is personal for Ram.

“ ‘My grandparents live in India, and their city faced a major drought,’ Ram said in an interview. ‘It was because of poor management. And I wanted to [do research on] solutions that could be used to properly manage water resources. … I’ve always been really passionate about climate change,’ Ram said. ‘That’s what led me here. I’ve always been trying to come up with ideas in this realm of sustainability and the environment.’ More at the Globe, here.

Meanwhile young college professors at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) are finding ways to make better use of wastewater.

David Staudacher reports at Rise magazine, “Water is our most precious resource, but climate change, pollution, and a growing human population has made this resource even more scarce. More than 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries. …

“To reduce this scarcity, two professors in civil, materials and environmental engineering are looking around in the world to find better ways to reclaim and reuse both fresh water and wastewater.

“To find best practices in water reuse, Associate Professor Sybil Derrible and his team have studied the work done in cities and countries around the world. In search of new water sources, many countries are turning to ocean water. …

“ ‘In places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, there are only a few ways to get water,’ Derrible said. ‘One is from the sea through desalination, and another is by reclaiming used water. Desalination requires a lot of electricity. Recycling used water can save energy and money.’

“Derrible and his team are developing a framework to analyze water circularity — which is the practice of not wasting or losing water and recovering the resources it contains as it is reused in multiple applications — by examining how cities collect, treat, and reuse water. In Singapore, for example, municipalities collect rainwater and recycle wastewater back to industries where it doesn’t need to be treated.

“Derrible wants to create a universal framework that takes into account ideas like this and that can be used anywhere in the world, including places where fresh water is not scarce.

“ ‘Many industries require extensive volumes of water, but the water does not need to be potable. Here, used water that was minimally treated can be sufficient,’ he said. Some places in the United States are already reusing wastewater. In warm climates like Las Vegas, wastewater is used to irrigate golf courses.

“ ‘It’s a big deal because the future of many cities includes reusing water and it is becoming more and more common for many cities in the world because water is a precious resource,’ he said.

“Also, in most countries, water distribution systems consist of large, highly pressurized pipe networks that require an excessive amount of energy and that are vulnerable to large-scale contamination if something goes wrong. However, in Hanoi, Vietnam, water is distributed at low pressures, and most buildings are equipped with a basement tank, a rooftop tank, and separate water treatment processes, resulting in a system that consumes less energy and that is more resilient. …

“Even a city like Chicago — with its vast freshwater resource in Lake Michigan — can benefit from reusing water. Professor Krishna Reddy is working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) and several UIC professors on an interdisciplinary project investigating ways to reuse treated wastewater from MWRDGC processing plants in the region and beyond.

“The district discharges some treated water into the Chicago River, where it makes its way into the Mississippi River and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico. But ‘from a sustainability point of view, this is not a good reuse of a resource,’ Reddy said. ‘We suggest recycling the treated water where it can be reused for beneficial purpose without any further treatment.’ The researchers are gathering data to understand how much water MWRDGC produces, uses, and discharges, and are examining the quality of the water the plants both take in and discharge. One goal is to find new uses for wastewater.

“ ‘One interesting thing is that there are a large number of industries near the water reclamation plants, and they use a lot of water,’ Reddy said. ‘Maybe some of the industries nearby could use the treated water, or it could be used for other applications like agriculture or recreational parks irrigation, toilet flushing, landscaping, and golf courses.’ “

More at the UIC College of Engineering, here.

Photo: Jim Young
Sybil Derrible and his team are developing a framework to analyze “water circularity.“