Prediction Of Water Scarcity

Abstract

Data mining is a technology which is emerging as an innovative technology in recent years. It is also used in many application sectors. It is also useful in various purposes even in agriculture. This paper focuses on the variety of techniques used to predict the scarcity of water. Water scarcity is the most critical issue faced by people today. Since from 1980s, water scarcity research has attracted much political and the public people attention. For this, the techniques discussed in the paper are K- Medoids, K-NN, Naive-Bayes, Rule based, ID3. The prediction of water scarcity can be done with the various data mining techniques in general and classification and the clustering techniques in particular for prediction of water scarcity are presented. Keywords: Predict, Water scarcity, Techniques, K-NN, Naive-Bayes, Rule based, ID3, K-Medoids.

Introduction

Data Mining is being used for managing large volumes of data and assist the decision makers to find new patterns and trends from the data/information which was not known before. This will allow them for applying different conservation methods for the problem of water crisis in an effective way. In this domain, the outcomes are being affected by a many number of factors, and anyone can try to understand how the outcomes are gained in these cases and it can help the conservation providers to give out the best water conservation methods and saving the world from water crisis.

Globally, Managing the water scarcity has emerged as a growing challenge. Water scarcity is caused by both natural and human-made causes. The most important factors that contribute to water issues include, man-made waste, lack of government attention, poor management of resources and despite water being an existential need for humans and the other living beings ,it is also one of the most under prioritized but also over abused commodity. Water is the central and the most essential need to our lives but it has not been the main point of focus in our day to day planning as we mainly evolve only onto society. As time passed on, In the past ,societies have understood the importance and the need for water and have planned their live and style according to it. Later, Civilizations were born and in the end it resulted in lose of account on water. But Today, In this generation, we have the advantage of this knowledge about saving water , still we fail to value it.

Causes Of Water Scarcity

• The Major cause of water scarcity is the Reduction in traditional water recharging areas. Construction of buildings, factories are ignoring the water bodies where they have also acted as the recharging mechanism of ground water.
• Changing the wastewater drainage and Sewage into water bodies.
• Release of chemicals into rivers, lakes, streams, ponds etc.
• Another important cause is the lack of on-time de-silting operations in large water bodies like ponds, lakes that helps to increase the water storage capacity during the monsoon season. This act alone helps in increasing water storage levels.
• The Lack of efficient water management and distribution of water between the urban consumers, agriculture sector and industry are the major causes.
• The amount of water used for cooking, washing vessels and clothes, showers etc. , includes the wastage of water in a house.

Daily Usage Of Water In Home And Rural Areas

According to the (WHO) World Health Organisation, on an average a person needs 3 litres of water for drinking, 4 litres for cooking, 20 litres for bathing, 40 litres for sanitation, 25 litres to wash vessels and 23 litres for gardening purposes. The following are the norms that are being adopted by the Government for the rural water supply schemes. Provision of 40 litres of water per day per capita is aimed at in the rural areas currently.

Purpose Quantity (LPCD)

• Drinking - 3
• Cooking - 5
• Bathing - 15
• Washing utensils & house - 7
• Ablution - 10

Literature Survey

• A) Draught can be defined as a prolonged period of the unusual dry weather in a particular area; then the low rainfall leads to low water in aquifers and it may lead to water shortages even for households. The water levels in the several catchments decrease due to rainfall that is below the expected average (Fabriz 2008-2009:6).
• B) According to Zhang (2007: 2), climatic change is the main cause of change in distribution of the world’s water. This conclusion shows the fact that water availability is also dependent on the climatic conditions.
• C) Scarcity of water for domestic use is lower during summer compared to other seasons. High temperatures during summer requires more water for agricultural purposes (Middelkoop, Daamen, Gellens, Grabs, Kwadijk, Lang, Parmet, Schadler, Schula and Wike, 2001:123).
• D) A river which is the major source of clean water for the community and it may also become a source for flood. This results in a situation where the community/people is left without water for the household use (Uitto and Biswas, 2000:205).
• E) Mr. Ban Ki-moon, The UN general secretary in his speech on world water day 22 March 2007 said that, “The world waters state remains fragile”. He also said that the “The available supplies of water are under great threat because of high population growth, (Zhang, NYP: 1).
• F) The Normal water supplies can be polluted by a variety of sources, for example, industrial effluent; agro-chemical run-off fields; the causal disposal of human excreta and also poorly treated sewage from municipal works, all these may results with insufficient safe/clean water for domestic use (FAO, NYP:3)
• G) Water is moved through pipes lines for the longer distances. This is due to the dams which are not located conveniently. In this situation, pipes starts to leak due to age and this results in insufficient water reaching the destination (Hunaidi and Wang 2006:451).
• H) “The predicament of the water crisis limits the health of the public, agriculture and industry” (Challenge 20/20, NYP: 7). According to this survey, people need water for many number of reasons and this results to water crisis. Some of them are; the daily usage of water by the households, industries and agriculture, all these demand more supply of water.
• I) The crisis of water also lead to fewer crops, a situation which has a negative impact on all the communities. In simple, it results in hunger (Challenge 20/20, NYP: 6) The Shortage of rainfall have resulted in low crop production.
• J) Nazare, Mdluli, Babugura and Banda (2005: 20) said that, shortage of water can cause mortality, diseases, and also hunger. All beings are badly affected by the water shortage.
• K) Safe and clean freshwater results in an environment which is healthy for the human beings. Water scarcity lead to malnutrition and it is dangerous to children and the people living with diseases like HIV and AIDS (Wenhold and Faber, 2009:61-63).
• L) Water scarcity is also a threat to a many of development projects like;construction of roads and bridges, complexes etc. Sufficient amount of water plays a major role for the survival of these projects (SAPA, 2010:2).

Conclusion

Water is an indispensable commodity that the people cannot without. Both natural and unnatural causes of water crisis were discussed based on many types of sources. The natural causes such as climate change and drought were discussed. The human causes such as disparity in the supply of water, population growth were discussed. The impact of shortage of water on the community livelihood and the projects, yield of crops, health and social relations, also the impact on development, were discussed according to the literature reviewed. Water scarcity will be a worldwide problem in the next 10 years. All researches have shown that it is being raised at a rate much faster than the solutions are been given. Already new born babies and children are dying because of waterborne illness. Also it is indirectly affecting the natural ecosystem leading to threat to many of freshwater living species. This problem cannot be controlled until a global solution is implemented.

Tips To Save Water

• Leaks free
• Don’t let the tap water to always run even when it is not in use.
• Don’t flush it all away.
• Don’t ever forget to collect the water.