The Effect of Human Development on Groundwater Sustainability

Part II: Write a lab report using the scientific method sections below:

Title: The Effect of Human Development on Groundwater Sustainability

Purpose

The purpose of this lab is to show how ground sustainability is affected by current human development practices. Also, it highlights some of the human development factors that have contributed to groundwater not being sustainable in the current world compared to the early 1800s.

Introduction

Groundwater sustainability has been highly affected by human activities such as industrial development, saltwater intrusion and population as from the early 1800s they were a lot of groundwater, but towards the 2000s, they were a decrease in the amount of water due to an increase in human activities, which decreased accessible of freshwater that is safe for a human to consume. As from my data, saltwater intrusion indeed played a significant factor that affected groundwater sustainability.

Hypothesis/Predicted Outcome

The decrease of forests in the 1900s with an exceptional increase in industrial development and population caused the decrease in groundwater, thus indicating why people should take care of the environment. People do not understand the importance of environmental conservation because that has been the contributing factor to the reduction of groundwater.

Methods

In the first part, I did google research to find out how factors like saltwater intrusion started to move to the ground in the 1900s and 2000s as compared to the early 1800s. Additionally, I relied on the collected primary data on the slide and other authentic sources to know how industrial development and population affected groundwater sustainability in the 1900s compared to other years.

Results/Outcome

The results of my analysis show that saltwater intrusion was one of the highest factors that contributed to the decrease of groundwater sustainability. In the early 1800s, there was no saltwater intrusion in the ground, but between the 1900s and 2000s, ocean water movement was greater into groundwater. Also, factors like forests were largest in the 1800s, but with time, forests decreased by 50 percent in the 1900s and 90 percent in the 2000s; this leads to a reduction in the water cycle, thus reducing groundwater level. Also, an increase in the factors such as farming, industrial development, and population in the 1900s contributed to a reduction of grounder water. For instance, the increase of the three led to climate change that led to a decrease in freshwater for human consumption on the ground compared to the 1800s. 

Discussion/Analysis

Based on my analysis, I can conclude that humans need to be keen on the factors that lead to climate change, such as industrial development. This is because the development of industries and population increase played a key factor in the decrease of groundwater; thus, the need to mitigate the activities to regain more fresh groundwater for human consumption. Therefore, it is my pleasure to advise every government stakeholder to find a way of reducing industrial gas emissions into the air to reduce climate change.