Sustainable Water Management - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 89

to collect, and (d) they can quickly recover from natural disturbances. They are also con-
sumed by humans and are of importance to sport and commercial ishermen. Fish make up
almost 50% of the endangered vertebrate species in the United States (Warren et al., 2000).
Aquatic plants (macrophytes) grow near or in water and many of them can serve as
indicators of water quality. A lack of macrophytes can indicate quality problems caused
by turbidity, excessive salinity or the presence of herbicides (Crowder and Painter, 1991).
Excessive numbers can be caused by high nutrient levels. They are good indicators since
they respond to light, turbidity, contaminants such as metals and herbicides and salt. No
laboratory analysis is required and sampling can be performed through aerial photography.
Biosurveys are useful in identifying if a problem exists. Chemical and toxicity tests would
then be required to determine the exact cause and source (USEPA, 1991). Routine biomoni-
toring can be less expensive than chemical tests over the short term but more expensive
over the long term. Field bioassessment experts are required to obtain and interpret data.
However, there are no established protocols. More knowledge is required to determine the
effects of contaminants on populations of organisms and better coordination of background
data before site contamination. Recently, data on toxicity and chemical have been combined
to evaluate the sustainability of reaction pathways by Zhang et al. (2000). Risk indices were
developed for aquatic life or human health as part of environmental index determination.
The USEPA (Barbour et al., 1999) has been developing a biological data management
system linked to STORET, which can store biological data and associated analytical tools
for data analysis. STORET enables storing, retrieving, and analyzing biosurvey data. The
data can then be processed to evaluate the distribution, abundance, and physical condition
of aquatic organisms, and their environment.
3.4 Sustainable Water Treatment and Management
To enable the adequacy of water resources for future generations, management practices
must control the sources of contamination and limit water use. This requires suficiency
in recharge of aquifers and prevention of contamination of surface water and groundwa-
ter. Remediation of contaminated water is required, but as is well known, effective and
complete remediation of aquifers is not easily accomplished. As discussed previously, the
quality of both surface water and groundwater need to be protected by mitigation and
management procedures. Reuse of treated waste streams, in particular, needs to be prac-
ticed in farming and agricultural activities by irrigation.
Real-time monitoring and remote sensing and graphical information systems (GIS) are
essential for water management. Calera Belmonte et al. (1999) examined the use for GIS
tools to manage water resources in an aquifer system using remote sensing from a satellite
to determine the spatial distribution of irrigated crops and water pumping estimates. The
information obtained enables the GIS to be used as a tool for monitoring and control of
water exploitation for agricultural uses.
Two EPA GIS tools (USEPA, 2013) useful for water quality study purposes are BASINS
and WATERS. BASINS, Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources
(BASINS), is a multipurpose environmental analysis system used by regional, state and
local agencies for watershed and water quality-based studies. Water quality can be
assessed at a selected stream or an entire watershed. Watershed Assessment, Tracking
& Environmental Results (WATERS) is an integrated information system connected to a