Soil and Water Facts Free Essay Example

Conservation Tillage – the practice of leaving harvested plant materials on the soil surface to reduce runoff and soil erosion;

Crop Nutrient Management – managing all nutrient inputs helps ensure that nutrients are available to meet crop needs while reducing nutrient runoff;

Pest Management – using various methods for managing pests while protecting soil, water, and air quality;

Conservation Buffers – using vegetation strips to provide additional barriers of protection which prevent potential pollutants from running off into surface waters;

Irrigation Management – increasing irrigation efficiency can reduce non-point source pollution of ground and surface waters;

Grazing Management – managing livestock grazing to lessen the water quality impacts (e.

g. reduce erosion potential);

Animal Feeding Operations Management – using runoff control, proper waste storage, and nutrient management to minimize the impacts of animal feeding operations;

Erosion and Sediment Control – using practices to conserve and reduce the amount of sediment reaching water bodies, overall protecting agricultural land and water quality.

Water Facts

Less than 2% of the Earth’s water is fresh water.

97% of Earth’s water is salt water found in oceans and seas. Only 1% of the earth’s water is drinkable. 2% is frozenThe human body is about 75% water. A person can survive about a month without food, but only 5 to 7 day without water. Every day in the United States, we drink about 110 million gallons of water. Landscaping accounts for about half the water Californians use at home. Showers account for another 18 percent, while toilets use about 20 percent.

Showering and bathing are the largest indoor uses (27%) of water domestically.

The average American uses 140-170 gallons of water per day.If every household in America had a faucet that dripped once eachsecond, 928 million gallons of water a day would leak away. There are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water. Therefore, 2000 cubic feet of water is 14,960 gallons.

An acre foot of water is about 326,000 gallons. One-half acre foot is enough to meet the needs of a typical family for a year. There are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water. It takes 3.3 acre feet of water to grow enough food for an average family for a year.A leaky faucet can waste 100 gallons a day. One flush of the toilet uses 6 ½ gallons of water. An average bath requires 37 gallons of water.

An average family of four uses 881 gallons of water per week just by flushing the toilet. The average 5-minute shower takes 15-25 gallons of water–around 40 gallons are used in 10 minutes. Take short showers instead of baths. A full bathtub requires about 36 gallons of water. You use about 5 gallons of water if you leave the water running while brushing your teeth. If you water your grass and trees more heavily, but less often, this saves water and builds stronger roots.

Each person needs to drink about 2 ½quarts (80 ounces) of water every day. Water your lawn only when it needs it. If you step on the grass and it springs back up when you move, it doesn’t need water. If it stays flat, it does need water.Run your dishwasher and washing machine only when they are full.

When washing a car, use soap and water from a bucket. Use a hose with a shut-off nozzle for rinsing. Never put water down the drain when there may be another use for it such as watering a plant or garden, or cleaning.

Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other such waste in the trash rather than the toilet. When washing dishes by hand, fill one sink or basin with soapy water. Quickly rinse under a slow-moving stream from the faucet. An automatic dishwasher uses 9 to 12 gallons of waterwhile hand washing dishes can use up to 20 gallons.Store drinking water in the refrigerator rather than letting the tap run every time you want a cool glass of water. Water lawns during the early morning hours, or evening when temperatures and wind speed are the lowest. This reduces losses from evaporation. Do not hose down your driveway or sidewalk.

Use a broom to clean leaves and other debris from these areas. Using a hose to clean a driveway wastes hundreds of gallons of water. Don’t leave the water running when brushing your teeth or shaving. Get in the habit of turning off the water when it’s not being used. Use of bowl of water to clean fruits & vegetables rather than running water over them. You can reuse this for your house plants.

Public water suppliers process 38 billion gallons of water per day for domestic and public use. Approximately 1 million miles of pipelines and aqueducts carry water in the U.S. & Canada. That’s enough pipe to circle the earth 40 times. About 800,000 water wells are drilled each yearin the United States for domestic, farming, commercial, and water testing purposes. More than 13 million households get their waterfrom their own private wells and are responsible for treating and pumping the water themselves. Industries released 197 million pounds of toxic chemicalsinto waterways in 1990. You can refill an 8-oz glass of water approximately15,000 times for the same cost as a six-pack of soda pop. A dairy cow must drink four gallons of water to produceone gallon of milk. 300 million gallons of water are needed to produce a single day’ssupply of U.S. newsprint.

One inch of rainfall drops 7,000 gallons or nearly 30 tonsof water on a 60′ by 180′ piece of land. It supports the forests, wetlands, jungles, prairies and grasslands that spawn the planet’s amazing vegetative biodiversity.

Soil: 3 Main types of soil, clay, sandy and loamy in one square yd. There are billions of living organsm Provide food Formed when rocks are broken up by frost, wind, ice, and water.

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers.

Get your custom essay

Helping students since 2015