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Elizabeth Miller
Dr. Fred Cannon
C E 100S
3 December 2014
Improving Our Water Footprint
When I wake up in the morning, I grab my towel and go to the bathroom to take a hot,
fifteen to twenty minute shower. I flush the toilet and brush my teeth, occasionally forgetting to
turn off the faucet in the meantime. Then, later in the day, I wash my dishes in the sink, throw a
few loads of laundry into the washing machines, and fill my Brita bottle with water whenever I
feel a little parched. At the same time, halfway around the world, another nineteen year old girl is
scrounging for a just few drops to quench her thirst. She does not have clean running water
readily available, doomed to a life of dehydration and filth. This type of water inequality is
rampant in the world due to the fact that water is a scarce resource. Only three percent of Earths
water is fresh, and this small amount is not accessible to everyone. Although geography and
climate have always naturally played a part in this problem, humanity is also simply wasting its
water sources and destroying them with pollution. There need to be major changes made to the
consumption of water, and engineers are currently striving to research and develop methods of
remediation and purification in order to make our water drinkable and change our ways for the
better.
Considering the massive amount of saltwater that exists on Earth, it seems like a very
logical solution to find a way to convert it to fresh, drinkable water. Ever since sea voyages in
ancient times, humans have been using a process called desalination to accomplish this, but the
method has been evolving over the years. Older technology utilized thermal desalination, which

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consisted of boiling water and condensing it (Miller). This mimicked natures water cycle of
evaporating and condensing to form fresh rain water, but it used far too much energy to be
sustained (Saline Water). Today, reverse osmosis is used instead in desalination plants. In this
process, ocean water is brought in and treated with chemicals to eliminate suspended particles,
organic material, and algae. A very thin plastic membrane and extremely high pressure are used
to separate the water molecules and salt molecules so that approximately 99.5% of the salt is
removed. The process ends with a post-treatment that puts minerals back into the water that had
been removed. Although this method produces high quality water, it requires three to four
kilowatt-hours per cubic meter of fresh water, which is three times the amount that conventional
water treatments require. It also simultaneously produces very highly concentrated salt water that
gets dumped back into the ocean, throwing salt levels off balance (Miller). The Middle East and
North Africa are highly dependent upon desalination, and the United States uses it in California
and Florida (Saline Water). However, the process is still in dire need of refinement to be a
sustainable solution to the lack of water in the world.
In addition to salt water, the water that humanity has already polluted with waste is a
substantial source for engineers to tap into in order to provide more clean water to more people.
For years, purification systems have been in the works, but recent breakthroughs in
nanotechnology have sent the potential skyrocketing. Engineers are developing nanofiltration
membranes that can stop specific particles of pollution from passing through while allowing
necessary nutrients to remain in the water (Provide Access). Researchers and developers have
also observed the way a kidney works in the human body and imitated its filtration function to
create biomimetic membranes. These membranes utilize proteins called aquaporins, which are
responsible for channeling water in and out of cells, and they can withstand the pressure needed

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for water purification (OLeary). Additionally, engineers have created carbon nanotubes, which
have the ability to attract water molecules and reject salt or particles of pollution due to their
polarity (Das). All of these options are being considered as the development of small,
decentralized distillation units is becoming of higher priority. These units can be nearly as small
as a drinking straw for individual use, closer to the size of a dishwasher for residential use, or big
enough to support a community of thousands (OLeary). The overall intention is to provide
humans with a way to become self-sufficient with their water and reuse it rather than squander
additional freshwater from limited sources.
Although engineers are hard at work, some people believe that the changes that need to
occur to address this issue should instead be in the way humans use water and in regulations and
policies. Many people who have constant access to fresh, running water take it for granted, so
they treat it simply as a commodity, rather than a scarce resource (Experts Name). They need
to be educated in order to change their habits, and the same applies to industries that use
excessive water in production processes and dump industrial waste into bodies of water. It is
intended that, with education, both individual and corporate water footprints will decrease.
Agricultural practices have the largest water footprints of all, however, with irrigation methods
that waste a great deal of water. New options are being developed such as drip irrigation, which
carefully distributes the minimum allotted amounts of H2O that crops need to grow (Provide
Access). Governments and world leaders must put forth legislative effort to make a difference
in the treatment of the environment, though. Just a few years ago, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin decided to allow a pulp and paper mill to resume dumping waste into Lake
Baikal, the worlds largest freshwater source (Boudreaux). This is completely the opposite of
what should be happening, and decisions like this need to be reversed. The United States, on the

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other hand, has made considerably better attempts by passing the Clean Water Act and
continuing to modify it (Experts Name). It is indisputable that changes in habit and attitude
must be made in order to address the increasingly casual mistreatment of the resource humans
need most to survive.
Ultimately, all of these changes need to occur simultaneously with the development of
technology because a comprehensive solution would be the most effective. Ideally, governments
around the world would begin to encourage their constituents to start conserving more water and
be more cautious about what they are dumping into water sources. Industries would collaborate
with environmentalists in order to reduce their input of water and their output of waste. People
would be educated to waste less water in their daily routines, and perhaps even face the reality of
waters scarcity with an increase in the price of water. In addition to social changes, engineers
would implement a combination of the solutions discussed in order to tap into all available forms
of water, from salt water in the oceans to waste water from human use to rainwater to frozen ice
and snow at the poles. There would not be one way to solve this since every part of the world
faces its own unique challenges, such as limited access to ocean water, little to no rainfall, severe
pollution, etc. Not to mention, different countries have varying degrees of demand for water
depending on population size and amount of agriculture and farming. In a best case scenario,
clean water would be readily and conveniently available to all who need it at very little expense
to the environment and to humanity.
In order to address this issue, it would be very useful to take a variety of courses in Civil
and Environmental Engineering that pertain to characteristics of water and its sources, water
pollution, and options for the remediation of that pollution. A basic foundation with Introduction
to Environmental Engineering would be necessary to understand general issues in the

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environment, as well as how to control different types of pollution. From there, Water-Resource
Engineering would provide background knowledge about the hydrologic cycle and water
resource management. It would be useful to study water treatment and wastewater systems,
especially by taking courses specifically about the chemistry of water, hazardous wastes, and the
transport of chemicals in water. With consideration of the many aspects of the scarcity of water,
it is also logical to explore the areas that have the potential for change. One of these areas is the
use of water by industries, including the treatment and disposal of liquids, solids, and gases
utilized in industrial processes. Another area is groundwater, tracer and contaminant transport in
groundwater systems, and remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater. A third is ocean
water, such as coastal and near-shore processes (Courses). Having a diverse understanding of
the ways water works, the impact of chemicals and pollution upon water quality, and the possible
processes for cleaning it would give a Civil and Environmental Engineer the ability to develop
creative and sustainable solutions in order to provide the world with a greater amount of safe,
fresh water.
Further research and development on current processes of water remediation, as well as
alternatives for dumping waste, would be very useful to increasing the availability of clean water
throughout the world. As previously discussed, engineers are exploring methods of desalination
and wastewater purification in order to extract salt and contaminants to acquire freshwater.
However, those methods are still in very early stages and require too much energy to support.
Further development of prototypes that require less energy is certainly a possibility, but it would
also be useful to extend research to improving the acquirement of energy from sustainable
sources, such as the wind or the Sun. In addition to purifying water that is already contaminated,
it is necessary to prevent pollution of freshwater sources on the Earth in the future. This means

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that it would be useful to explore changes to implement in industrial processes to reduce waste
products. The development of the regenerative design process would help reduce waste from
consumers as well. Trash and waste cannot be fully eliminated, though, so further research on
ways and places to dispose of that trash would help solve the issue. It is important that research
is conducted at the same time about the repercussions of any of these methods. Water is a
priority, yes, but not necessarily at the expense of other resources on the planet.
If I were to do an Honors, Masters, or Ph.D thesis to address this topic, I would direct my
efforts toward improving the method of desalination. I personally believe that desalination is one
of our best options since there is so much ocean water on this Earth. It is by far the most
accessible source just by nature of geography, and it would be highly beneficial for countries
entirely lacking fresh water. There are large obstacles that must be overcome with the current
processes, however, such as the issue of how much power and effort desalination requires. With
my thesis, I would want to determine which method developed thus far would be the most
effective and practical while being the least detrimental to other aspects of the environment. The
hypothesis that I would use to direct this thesis is that nanotechnology will provide the most
sustainable means for desalination, producing water of highest quality for human consumption
while having the least impact on the environment. In my experiment, I would examine the
various membranes and filtration systems that are being developed, including carbon nanotubes,
aquaporins, reverse osmosis, and nanofiltration membranes. I would use these tools in numerous
trials to treat water with a salt concentration of 35,000 ppm, which is the concentration of the
ocean. I would control all other variables, such as quantity of water and temperature, and I would
define the effectiveness of a method by determining the amount of energy it required,
environmental sacrifices associated with it, the residual concentration of salt, and the quality of

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water in terms of minerals. My ultimate purpose would be to identify the best technology for
implementation in everyday life in order to save future generations from running out of the most
critical necessity for life.

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Works Cited
Boudreaux, Richard. "Putin Move Stirs Russian Environmental Row." The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
"Courses Offered in Civil and Environmental Engineering." Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering. Penn State University, 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
"Experts Name the Top 19 Solutions to the Global Freshwater Crisis." Circle of Blue WaterNews.
Circle of Blue, 24 May 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
Miller, Talea. "Can Seawater Solve Our Water Woes?" PBS NewsHour. PBS NewsHour
Productions LLC, 2014. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
O'Leary, Madelynn. "Finding Water Fit to Drink: Technology Delivers the Best Solution."
Michigan Engineering. University of Michigan, 12 May 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
"Provide Access to Clean Water." National Academy of Engineering. The National Academies,
2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.
"Saline Water: Desalination." Desalination: Drink a Cup of Seawater? U.S. Department of the
Interior, 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.