Deforestation and its Effects on Water Supplies
This topic submitted by Alanna Fishman, Karen Gotter, Nat Ratcliff, Sara Wenger (
wengerse@muohio.edu fishmaam@muohio.edu gotterkv@muohio.edu ratclinj@muohio.edu ) on 10/30/05. [Section: Cummins]
Abstract:
When considering endangered species and resources, the first things to come to mind are animals, tropical rain forests, or crude oil. But very rarely does anyone consider the most endangered resource on our planet, fresh drinking water. Potable water is an absolute necessity for every organism on this planet, and as populations increase, and manŐs influence on the natural world becomes more widespread, the availability of water is becoming more and more strained. Because our water supply spends a good deal of time suspended as evaporated moisture in our atmosphere, the rate of evaporation is important in considering how much water will be accessible in certain areas. Our Natural Systems group discovery project was to study the effect of deforestation and development on the rate of evaporation. Our hypothesis is that there will be a difference in the amount of evaporation between the forested, semi developed, and developed areas. Our prediction is that there will be the most amount of evaporation in the developed areas. To begin our experiment, we designed a project using nine different testing sites throughout Western campus. There are three forested, three semi developed, and three developed areas, with five sampling containers at each site. Throughout out the week, we measured the amount of water that remains in each container and then calculated the difference. For our complete lab, click HERE