Water Conservation and Management

Drip irrigation is a form of irrigation that saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of many different plants, either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters. It is done through narrow tubes that deliver water directly to the base of the plant. It is chosen instead of surface irrigation for various reasons, often including concern about minimizing evaporation.

Drip irrigation is used in farms, commercial greenhouses, and residential gardeners. Drip irrigation is adopted extensively in areas of acute water scarcity and especially for crops and trees such as coconuts, containerized landscape trees, grapes, bananas, pandey, eggplant, citrus, strawberries, sugarcane, cotton, maize, and potatoes.

Harvesting rainwater at home and school generally help in using it up in times of scarcity.

Trees, especially drought-tolerant, native species, also provide critical services that directly attack some of the consequences of drought. Native trees send out deep, water-seeking roots into the soil to tap into local groundwater and draw it to the surface.

Conserving water makes us use the water the less so that water is not wasted and could put in use during droughts.

All listed actions are appropriate strategies for drought management: drip irrigation saves water, rationing ensures fair distribution, and stopping non-essential construction saves resources.

Over 68 percent of the fresh water on the Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers and swamps.

About 97.5% of the water available on earth is found in seas and oceans as saline water and is not available to us for use directly. Only 2.5% of the total water resources of the world consist of fresh water. Majority of it is frozen in the ice caps at the two poles and on snow-covered mountains. Only limited amount of fresh water is available to us as a renewable resource through water cycle but its distribution is uneven. So, the correct answer is '2.5'.

Water is a renewable resource which can be replenished due to the activity of rainfall. The resource can be degraded due to the addition of the pollutants from the sources like industries, domestic, agricultural, etc. The wastes which are added to the water bodies can be cleaned using the help of microbes in the treatment plants. So, water resource is degradable but the purity of the water can be maintained. 

Groundwater is formed by rainwater that accumulates below the soil levels. This forms the water table below the soil. Around 76% of the freshwater source is groundwater. Apart from this, it is also present in ponds, lakes glaciers etc.

Percentage of fresh water in the hydrosphere is 2.5%. Out of this, about 68% of the fresh water is found in icecaps and glaciers and about 30% is found in ground water. About 98.5% of water in the hydrosphere is salt water.

Water treatment plants should be installed in all industrial areas. Laws for industrial units should be strictly implemented so that polluted water is not disposed off directly into rivers and lake.

Transpiration is a process by which the moisture is carried through plants from the roots to the stomata where it is converted into vapour and is released out to the atmosphere that is the evaporation of water from plant leaves. Transpiration along with evaporation of moisture from land produced two-third of atmospheric moisture.

Ground water is considered as the major source of fresh water.

The rainwater ,groundwater and surface runoff are the source of freshwater.

Lotic ecosystems refer to flowing water bodies such as rivers, streams, and springs, as opposed to lentic systems which are standing water bodies.

Lotic water refers to moving water. Streams, rivers, and springs are all examples of flowing water systems.