This is in regarding additional problems with water use including groundwater de

Question

This is in regarding additional problems with water use including groundwater depletion where water is withdrawn from the ground at a faster rate that it can be replenished. Many areas of the Mid-West are experiencing this. In many locations, dams are used to divert water to areas that need it. For example, Hoover Dam provides electricity for Las Vegas and also water to cities in the southwest as well. But, dams also have very significant environmental impacts. Four dams along the Snake River in Washington State were built to generate electrical power and provide irrigation water to farmers. The Snake River produced half of the chinook salmon in the Columbia watershed before these dams were built. By blocking migration routes, the dams threatened this species. The Snake River sockeye was the first of 13 salmon and steelhead stocks in this watershed to be declared endangered. The federal government was forced to prepare recovery plans, but over the past 15 years, the courts have repeatedly rejected proposed plans that tried to protect the salmon while still maintaining the dams. Should we maintain the dams, or should they be eliminated to protect the salmon? What do you think? How should we weigh the economic, ecological, cultural, and health effects of projects such as this? This is regarding Freshwater Shortages. Open Google Earth and in the search box enter: Ice Harbor Dam. Click Search. Zoom out to see the darker (previous size of the lake) and lighter green areas (present size). Zoom out a little to see Goose Island itself just to the west (left). Zoom in on the Snake River and travel east until you reach another dam. Be sure that “Roads” is checked in the left column. When you find a dam zoom WAY in to see the name of the road either over or leading to the dam. This tells you the dam's name. Continue upstream, toward the east to locate the other two dams. Don't get tricked by railroad and bridge crossings.) What are some of the environmental issues that hydroelectric dams can cause?

Explanation / Answer

I personally believe that should not be constructed any more although it has some advantages but it has a long list of down side too it’s not only impact locally rather than on an global scale. Following are the effect of constructing dam’s

1. It’s creates a cake in the natural flow of the river

2 It can store water that can be used for generating electricity and water can be used for irrigations.

3 Dams kills fishes by depleting the oxygen content in the dam water along with the it kills the ability of the river to clean itself.

4.It act an very good contributer in the climate change by emitting green house gases which are being produced by the rotting of the organic matter in their reservoirs.

5. Dams help in relocating peoples to new location, this is due to the fact as the dams are being construction it lead to the increase in the water level which force people to relocate to the new location this not only disturb their life along with this this kills their cultural background too.

Now let us see how this large dams impact our environment:

1. By disturbing natural cycle: We all are aware of the fact that the river’s not only contain water in it it support other organism too along within it self it also caries fine sediment which get deposited by the obstacle of the dam this places becomes an best locations for the sediments to settle down and reduces the capacity of the dam to store the water in it.

Well till now we don’t have any technology to remove this sediments from the dam, with the continuous deposition of sediment this can lead to the development of high pressure which can cause an natural disaster by dam failure.

2. It can cause in the higher level of the erosion on the down stream, this is mainly caused in the hydroelectric dam in which the water is being drained out during the day time and during the night there is no flow of water this is done in order to store the water and to built up the pressure to rotate the turbine for generating electricity, but the water which get stored during the night comes out with greater force which causes an increase in the rate of corrosion on the down stream and removing the sediments from the down stream.

3.Changing temperature within the water in the dam, in this the water on the top side get warmer where as the bottom side is cooler this difference in the temperature impact the micro organism on an large scale along with the free movement of the fishes.

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